There is no positive evidence as to what members of the Institute were chiefly instrumental in formulating the proposal for Napoleon's consideration. We do not know whether leading members explained their scheme to him orally, or laid before him a written statement. If there was a plan in manuscript, the text of it has never been published.* (* "Probably it was suppressed or destroyed," says Dr. Holland Rose (Life of Napoleon 1 379). But why should it have been? There is no reason to suppose that it contained anything which it was to anybody's interest to destroy or suppress. Indeed, it is by no means clear that there was such a document. It is quite likely that the scheme of the Institute was explained verbally to the First Consul. Why manufacture mysteries?) There is only one document relating to the expedition in the collected correspondence of Napoleon;* (* Edition of 1861.) and that concerned an incident to which reference will be made in the next chapter. The reason for the absence of letters concerning the matter among Napoleon's papers is presumably that he left the carrying out of the project to the Institute; for he was not wont to restrain his directing hand in affairs in which he was personally concerned. But there were two leading members of the Institute who had already concerned themselves with Australasian discovery, and who may safely be assumed to have taken the initiative in this matter. They were Bougainville the explorer, who had commanded the expedition of 1766 to 1771, and Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, who had been Minister of Marine in 1790, and had written a book on the Decouvertes des Francais dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle Guinee (Paris, 1790), in which he maintained the prior claims of the French navigators Bougainville and Surville to discoveries to which later English explorers had in ignorance given fresh names. Fleurieu had also intended to write the history of the voyages of La Perouse, but was prevented by pressure of official and other occupations, and handed the work over to Milet-Mureau.* (* Voyage de la Perouse, Preface 1 page 3.) He stood high in the esteem of Napoleon, was a counsellor of State during the Consulate, became intendant-general of the Emperor's household, governor of the palace of Versailles, senator, and comte. Both Fleurieu and Bougainville had abundant opportunities for explaining the utility of a fresh voyage of exploration to Napoleon. It was, too, quite natural that these men should desire to promote a new French voyage of discovery. None knew better what might be hoped to be achieved. We are fairly safe in assuming that they moved the Institute to submit a proposition to the First Consul; and it is not improbable that they personally interviewed him on the subject.