‘No one was able to tell what was the number of persons who had been killed and wounded; but it was understood that the disaster had originated in an attempt to destroy the First Consul in his way to the Opera. At the portico of the Opera, I heard that the performance was going on without interruption, and that Bonaparte, unmoved, was partaking of the entertainment, which was an Oratorio,[174] as if nothing unusual had happened. The next morning heard a few particulars; some of the manner in which the Chief Consul had conducted himself. He appears to have expressed a conviction that in his situation and at a period like the present, such an occurrence was not to be considered as being justly matter of surprise. He told those who had an opportunity of seeing him that when, a short time before, his life had been conspired against, he felt no particular solicitude in relation to the punishment of a crime which seemed to have him only for its object; but that now when the blow which was levelled at himself had fallen upon others, when the safety of a part of the population of the capital had been actually endangered, and when several individuals had become the innocent victims of so great an atrocity, he should not hesitate to demand a law authorising the immediate trial of those who might prove implicated in its guilt. That as to what regarded himself personally, he should die with as much glory at the head of the Legislature as he could do at the head of one of the armies of the Republic. To the Prefect of the Police[175] he expressed his dissatisfaction with an asperity which sufficiently proved that he imputed a defect of vigilance to that department.’... [Sidenote: A REVIEW]