I have received your letter, my brave comrade.  You needed not to have told me of your exploits, for you are the bravest grenadier in the whole army since the death of Benezete.  You received one of the hundred sabres I distributed to the army, and all agreed you most deserved it.

   I wish very much again to see you.  The War Minister sends you an
   order to come to Paris.

This wheedling wonderfully favoured Bonaparte’s designs.  His letter to Aune could not fail to be circulated through the army.  A sergeant called my brave comrade by the First Consul—­the First General of France!  Who but a thorough Republican, the stanch friend of equality, would have done this?  This was enough to wind up the enthusiasm of the army.  At the same time it must be confessed that Bonaparte began to find the Luxembourg too little for him, and preparations were set on foot at the Tuileries.

Still this great step towards the re-establishment of the monarchy was to be cautiously prepared.  It was important to do away with the idea that none but a king could occupy the palace of our ancient kings.  What was to be done?  A very fine bust of Brutus had been brought from Italy.  Brutus was the destroyer of tyrants!  This was the very thing; and David was commissioned to place it in a gallery of the Tuileries.  Could there be a greater proof of the Consul’s horror of tyranny?

To sleep at the Tuileries, in the bedchamber of the kings of France, was all that Bonaparte wanted; the rest would follow in due course.  He was willing to be satisfied with establishing a principle the consequences of which were to be afterwards deduced.  Hence the affectation of never inserting in official acts the name of the Tuileries, but designating that place as the Palace of the Government.  The first preparations were modest, for it did not become a good Republican to be fond of pomp.  Accordingly Lecomte, who was at that time architect of the Tuileries, merely received orders to clean the Palace, an expression which might bear more than one meaning, after the meetings which had been there.  For this purpose the sum of 500,000 francs was sufficient.  Bonaparte’s drift was to conceal, as far as possible, the importance he attached to the change of his Consular domicile.  But little expense was requisite for fitting up apartments for the First Consul.  Simple ornaments, such as marbles and statues, were to decorate the Palace of the Government.

Nothing escaped Bonaparte’s consideration.  Thus it was not merely at hazard that he selected the statues of great men to adorn the gallery of the Tuileries.  Among the Greeks he made choice of Demosthenes and Alesander, thus rendering homage at once to the genius of eloquence and the genius of victory.  The statue of Hannibal was intended to recall the memory of Rome’s most formidable enemy; and Rome herself was represented in the Consular Palace by the statues of Scipio, Cicero, Cato, Brutus