"Lastly, it will be formidable to its enemies, if the army and navy are made strong, and if each of its defenders finds a home in the regiment to which he belongs, and in that home a heritage of virtue and glory; if the officer, trained by long study, obtains by regular promotion the recompense due to his talents and work. "Upon these principles depend the stability of government, the success of commerce and agriculture, the greatness and prosperity of nations. "We have pointed out the rule, Frenchmen, by which we ought to be judged, we have stated our duties. It will be for you to tell us whether we have fulfilled them." "What would you have?" said the First Consul to La Fayette. "Sieyès has put nothing but shadows everywhere; the shadow of legislative power, the shadow of judicial power, the shadow of government; some part of the substance was necessary. Faith! I have put it there." The very preamble of the Constitution affirmed the radical change brought about in the direction of affairs. "The powers instituted to-day will be strong and lasting, such as they ought to be in order to guarantee the rights of citizens and the interests of the State. Citizens, the Revolution is fixed upon the same principles which began it. It is finished!" It was not the apotheosis, but the end of the Revolution that the authors of the Constitution of the year VIII. arrogantly announced. In the first impulse of a great spirit brought face to face with a difficult task, Bonaparte conceived the thought of terminating the war like the Revolution, and of re-establishing, at least for some time, the peace he needed in order to govern France. Disdainful of the ordinary forms of diplomacy, he wrote directly to George III., as he had formerly written to the Archduke Charles (18th December, 1799). "Called by the will of the French nation to be first magistrate, I deem it expedient on entering upon my charge to communicate directly with your Majesty. "Must the war which for eight years has ravaged the four quarters of the globe, be eternal? Is there no other means of arriving at a mutual understanding? "How can the most enlightened nations of Europe, powerful and strong beyond what their security and independence require, sacrifice the interest of commerce, the prosperity of their people, and the happiness of families, to ideas of vainglory? "These sentiments cannot be foreign to the heart of your Majesty, who governs a free nation with the sole aim of rendering it happy. "Your Majesty will see in these overtures only my sincere desire to contribute effectively, for the second time, to a general pacification by a prompt procedure, full of confidence and divested of those forms which, necessary perhaps, in order to disguise the dependence of feeble States, only reveal between strong States a mutual desire to deceive each other.