al was unjust to the Emperor, when he placed the
imperial crown upon his head. A feeling of personal ambition was
supposed to be the main-spring of all his actions. This was, however, a
very mistaken impression. I have already mentioned with what reluctance
he had altered the form of government, and that if he had not been
apprehensive that the State would fall again a prey to those dissensions
which are inseparable from an elective form of government, he would not
have changed an order of things which appeared to have been the first
solid conquest achieved by the revolution. Ever since he had brought
back the nation to monarchical principles, he had neglected no means of
consolidating institutions which permanently secured those principles,
and yet firmly established the superiority of modern ideas over
antiquated customs. Differences of opinion could no longer create any
disturbance respecting the form of government, when his career should be
closed.

"But this was not enough. It was further requisite that the line of
inheritance should be defined in so clear a manner that, at his death,
no pretense might be made for the contention of any claimants to the
throne. For if such a misfortune were to take place, the least foreign
intervention would have sufficed to revive a spirit of discord among us.
This feeling of personal ambition consisted in this case, in a desire to
hand his work down to posterity, and to resign to his successor a state
resting upon his numerous trophies for its stability. He could not have
been blind to the fact, that the perpetual warfare into which a jealousy
of his strength had plunged him, had, in reality, no other object than
his own downfall, because with him must necessarily crumble that
gigantic power which was no longer upheld by the revolutionary energy
he himself had repressed.

"The Emperor had not any children. The Empress had two, but he never
could have entertained a thought of them without exposing himself to the
most serious inconveniences. I believe, however, that if the two
children of Josephine had been the only ones in his family, he would
have made some arrangement for securing the inheritance to Eugene. He
however dismissed the idea of appointing him his heir, because he had
nearer relations, and it would have given rise to dissensions which it
was his principal object to avoid. He also considered the necessity in
which he was placed of forming an alliance sufficiently power