Such was the system which, based to a great extent upon the preferences of the French people, fixed even more deeply in the national character the willingness to depend upon an omnipresent, all-directing power. Through its rational order, its regularity, its command of the highest science and experience, this system of government could not fail to confer great and rapid benefits upon the country. It has usually been viewed by the French themselves as one of the finest creations of political wisdom. In comparison with the self-government which then and long afterwards existed in England, the centralisation of France had all the superiority of progress and intelligence over torpor and self-contradiction. Yet a heavy, an incalculable price is paid by every nation which for the sake of administrative efficiency abandons its local liberties, and all that is bound up with their enjoyment. No practice in the exercise of public right armed a later generation of Frenchmen against the audacity of a common usurper: no immortality of youth secured the institutions framed by Napoleon against the weakness and corruption which at some period undermine all despotisms. The historian who has exhausted every term of praise upon the political system of the Consulate lived to declare, as Chief of the State himself, that the first need of France was the decentralisation of power. [84] [State policy of Bonaparte.] After ten years of disquiet, it was impossible that any Government could be more welcome to the French nation than one which proclaimed itself the representative, not of party or of opinion, but of France itself. No section of the nation had won a triumph in the establishment of the Consulate; no section had suffered a defeat. In his own elevation Bonaparte announced the close of civil conflict. A Government had arisen which summoned all to its service which would employ all, reward all, reconcile all. The earliest measures of the First Consul exhibited the policy of reconciliation by which he hoped to rally the whole of France to his side. The law of hostages, under which hundreds of families were confined in retaliation for local Royalist disturbances, was repealed, and Bonaparte himself went to announce their liberty to the prisoners in the Temple. Great numbers of names were struck off the list of the emigrants, and the road to pardon was subsequently opened to all who had not actually served against their country. In the selection of his officers of State, Bonaparte showed the same desire to win men of all parties. Cambacérès, a regicide, was made Second Consul; Lebrun, an old official of Louis XVI., became his colleague. In the Ministries, in the Senate, and in the Council of State the nation saw men of proved ability chosen from all callings in life and from all political ranks. No Government of France had counted among its members so many names eminent for capacity and experience. One quality