In fact, he was governing already, disregarding the prolonged discussions of the two legislative commissions, and the profound developments of the projects of Sieyès, expounded by M. Boulay. Before the Constitution of the year VIII, received the sanction of his dominant will, he had repealed the Law of Hostages, recalled the proscribed priests from the Isle of Oléron, and from Sinnamari most of those transported on 18th Fructidor. He had reformed the ministry, and distributed according to his pleasure the chief commands in the army. As Moreau had been of service to Bonaparte in his _coup d'état_, he was placed at the head of the army of the Rhine joined to the army of Helvetia, taken from Massena on the morrow of his most brilliant victories. Distrust and ill-will struggled with his admiration of Bonaparte in the mind of the conqueror of Zurich; he was sent to the army of Italy, always devoted to Bonaparte. Berthier remained at Paris in the capacity of minister of war. Fouché was placed at the police, and Talleyrand undertook foreign affairs. By a bent of theoretical fancy, which was not borne out by experience in government, the illustrious mathematician Laplace was called to the ministry of the interior. Gaudin became minister of finances; he replaced immediately the forced loans with an increase of direct taxes, and introduced into the collection of the public revenues some important improvements, which paved the way for our great financial organization. At the same time, without provocation and without necessity, as if simply in compliance with the mournful traditions of past violence, a list of proscriptions, published on the 23rd Brumaire, exiled to Guiana or the Île de Ré nine persons--a mixture of honest republicans opposed to the new state of things, and of wretches still charged with the crimes of the Reign of Terror. Only the name of General Jourdan excited universal reprobation, and it was immediately struck out. The measure itself was soon mitigated, and the decree was never executed.