“This was the only means I had of leaving no doubt as to my intentions, and of annihilating the hopes of the partisans of the Bourbons,” Napoleon wrote callously to his brother Joseph. “If what I have done were still to be done,” he continues, “I would do it again, and if I had a favourable opportunity I would get rid of the rest.” Fouché’s caustic comment, “it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder,” has passed into a proverb. The conspiracy of Cadoudal and Pichegru was made a pretext on the part of the Senate for sending a deputation to the First Consul, who was told that, as he was founding a new era, he ought to perpetuate it. “We do not doubt but this great idea has had a share of your attention,” said the President during the course of his short and flattering address, “for your creative genius embraces all and forgets nothing. But do not delay: you are urged on by the times, by events, by conspirators, and by ambitious men; and in another direction, by the anxiety which agitates the French people. It is in your power to enchain time, master events, disdain the ambitious, and tranquillise the whole of France by giving it institutions which will cement your edifice, and prolong for our children what you have done for their fathers. Citizen First Consul, be assured that the Senate here speaks to you in the name of all citizens.” The question was duly debated in the Tribunate, Carnot alone voting against the proposal, and by a decree of the Senate Napoleon was declared Emperor of the French on the 18th May 1804. That a conspiracy and a “judicial murder” should herald so important an event was looked upon by some as of evil omen. A few of the more sober members of the nation began to whisper among themselves that France was being more and more absorbed in Napoleon. Perhaps the remark made by the Duc de Raguse to the Comtesse de Boigne in 1814 would not have been inapplicable if uttered ten years before. The duke was explaining his connection with the Emperor. “When he said: ‘_All for France_,’ I served with enthusiasm; when he said: ‘_France and I_,’ I served with zeal; when he said: ‘_I and France_,’ I served with obedience; but when he said: ‘_I without France_,’ I felt the necessity of separating from him.” CHAPTER XVI The Threatened Invasion of England and its Sequel (1804-1805)