Soon after the 18th Brumaire, Sieyès presented his constitution. No more bungling and bizarre instrument for conducting the affairs of a nation was ever devised. Warned by the experience of the past ten years, he abandoned the ideas of 1789, and declared that the power must come from above, the confidence from below. His system of voting took the suffrage from the people; his legislative body was composed of three sections, each of which was practically powerless. All the force of the government was centered in a senate of aged men. The Grand Elector, as the figurehead which crowned the edifice was called, did nothing but live at Versailles and draw a princely salary. Napoleon saw at once the weak points of the structure, but he saw how it could be re-arranged to serve a dictator. He demanded that the Senate be stripped of its power, and that the Grand Elector be replaced by a First Consul, to whom the executive force should be confided. Sieyès consented, and Napoleon was named First Consul. The whole machinery of the government was now centered in one man. “The state, it was I,” said Napoleon at St. Helena. The new constitution was founded on principles the very opposite of those for which the Revolution had been made, but it was the only hope there was of dragging France from the slough of anarchy and despair into which she had fallen. Napoleon undertook the work of reconstruction which awaited him, with courage, energy, and amazing audacity. He was forced to deal at once with all departments of the nation’s life—with the finances, the industries, the _émigrés_, the Church, public education, the codification of the laws. The first question was one of money. The country was literally bankrupt in 1799. The treasury was empty, and the government practised all sorts of makeshifts to get money to pay those bills which could not be put off. One day, having to send out a special courier, it was obliged to give him the receipts of the opera to pay his expenses. And, again, it was in such a tight pinch that it was on the point of sending the gold coin in the Cabinet of Medals to the mint to be melted. Loans could not be negotiated; government paper was worthless; stocks were down to the lowest. One of the worst features of the situation was the condition of the taxes. The assessments were as arbitrary as before the Revolution, and they were collected with greater difficulty. To select an honest, capable, and well known financier was Napoleon’s first act. The choice he made was wise—a Monsieur Gaudin, afterward the Duke de Gaëte, a quiet man, who had the confidence of the people. Under his management credit was restored, the government was able to make the loans necessary, and the department of finance was reorganized in a thorough fashion. Napoleon’s gratitude to Monsieur Gaudin was lasting. Once when asked to change him for a more brilliant man, he said: