In fine, to fulfil, as much as in him lay, the public expectation, the Emperor made numerous changes in the laws relating to the consolidated taxes (_droits reunis_), which, while they diminished the impost, freed it from its abuses and tyrannical forms, and rendered it less odious, and more supportable. These beneficial meliorations, though incomplete, were received with gratitude; and the Emperor was thanked for his endeavours to reconcile the interests of individuals with the wants of the public treasury. But the satisfaction Napoleon derived from the happy effects of his solicitude was frequently disturbed by the disquietude and perplexity, which the cabals and manoeuvres of the royalists occasioned him. "The priests and the nobles," said he one day in a fit of ill-humour, "are playing a deep game. If I were to let loose the people upon them, they would all be devoured in the twinkling of an eye[101]." [Footnote 101: These words, and several others that I have quoted, prove Napoleon not to have been ignorant of the use he might make of the people. If he did not have recourse to them, no doubt it was because he feared, that the remedy might prove worse than the disease.] By a decree of the 25th of March, he had already ordered the ministers of the King, and the civil and military officers of his household, as well as of those of the princes, as also the chiefs of the Chouans, of the Vendeans, and of the royal volunteers, to remove to a distance of thirty leagues from Paris. This prudent precaution was but imperfectly executed. M. Fouche, to secure himself a refuge in the King's party, had sent for the principal of the proscribed persons to his house; expressed to them how much he felt interested for their situation, and the efforts he had made, to prevent their banishment; and finally authorised them pretty generally, to remain at Paris. The Emperor, not aware that their audacity was owing to the protection of his minister, watched for an opportunity of intimidating them by an act of severity. While things were in this state, a M. de Lascours, a colonel, was arrested at Dunkirk, where he had introduced himself as an emissary from the King. Napoleon, deceived by the similarity of the name, supposed this officer to be the person, who pretended, in 1814, to have received orders, to blow up the powder magazine at Grenelle, and refused to execute them. "I should be sorry," said he, "to sacrifice by way of example a worthy man; but an impostor like this deserves no pity. Write to the minister at war, to have him taken before a military commission, and tried as an instigator to civil war, and to the overturning of the established government."