This committee, of which Cambaceres was the president, was composed of MM. Portalis, Merlin de Douai, and Tronchet. During all the time the discussions were pending, instead of assembling as usual three times a week, the Council of State assembled every day, and the sittings, which on ordinary occasions only lasted two or three hours, were often prolonged to five or six. The First Consul took such interest in these discussions that, to have an opportunity of conversing upon them in the evening, he frequently invited several members of the Council to dine with him. It was during these conversations that I most admired the inconceivable versatility of Bonaparte's genius, or rather, that superior instinct which enabled him to comprehend at a glance, and in their proper point of view, legislative questions to which he might have been supposed a stranger. Possessing as he did, in a supreme degree, the knowledge of mankind, ideas important to the science of government flashed upon his mind like sudden inspirations.
Some time after his nomination to the Consulate for life, anxious to perform a sovereign act, he went for the first time to preside at the Senate. Availing myself that day of a few leisure moments I went out to see the Consular procession. It was truly royal. The First Consul had given orders that the military should-be ranged in the streets through which he had to pass. On his first arrival at the Tuileries, Napoleon had the soldiers of the Guard ranged in a single line in the interior of the court, but he now ordered that the line should be doubled, and should extend from the gate of the Tuileries to that of the Luxembourg.
Assuming a privilege which old etiquette had confined exclusively to the Kings of France, Bonaparte now for the first time rode in a carriage drawn by eight horses. A considerable number of carriages followed that of the First Consul, which was surrounded by generals and aides de camp on horseback. Louis XIV. going to hold a bed of justice at the Parliament of Paris never displayed greater pomp than did Bonaparte in this visit to the Senate. He appeared in all the parade of royalty; and ten Senators came to meet him at the foot of the staircase of the Luxembourg.
The object of the First Consul's visit to the Senate was the presentation of five plans of 'Senatus-consultes'. The other two Consuls were present at the ceremony, which took place about the middle of August.
Bonaparte returned in the same style in which he went, accompanied by M.
Lebrun, Cambaceres remaining at the Senate, of which he was President.
The five 'Senatus-consultes' were adopted, but a restriction was made in that which concerned the forms of the Senate. It was proposed that when the Consuls visited the Senate they should be received by a deputation of ten members at the foot of the staircase, as the First Consul had that day been received; but Bonaparte's brothers Joseph and Lucien opposed this, and prevented the proposition from being adopted, observing that the Second and Third Consuls being members of the Senate could not be received with such honours by their colleagues. This little scene of political courtesy, which was got up beforehand, was very well acted.
Bonaparte's visit to the Senate gave rise to a change of rank in the hierarchy of the different authorities composing the Government.
Hitherto the Council of State had ranked higher in public opinion; but the Senate, on the occasion of its late deputation to the Tuileries, had for the first time, received the honour of precedency. This had greatly displeased some of the Councillors of State, but Bonaparte did not care for that. He instinctively saw that the Senate would do what he wished more readily than the other constituted bodies, and he determined to augment its rights and prerogatives even at the expense of the rights of the Legislative Body. These encroachments of one power upon another, authorised by the First Consul, gave rise to reports of changes in ministerial arrangements. It was rumoured in Paris that the number of the ministers was to be reduced to three, and that Lucien, Joseph, and M. de Talleyrand were to divide among them the different portfolios. Lucien helped to circulate these reports, and this increased the First Consul's dissatisfaction at his conduct. The letters from Madrid, which were filled with complaints against him, together with some scandalous adventures, known in Paris, such as his running away with the wife of a 'limonadier', exceedingly annoyed Bonaparte, who found his own family more difficult to govern than France.
France, indeed, yielded with admirable facility to the yoke which, the First Consul wished to impose on her. How artfully did he undo all that the Revolution had done, never neglecting any means of attaining his object! He loved to compare the opinions of those whom he called the Jacobins with the opinions of the men of 1789; and even them he found too liberal. He felt the ridicule which was attached to the mute character of the Legislative Body, which he called his deaf and dumb assembly. But as that ridicule was favourable to him he took care to preserve the assembly as it was, and to turn it into ridicule whenever he spoke of it.
In general, Bonaparte's judgment must not be confounded with his actions.
His accurate mind enabled him to appreciate all that was good; but the necessity of his situation enabled him to judge with equal shrewdness what was useful to himself.
What I have just said of the Senate affords me an opportunity of correcting an error which has frequently been circulated in the chit-chat of Paris. It has erroneously been said of some persons that they refused to become members of the Senate, and among the number have been mentioned M. Ducis, M. de La Fayette, and the Marechal de Rochambeau. The truth is, that no such refusals were ever made. The following fact, however, may have contributed to raise these reports and give them credibility.
Bonaparte used frequently to say to persons in his salon and in his cabinet; "You should be a Senator--a man like you should be a Senator."
But these complimentary words did not amount to a nomination. To enter the Senate certain legal forms were to be observed. It was necessary to be presented by the Senate, and after that presentation no one ever refused to become a member of the body, to which Bonaparte gave additional importance by the creation of "Senatoreries."--[Districts presided over by a Senator.]-- This creation took place in the beginning of 1803.
