Fretted by external dangers, and internal disturbances, and by the degrading necessity of appearing every night before a mob, who familiarly hailed him as _Père le Violette_, and, above all, galled by the suggestions of his philosophical counsellors, who, among other innovations, wished him to lay aside the style of Emperor for that of President, or Grand General of the Republic, Napoleon, to rid himself at once of occupations offensive to his haughty disposition, withdrew from the Tuileries to the more retired palace of the Elysée Bourbon, and seemed on a sudden to become once more the Emperor he had been before his abdication. Here he took into his own hands, with the assistance of Benjamin Constant, and other statesmen, the construction of a new constitution. Their system included all those checks and regulations which are understood to form the essence of a free government, and greatly resembled that granted by the Royal Charter.[124] Nevertheless, it was extremely ill received by all parties, but especially by those who expected from Napoleon a constitution more free than that which they had dissolved by driving Louis XVIII. from the throne. There were other grave exceptions stated against the scheme of government. First, The same objection was stated against this Imperial grant which had been urged with so much vehemence against the royal charter, namely, that it was not a compact between the people and the sovereign, in which the former called the latter to the throne under certain conditions, but a recognition by the sovereign of the liberties of the people. The meeting of the Champ de Mai had indeed been summoned, (as intimated in the decrees from Lyons,) chiefly with the purpose of forming and adopting the new constitution; but, according to the present system, they were only to have the choice of adopting or rejecting that which Napoleon had prepared for them. The disappointment was great among those philosophers who desired "better bread than is made of wheat;" and could not enjoy liberty itself, unless it emanated directly from the will of the people, and was sanctioned by popular discussion. But Napoleon was determined that the convention of the 10th May should have no other concern in the constitution, save to accept it when offered. He would not intrust such an assembly with the revision of the laws by which he was to govern. [Sidenote: ADDITIONAL ACT.] Secondly, This new constitution, though presenting an entirely new basis of government, was published under the singular title of an "Additional[125] Act to the Constitutions of the Emperor," and thereby constituted a sort of appendix to a huge mass of unrepealed organic laws, many of them inconsistent with the Additional Act in tenor and in spirit.