On the other hand, the attributes of the Senate were signally enhanced. It was thenceforth charged, not only with the preservation of the republican constitution, but with its interpretation in disputed points, and its completion wherever it should be found wanting. Furthermore, by means of organic _senatus consulta_ it was empowered to make constitutions for the French colonies, or to suspend trial by jury for five years in any Department, or even to declare it outside the limits of the constitution. It now gained the right of being consulted in regard to the ratification of treaties, previously enjoyed by the _Corps Législatif._ Finally, it could dissolve the _Corps Législatif_ and the Tribunate. But this formidable machinery was kept under the strict control of the chief engineer: all these powers were set in motion on the initiative of the Government; and the proposals for its laws, or _senatus consulta,_ were discussed in the Cabal of the Council of State named by the First Consul. This precaution might have been deemed superfluous by a ruler less careful about details than Napoleon; the composition of the Senate was such as to assure its pliability; for though it continued to renew its ranks by co-optation, yet that privilege was restricted in the following way: from the lists of candidates for the Senate sent up by the electoral colleges of the Departments, Napoleon selected three for each seat vacant; one of those three must be chosen by the Senate. Moreover, the First Consul was to be allowed directly to nominate forty members in addition to the eighty prescribed by the constitution of 1799. Thus, by direct or indirect means, the Senate soon became a strict Napoleonic preserve, to which only the most devoted adherents could aspire. And yet, such is the vanity of human efforts, it was this very body which twelve years later was to vote his deposition.[178] The victory of action over talk, of the executive over the legislature, of the one supremely able man over the discordant and helpless many, was now complete. The process was startlingly swift; yet its chief stages are not difficult to trace. The orators of the first two National Assemblies of France, after wrecking the old royal authority, were constrained by the pressure of events to intrust the supervision of the executive powers to important committees, whose functions grew with the intensity of the national danger. Amidst the agonies of 1793, when France was menaced by the First Coalition, the Committee of Public Safety leaped forth as the ensanguined champion of democracy; and, as the crisis, developed in intensity, this terrible body and the Committee of General Security virtually governed France.