Even in Spain the rumor of this modification of the national thought had already reached Napoleon's ears: he had read it in the letters of his most intimate correspondents, and imagined it even in the eyes of his soldiers. The rage of the despot burst forth one day in Valladolid: when passing along the ranks of the troops he was leaving behind, on hearing some of them muttering he is said to have snatched from the hand of a grenadier a musket, which seemed awkwardly held, exclaiming, "You wretch! you deserve to be shot, and I have a good mind to have it done! You are all longing to go back to Paris, to resume your habits and pleasures:--well, I shall keep you under arms till you are eighty." On reaching France, and especially Paris, Napoleon thought the atmosphere felt charged with resistance and disobedience. There was more freedom of speech, and men's thoughts were more daring than their words. Those whom he distrusted now came nearer, and others had taken the liberty to criticise his intentions and his acts. Even in the Legislative Body, the arrangements of the code of criminal justice, recently submitted to the vote, had undergone a rather lively discussion. Fouché had the courage to raise the question of the succession to the throne, when speaking to the Empress Josephine herself about the necessity of a divorce. The most daring had ventured to anticipate the possibility of a fatal accident in the chances of war, some affirming that Murat aimed at the crown. The Arch-chancellor Cambacérès, who always showed prudence and ability in his relations with his former colleague, now his master, attempted in vain to calm the increasing irritation of his mind. His anger burst forth against Talleyrand during a sitting of the Ministerial Council. For several months previously a coldness and distrust had reigned between the emperor and this confidant of several of the gravest acts of his life--who was always self-possessed even when he seemed devoted, too clever ever to give himself up entirely, and invariably impassible in manner and feature. Napoleon poured forth his displeasure in a long speech, reminding Talleyrand of advice he had formerly given him, being carried away both by his passion and the desire to compromise and humiliate a man whose intrigues he was afraid of. At the conclusion of this noisy scene, still more humiliating for the emperor than for the minister, Talleyrand quietly withdrew, limping through the galleries, among the officers and courtiers, astonished at the noise which had reached even them, and looking at him with curiosity or spite. It was the starting-point of that secret animosity to which Talleyrand was afterwards to give cold and biting expression, when, in 1813, after a similar scene, he said, "You have a great man there, but badly brought up!" Napoleon's anger did not last long, although his distrust remained fixed. Talleyrand's pride underwent numerous eclipses. Commencing, however, from that day, the separation