dantries in favour of the practical statecraft which
attempted one task at a time and aimed at winning back in turn the
alienated classes. Then, and then alone, after civic peace had been
re-established, would he attempt the reconstruction of the civil order
in the same tentative manner, taking up only this or that frayed end
at once, trusting to time, skill, and patience to transform the tangle
into a symmetrical pattern. And thus, where Feuillants, Girondins, and
Jacobins had produced chaos, the practical man and his able helpers
succeeded in weaving ineffaceable outlines. As to the time when the
change took place in Bonaparte's brain from Jacobinism to aims and
methods that may be called conservative, we are strangely ignorant.
But the results of this mental change will stand forth clear and
solid for many a generation in the customs, laws, and institutions of
his adopted country. If the Revolution, intellectually considered,
began and ended with analysis, Napoleon's faculties supplied the
needed synthesis. Together they made modern France.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONSULATE FOR LIFE

With the view of presenting in clear outlines the chief institutions
of Napoleonic France, they have been described in the preceding
chapter, detached from their political setting. We now return to
consider the events which favoured the consolidation of Bonaparte's
power.

No politician inured to the tricks of statecraft could more firmly
have handled public affairs than the man who practically began his
political apprenticeship at Brumaire. Without apparent effort he rose
to the height whence the five Directors had so ignominiously fallen;
and instinctively he chose at once the policy which alone could have
insured rest for France, that of balancing interests and parties. His
own political views being as yet unknown, dark with the excessive
brightness of his encircling glory, he could pose as the conciliator
of contending factions. The Jacobins were content when they saw the
regicide Cambaceres become Second Consul; and friends of
constitutional monarchy remembered that the Third Consul, Lebrun, had
leanings towards the Feuillants of 1791. Fouche at the inquisitorial
Ministry of Police, and Merlin, Berlier, Real, and Boulay de la
Meurthe in the Council of State seemed a barrier to all monarchical
schemes; and the Jacobins therefore remained quiet, even while
Catholic worship was again