Civil war was now at an end, and with most singular unanimity all France was rejoicing in the reign of the First Consul. Napoleon loved not war. He wished to build up, not to tear down. He desired the glory of being the benefactor and not the scourge of his fellow-men. Every conflict in which he had thus far been engaged was strictly a war of self-defense. The expedition to Egypt can not be considered an exception, for that enterprise was undertaken as the only means of repelling the assaults of the most determined and powerful enemy France has ever known. Napoleon was now strong. All France was united in him. With unobstructed power he could wield all her resources, and guide all her armies. Under these circumstances most signally did he show his love of peace, by adopting the very characteristic measure of writing directly to the King of England and to the Emperor of Austria, proposing reconciliation. It was noble in the highest degree for him to do so. Pride would have said, "They commenced the conflict; they shall be the first to ask for peace." To the King of England he wrote, "Called, Sire, by the wishes of the French nation, to occupy the first magistracy of the Republic, I judge it well, on entering my office, to address myself directly to your Majesty. Must the war, which for the four last years has devastated the world, be eternal? Are there no means of coming to an understanding? How can the two most enlightened nations of Europe, stronger already and more powerful than their safety or their independence requires, sacrifice to ideas of vain-glory the well-being of commerce, internal prosperity, and the repose of families! How is it that they do not feel peace to be the first of necessities as the first of glories? These sentiments can not be strangers to the heart of your Majesty, who governs a free people with the sole aim of rendering it happy. "Your Majesty will perceive only, in this overture, the sincerity of my desire to contribute efficaciously, for a second time, to the general pacification, by this prompt advance, perfectly confidential and disembarrassed of those forms, which, perhaps necessary to disguise the dependence of weak states, reveal, when adopted by strong states, only the wish of mutual deception. France and England by the misuse of their powers, may yet, for a long period, retard, to the misery of all nations, their exhaustion. But I venture to say that the fate of the civilized world is connected with the termination of a war, which has set the whole world in flames."