that he world have made the Ministers responsible to the country, whereas he took care that there should be no responsibility but to himself.  He viewed them, in fact, in the light of instruments which he might break as he pleased.  I found this single index sufficient to disclose all his future designs In order to make the irresponsibility of his Ministers to the public perfectly clear, he had all the acts of his Government signed merely by M. Maret, Secretary of State.  Thus the Consulship for life was nothing but an Empire in disguise, the usufruct of which could not long satisfy the First Consul’s ambition.  His brothers influenced him, and it was resolved to found a new dynasty.

It was not in the interior of France that difficulties were likely first to arise on Bonaparte’s carrying his designs into effect, but there was some reason to apprehend that foreign powers, after recognising and treating with the Consular Government, might display a different feeling, and entertain scruples with regard to a Government which had resumed its monarchical form.  The question regarding the Bourbons was in some measure kept in the background as long as France remained a Republic, but the re-establishment of the throne naturally called to recollection the family which had occupied it for so many ages.  Bonaparte fully felt the delicacy of his position, but he knew how to face obstacles, and had been accustomed to overcome them:  he, however, always proceeded cautiously, as when obstacles induced him to defer the period of the Consulship for life.

Bonaparte laboured to establish iii France not only an absolute government, but, what is still worse, a military one.  He considered a decree signed by his hand possessed of a magic virtue capable of transforming his generals into able diplomatists, and so he sent them on embassies, as if to show the Sovereigns to whom they were accredited that he soon meant to take their thrones by assault.  The appointment of Lannes to the Court of Lisbon originated from causes which probably will be read with some interest, since they serve to place Bonaparte’s character in, its true light, and to point out, at the same time, the means he disdained not to resort to, if he wished to banish his most faithful friends when their presence was no longer agreeable to him.

Bonaparte had ceased to address Lannes in the second person singular; but that general continued the familiarity of thee and thou in speaking to Napoleon.  It is hardly possible to conceive how much this annoyed the First Consul.  Aware of the unceremonious candour of his old comrade, whose daring spirit he knew would prompt him to go as great lengths in civil affairs as on the field of battle, Bonaparte, on the great occasion of the 18th Brumaire, fearing his reproaches, had given him the command of Paris in order to ensure his absence from St. Cloud.