M. Pasquier, while master of requests at the _Conseil d'Etat_, was distinguished by his laborious attention and assiduity, at the time when improvement had assumed a serious and reflective form; he had passed his fortieth year when he was appointed attorney-general of the great seal, and afterwards Councillor of state. The State council was a powerful and important school; the Emperor, who entertained a strong antipathy towards all bodies that deliberated under the sanction of publicity, had a perfect horror of the representative system, and public speaking; he liked to collect suffrages, to listen to all opinions, reserving to himself the right of deciding upon them, and weighing them against each other in such a manner, that an imperial decree should never sanction an equivocal project or a bad measure. The council of state, composed of very eminent men, was the real _corps politique_; and even the title of Master of requests was not a common rank granted to aspirants of an inferior grade. In this anxious and laborious situation, the Masters of requests, attached to a section of the council, devoted their existence to it, and the great end and aim of their executive career was the situation of Councillor of state, a title of which the characters best known to fame were ambitious. This close and incessant every-day application suited perfectly the studious mind of M. Pasquier; a generation of young men had sprung up, whose souls were entirely given up to assiduous attention to business, and who devoted themselves to the active and deliberative portion of the administration. The Master of requests had already received the title of Baron and officer of the legion of honour in reward of his services, when the dismissal of M. Dubois, after the melancholy burning of Prince Schwartzenburg's palace, left vacant the prefecture of police, an appointment originally instituted during the Consulate. The police was divided into two parts:--the political police, which was charged with the general safety of the kingdom and the surveillance of political parties, constantly in a state of commotion even under the heavy hand of Napoleon; it was always intrusted to the minister of a department, and the situation was at that time filled by General Savary; and the prefecture of police, an appointment of a more simple order, circumscribed within the walls of Paris, whose chief had charge of the _édilité_, that is to say, of the safety and cleanliness of the city and the inspection of the markets and provisions, all duties of considerable importance. The prefect of police also regulated the bulletins concerning the state of the public mind, so as to act as a check upon the minister of police. During the time of the Empire, each of these situations involved serious duties and considerable responsibility.