to secure, had anything of reality in
them, and the pretended division of the bodies of the state were
anything more than a mere affair of etiquette, a distinction between
the different anti-chambers of the first consul, in which
magistrates under different names could hold together, I confess
that I saw with pleasure the aversion entertained by a small number
of the tribunes, to rival the counsellors of state in servility. I
had especially a strong belief that those who had previously allowed
themselves to be carried too far in their love for the republic
would continue faithful to their opinions, when they became the
weakest, and the most threatened.

One of these tribunes, a friend of liberty, and endowed with one of
the most remarkable understandings ever bestowed upon man, M.
Benjamin Constant, consulted me upon a speech which he purposed to
deliver, for the purpose of signalizing the dawn of tyranny: I
encouraged him in it with all the strength of my conviction.
However, as it was well known that he was one of my intimate
friends, I could not help dreading what might happen to me in
consequence. I was vulnerable in my taste for society. Montaigne
said formerly, I am a Frenchman through Paris: and if he thought so
three centuries ago, what must it be now, when we see so many
persons of extraordinary intellect collected in one city, and so
many accustomed to employ that intellect in adding to the pleasures
of conversation. The demon of ennui has always pursued me; by the
terror with which he inspires me, I could alone have been capable of
bending the knee to tyranny, if the example of my father, and his
blood which flows in my veins, had not enabled me to triumph over
this weakness. Be that as it may, Bonaparte knew this foible of mine
perfectly: he discerns quickly the weak side of any one; for it is
by their weaknesses that he subjugates people to his sway. To the
power with which he threatens, to the treasures with which he
dazzles, he joins the dispensation of ennui, and that is a source
of real terror to the French. A residence at forty leagues from the
capital, contrasted with the advantages collected in the most
agreeable city in the world, fails not in the long run to shake the
greater part of exiles, habituated from their infancy to the charms
of a Parisian life.

On the eve of the day when Benjamin Constant was to deliver his
speech, I had a party, among whom were Lucien Bonaparte, MM. ----
and general