ocion said to Antipater, "I cannot be at
once thy flatterer, and thy friend:" and M. Delavalette, thinking like
Phocion, had abjured every kind of flattery, to adhere to the rigid
language of friendship. Endowed with a cool head, and sound judgment,
he appreciated events with skill and sagacity. Reserved in the world,
frank and open with Napoleon, he avowed his opinions to him with the
freedom of an affectionate, pure, and upright heart. Accordingly
Napoleon set much value on his advice; and confessed with noble
candour, that he had frequently had to congratulate himself for
having followed it.

[Footnote 25: He had married a Miss Beauharnais, since
so celebrated for her generously risking her own life to
save his.]

The lists presented to the Emperor exhibited a complete assortment of
ancient nobles, senators, generals, land-holders, and merchants[26].
The Emperor, it is right to say, had only the trouble of choosing, but
this was great.

[Footnote 26: It was the Duke of Vicenza, who first
conceived the idea of conferring the peerage on great
land-holders, and distinguished merchants. He was not of
opinion, that the peerage should be hereditary, and that
the choice of peers should be left exclusively to the
crown. He would have wished, that men of great landed
property, manufacturers, merchants of the first rank,
the men of letters, civilians, and lawyers, who had
acquired a great name, should be allowed to propose a
list of candidates, out of which the Emperor should be
at liberty to choose a certain number of peers.]

On the one hand he could have wished, both from self-love and a spirit
of conciliation, to have had in the chamber of peers some of those
great names, that sound so gratefully to the ear. On the other hand he
was desirous, as I have said above, that this chamber should hold the
deputies in check; and he could not conceal from himself, that, if he
introduced into it any of the ancient nobility, it would have no
influence over that of the representatives, and probably be on very
bad terms with it.

He decided, therefore, to sacrifice his inclinations to the good of
the cause; and, instead of granting the peerage to that crowd of
parchment nobles, who had humbly solicited it, he conferred it only on
a few o