The preliminaries of this important treaty were signed on the night of the 1st of October, and a courier was despatched to Paris, with a view to make the public announcement simultaneously to the people on both sides of the Channel. The public joy both in France and England was of the most exciting character, as the negotiations, which had been carried on during nine months, had been kept profoundly secret up to the last moment. Napoleon and his colleagues, the other two consuls, Cambacérès and Lebrun, received the news at a cabinet council, and they embraced each other with undisguised delight. In this moment of satisfaction Cambacérès remarked, “Now that we have made peace with England, we have only to conclude a treaty of commerce, and all cause for future dissension between the two countries will be removed.” [Sidenote: Bonaparte’s opinion of free-trade.] “Not quite so fast,” rejoined the First Consul, with some energy. “A political peace is concluded; so much the better, let us enjoy it. As regards a commercial peace, we will make one if we can. But I will not on any consideration whatever sacrifice French industry. I remember the distress of 1786.”[250] Treaties of peace were now formed between all the nations of the continent, and peace caused deeper public emotion in all ranks of people throughout Europe than perhaps any event which had happened for many centuries. But this peace, in which so many millions of people rejoiced, was of short duration. Having by the treaties of Luneville and Amiens[251] raised himself and France to the highest power and influence in Europe, Napoleon had now constituted himself consul for life; had restored the national religion to France, established tranquillity and good government in all the departments of the state, reorganised the finances, previously in a deplorable confusion; and had finally, with Prussia, secularised the ecclesiastical states of Germany, mediatised a number of smaller German princes, and parcelled out a large portion of Europe in the most arbitrary, though in some respects judicious manner. In a word, he had raised himself and France to the highest pitch of political influence, and only wanted the name of emperor, which in a year or two afterwards he assumed to be, in every sense the most powerful potentate in Europe. The world was dazzled with a success which, until that period, had been combined with many acts of profound wisdom. But this remarkable man, who could so well govern the unquiet spirit of France, could not govern himself— “Oh! happy he who wisely can Govern that little empire, man.” Ere long his rage for power and distinction again involved all Europe in one of the most sanguinary wars recorded in the history of the world, a war which only terminated after the final struggle at Waterloo, and in the exile for ever of the Emperor from the scene of his glory. [Sidenote: Sequestrations of English property in France not raised.]