On the 2d and 3d of April the axe was laid to the roots. A decree of the Senate sent forth the following statement:--1st, That Napoleon, after governing for some time with prudence and wisdom, had violated the constitution, by raising taxes in an arbitrary and lawless manner, contrary to the tenor of his oath.--2d, That he had adjourned without necessity the Legislative Body, and suppressed a report of that assembly, besides disowning its right to represent the people.--3d, That he had published several unconstitutional decrees, particularly those of 5th March last, by which he endeavoured to render national a war, in which his own ambition alone was interested.--4th, That he had violated the constitution by his decrees respecting state prisons.--5th, That he had abolished the responsibility of ministers, confounded together the different powers of the state, and destroyed the independence of judicial authorities.--6th, That the liberty of the press, constituting one of the rights of the nation, had been uniformly subjected to the arbitrary censure of his police; while, at the same time, he himself had made use of the same engine to fill the public ear with invented fictions, false maxims, doctrines favourable to despotism, and insults upon foreign governments.--7th, That he had caused acts and reports, adopted by the Senate, to be altered by his own authority, before publication.--8th, That instead of reigning, according to his oath, for the honour, happiness, and glory of the French nation, he had put the finishing stroke to the distresses of the country, by a refusal to treat on honourable conditions--by the abuse which he had made of the means intrusted to him, in men and money--by abandoning the wounded, without dressing or sustenance--and by pursuing measures of which the consequences have been the ruin of towns, the depopulation of the country, famine and pestilence. From all these inductive causes, the Senate, considering that the Imperial government, established by the decree of 28th Floreal, in the year XII., had ceased to exist, and that the manifest desire of all Frenchmen was to obtain an order of things, of which the first result should be peace and concord among the great members of the European family: Therefore, the Senate declared and decreed, 1st, That Napoleon Buonaparte had forfeited the throne, and the right of inheritance established in his family.--2d, That the people and army of France were disengaged and freed from the oath of fidelity, which they had taken to Napoleon and his constitution.[35] [Sidenote: DECLARATIONS OF PUBLIC BODIES.]