by the imposing display of an immense armed force, devoted to victory or death, under the emperor's commands. For this latter purpose, the solemn delivery of the eagles to the various regiments, an augury of instant war, was substituted for the promised presence and inauguration of the empress, a pledge of twenty years'

peace.

The scene of this spectacle, for into such the Champ de Mai had degenerated, was a large amphitheatre in the exercising ground, in front of the Hotel des Invalids, erected of temporary materials. The electors, real or supposed, were distributed in benches set apart for each department of the kingdom. But into these seats, to make up the show, were introduced all spectators of decent appearance, and it was supposed that scarce one half of the persons occupying them were really deputies. This range of elevated benches surrounded a sort of stage, and a throne, where menials and courtiers, in antique Spanish dresses, with feathered bonnets and fantastic mantles, for a time occupied the eye, till the appearance of the grand actor and the members of his family. These august personages wore the Roman tunic, and were involved in the folds of long mantles, Napoleon's being purple, and those of his brothers' white. This absurd and theatrical costume could scarce be hung around more awkward and plebeian figures, than were exhibited by the members of the blood-royal of Ajaccio; and thus the parade lost even the momentary effect which might have been produced by the handsome person of Murat. It was not only ridiculous in itself, but became laughable by its contrast with the appearance of those whom this mummery disguised. These are trifles, but we are writing of Paris and of a public fete, and they gain some importance in such circumstances. The general feeling was, that

the show was ill imagined, long, unanimated, and wearisome; and in the Parisian phrase, une piece tombée.

The report of votes collected on this occasion announced that the constitution was accepted by a majority of 1,288,357 affirmative, to 4,207 negative. No one wondered at the number of the majority, but some surprise was excited that upwards of four thousand Frenchmen had ventured to give a negative voice. It was remarked, that the number of dissentients in Paris bore a smaller proportion than elsewhere to the affirmative votes. The royalists of the capital were numerous, but being more immediately under Buonaparte's power, they cared not to exercise the privilege of free-will, with which they were indulged. Several departments sent no representatives whatsoever. In others, the votes bore no proportion to the population. And as upon a grand average the number of the votes inscribed did not bear the proportion of one to ten, when compared with the number of Frenchmen of mature age, the whole was justly regarded as a solemn imposition on the public.

This report of the votes was followed by the usual display of empty ceremony. The drums rolled, the cannon thundered, while the emperor and his brothers, and his courtiers and his functionaries, and the mass of electors, real or pretended, swore oaths as unmeaning as the sounds of the drum, and as empty and delusive as the smoke of the artillery. In one part of the scene only, Buonaparte seemed to rush into his part with the eagerness of real feeling; it was when he distributed the eagles to the soldiers, in whom, and not in these pitiful ceremonies, lay his real heart and hope. He leaped from his throne, and hastily advanced to meet the standards,-emblems of past, and, as he might hope, auguries of future victories. He was lost in the blaze

It was soon shifted, and, except the magnificence of the coup d'oeuil, to describe which we have borrowed the language of an eye-witness, had nothing in it either to interest or to elevate. The acclamations, few and far from enthusiastic, shewed that the spectators, and even the actors, took little share in a scene which had been so often repeated under different auspices and on different principles, and was now only remarkable from being prolonged till it became tedious. In short, the Champ de Mai was a wearisome farce, which was soon succeeded by a bloody tragedy.

The constitution, however, was accepted, in semblance sufficient to prejudge that important question, and exclude, as Buonaparte hoped, any tam pering with it on the part of the jacobins. The next point was to assemble the chambers. No part of Buonaparte's conduct gave so much displeasure as the component materials of the House of Peers, whom he now put into nomination according to the power which he had taken care to reserve to himself by the Additional Act, or new form of constitution. These new dignitaries were considerably upwards of a hundred in number, of whom more than one half were military men; most of the

others were selected from the old creatures of Buonaparte's former reign, or from men of letters suppo sed to be devoted to his cause. The residuum consisted of some few repub licans (Count Carnot, and the good old Abbé Sieyes, at their head,) who had bartered for coronets and titles their red caps and the emphatic qualification of citizen; Lucien, late the republican, the insignificant Joseph, and the paltry Jerome Buonaparte, Cardinal Fesch, &c. took rank as princes of the blood-royal of the illustrious house of Ajaccio. The punsters of Paris selected Labedoyere, Drouot, Ney, and L'Allemand as the quatre pair fides (perfides), while Vandamme and others were termed the Pairs siflés.

In the Chamber of Representatives, all the exertion and art of Buonaparte's instruments had not prevented the jacobins from attaining a decided preponderance. They understood elections; and as most of the voters who acted, (for the royalists stood aloof,) were either constitutionalists or actual jacobins, their pretence of zeal for liberty, and the well-known turbulence of their tempers, gave to these self-entitled friends of freedom a decided superiority. Old La Fayette emerged as if from under ground. Barrere, Gallien, Merlin, Cambon, Drouet, Thibaudeau, with almost all the regicides who had survived the various hazards of the revolution, were to be found in this venerable assembly. Here also we read the names of those old idolizers of the revolution, La Rochefoucault-Liancour, and Latour-Maubourg, and others, who had waited upon all its phases with the same unwearied devotion, though

there never darted from any one of them a single ray auspicious to real liberty. This nest of old hornets, warmed into life by the new revolution from the torpidity to which they had long been condemned, speedily intimated that they had neither forgotten to buzz nor to sting. It was soon evident that they were suspicious of Buonaparte's authority, and dissatisfied with the Additional Act, or newmodelled constitution. Their brief intercourse with the emperor was marked by a scrupulous and captious jealousy on the part of the Chamber, and by sullen haughtiness on that of Napoleon.

year

On the first meeting of the June 4. Chamber, they chose for their president Lanjuinais, the same who had in the preceding drawn up the reasons which rendered Buonaparte unworthy to reign. The choice could not be agreeable to Napoleon. In a mis-timed fit of illhumour, he caused the temporary president who made the communication to be told, that he would learn the emperor's pleasure the next day, by applying to the chamberlain or page in waiting. The Chamber took fire at this reference, and the sitting was suspended until a categorical answer was obtained from the emperor. A sort of apology was given by the ministers, the obnoxious answer was explained into a mistake, and the imperial ratification of the appointment of the president, couched in the laconic phrase, "I approve," was presented in atonement. A representative, called Sibuet, indulged himself in a jacobinical boutade on the equality to be observed among the representatives of the people, and on the atrocity of recognizing in the Chamber the epithets of princes, dukes, barons, and so forth. He proceeded to invite these dignitaries to a surrender of their invidious titles, when,

fortunately, it was discovered that the orator was reading his extemporary burst of eloquence on the subject of liberty and equality, from a manuscript copy, upon which point of form the delicate discussion was quashed in its commencement. A bickering also took place between Carnot and the Chamber, upon their demanding from him a list of the persons nominated to the peerage, which he declined to communicate till the session had commenced. A great deal of clamour and violence ensued, in the course of which the newly elected president in vain rung his tocsin, in order to procure order. The next meeting of the assembly was nearly as stormy as the first; the terms of the oath to be taken by the deputies was scrutinized as accurately as if it had stood any chance of being long binding. It was carried by the imperialists that fidelity should be sworn to the constitution, and to the emperor, without mention of the nation, as contended by the jacobins.

June 8.

But the most blunt expression of their mistrust of the emperor, was given upon the proposal of the parasitical Felix-Lepelletier, that they should decree to Buonaparte the title of Saviour of the Country. One member exclaimed, that the title was not yet merited, since the country was not saved; and, in consequence of a general clamour, the Chamber passed by acclamation to the order of the day. These disputes occurring so immediately on convening the Chambers, and at such an important national crisis, made it plain that there remained much to be disputed between Buonaparte and his representative government.

The imperialists, in case of a collision among the bodies composing the legislature, which these proceedings gave much reason to apprehend,

placed little confidence in the House of Peers, although they were considered as effectually the partisans of Buonaparte, because their greatness was so immediately the work of his own creation, that it could have little influence with the nation. Instead of a body of hereditary legislators, distinguished by high birth, long descent, ample fortunes, and an education corresponding to their rank and expectations, in which particulars the British House of Peers may be compared to a grove of oaks, the growth of ages, and superior to the force of tempests, this upper chamber of Buonaparte was a crop of mushrooms, whom the rain of one night had brought up, and whom the frost of the next might reduce to their primitive nothingness. But the partisans of Buonaparte knew that his "voice was in his sword," and that, should he return from the contest with the allies victorious, former experience had taught him, how speedily the clamours of five hundred bold talkers is silenced by half the number of bayonets.

June 7.

It was, however, necessary that Buonaparte should for the present address the spirits which he had call ed together, with the confidence which old legends say that wizards must use to the fiends they have evoked, and whom they dread even while they command them. He surrendered, in the pre. sence of both Chambers, the absolute power, with which circumstances had invested him since his return. He professed himself a friend to liberty. He mentioned the coalition of monarchs against France, the commencement of the war by the capture of the Melpomene by an English ship of war, and the internal divisions of the country. He stated the strong necessity there was for regulating the freedom of the press, re

quested their assistance in finance, and demanded from them a general exam ple of confidence, energy, and patriotism.

The address, which replied to this speech, was carried with great ease in the Chamber of Peers; for that respectable assembly had fallen at once into the quiet, regular habits of dispatching public business, which so long characterized the senate of the former empire. But the Chamber of Representatives was composed of less tractable materials. The very mention of the address called up once more Monsieur Sibuet, with his speech against titles, June 10. which he had now got by heart, and to which the Chamber, therefore, was under the necessity of listening. The motion was got rid of with difficulty, and an address, in reply to the speech of Napoleon, was carried through, after many fierce debates; but which, whatever the friends of Buonaparte could do, retained a strong tincture of the sentiments of the opposite party. The Chamber promised unanimous support in repelling the foreign enemy. But in allusion to the constitutions of the empire, which were recognized by the Additional Act, they announced, that national deliberation would, as speedily as possible, point out the defects and imperfections which the urgency of the national situation had either produced, or suffered to subsist without correction. Having thus intimated their dissatisfaction with the constitution, as modelled for them by Buonaparte, and their intention of reconsidering it, they added a moderating hint against the fervour of his ambition, in case the war should prove successful. "The nation," they said, "nourishes no scheme of ambition. Not even the will of a victorious prince will be sufficient to draw it on beyond the limits of just defence."

Buonaparte, in his reply, suffered

neither of these galling topics to pass unnoticed. He proceeded to school this unmanageable assembly into a respect for the constitution with which they proposed to tamper. "The constitution," he said, "was the pole-star in the tempest." All public discussion tended to diminish the necessary confidence which ought to be reposed in it. Respecting the hint given to him to resist all inducements to foreign conquest, he observed, that the nation had not at present to dread the seductions of victory-they were to struggle for existence. "The crisis in which we are placed is imminent. Let us not imitate the conduct of the Roman empire, which, pressed on all hands by barbarians, made itself the laughing stock of posterity, by occupying itself with the discussion of abstract discussions, while the battering

ram shook the gates of the metropolis." Thus parted Buonaparte and his Chambers of Legislature, he to try his fortune in the field of battle, they to their task of altering and modifying the laws, and inspiring a more popular spirit and air into the enactments he had made, in hopes that the dictatorship of the jacobins might be once again substituted for the dictatorship of the emperor. All men saw that the imperialists and republicans only waited till the field was won that they might contend for the booty; and so little was the nation disposed to sympathize with the active, turbulent, and bustling demagogues by whom the contest was to be maintained against the emperor, that almost all predicted with great unconcern their probable expulsion, either by the sword of Buonaparte or of the Bourbons.