et suffered themselves to
be subjected to the conscription, to the loss of their trade, to the
severest taxes, the greatest personal deprivations, and the most
complete restraint in the expression of their opinions--to the continued
extortions of a military chief, the most despotic who ever reigned in a
European country, and whose acts of oppression are truly Asiatic; and
who tamely bore all this oppression, supported by their national vanity,
because they wish to bear the name _of the great people_: Great, because
their ambition is unbounded; great as a nation of rapacious and
blood-thirsty soldiers; great in every species of immorality and vice!
Who, led away by this miserable vanity, have been false to their oaths,
so recently pledged to a mild and virtuous prince, very unfit to rule
such a race of villains, because he is mild and virtuous.

But it is not generally believed, that the majority in France favoured
Napoleon, though it is but a natural consequence of the state of the
country; I shall therefore enumerate the divisions of ranks, and the
sentiments of each.--All allow that the army were his friends; on that
subject, therefore, I shall say nothing.--Next to the army, let us look
to the civil authorities.--All these were in his favour--all that part
of the civil authorities at least, who have the immediate management of
the people.--It is in vain that the heads of office in Paris, the
miserable bodies styled the Chambers of Parliament and the Counsellors
of the realm, were favourably inclined towards the King.--Napoleon well
knew that these were not the men who rule France.--France, as an entire
kingdom, may be said to be governed by these men; but France,
subdivided, is governed by the prefects, and the gens-d'armes of
Napoleon.--Not a man of these was displaced by the King, and although
they were all furious in their proclamations against the usurper, they,
with few exceptions, joined him, and these few exceptions were removed
by him.--The most powerful men in France under Napoleon were these
prefects and gens-d'armes, and knowing their power, he was always
cautious in their selection; wherever he conceived that they really
favoured the Bourbon interest, he removed them.

Next, the whole class of Receveurs were his devoted friends.--These men
were all continued in place under the un-warlike reign of Louis, but
where no conscription and no droits reunis were to be enforced, they had
poverty staring them in t