erted the
foreign powers, augmented his popularity, centuplicated his forces:
but on the first of June it was too late: the additional act had
appeared.

[Footnote 23: The day on which the Act of Congress
appeared.]

Unhappily for himself, therefore, Napoleon could do nothing better at
the _Champ de Mai_, than what he did: namely, to endeavour to conceal
the emptiness of the day under the pomp of a religious and military
solemnity, calculated to move the heart, and strengthen by fresh bands
the union, already subsisting between him, the people, and the army.

The Emperor had not been able to deliver with his own hands to the
electors the eagles of their departments. It had not been concealed
from him, that some among them appeared dissatisfied; and he wished to
attempt to dissipate their ill-humour, and revive their zeal. Ten
thousand persons were assembled in the vast galleries of the Louvre;
on one side were seen the deputies and electors of the nation; on the
other, its glorious defenders. The eagle of each department, and that
of each deputation from the armies, were placed at the head of groups
of citizens or warriors; and nothing could exhibit a more animated,
and more impressive picture, than this confused assembly of Frenchmen,
of all the orders of the state, crowding mutually around the standards
and the hero, that were to conduct them to victory and to peace.

The Emperor was polite, affectionate, amiable: with infinite art he
accommodated his manners to every body, and almost every body was
enchanted with him. He was convinced of the mischief he had done
himself by the additional act: and, in order to regain the good
opinion of the public, he repeated to satiety, to the representatives
and electors, that he would employ himself in concurrence with the two
chambers, to collect together those provisions of the constitutional
laws, that were not abrogated, and form the whole into one sole
constitution, that should become the fundamental law of the nation.

This retraction was the consequence of the remonstrances of his
ministers, and particularly of M. Carnot. "Sire," he was incessantly
repeating to him, "do not strive, I conjure you, against public
opinion. Your additional act has displeased the nation. Promise it,
that you will modify it, and render it conformable to its wishes. I
repeat to you, Sire, I have never deceived you; your safety and ours
depend on your deference to