the year VIII. It was supposed, as has just been said, that the impotence of the tribunes would be offset by the independence of the council of state. In this last body, therefore, were assembled three important classes: sincere Bonapartists like Roederer, Regnault de St.-Jean-d'Angély, and Boulay de la Meurthe; clever specialists like Ganteaume, Chaptal, and Fourcroy, who were quite willing to serve the First Consul; and a number of proselytes from among the royalists and other factions. For the most part these were men of great ability, and for a time they found in the First Consul a disinterestedness in serving France which made them his devoted servants. The personality of the council was Bonaparte's, and whatever independence it possessed was his. The court of appeals was duly organized by the senate, which had this right as being the guardian of the constitution. The justices and councilors of a supreme court, the copestone of the judiciary, were nominated by the same body. The other courts were also ably manned with officials who, though not servile, were stanch supporters of the new government. Before the time when the campaign could open in the spring of 1800, all these parts were intended to be, and actually were, running smoothly; but they were running by the inspiration and activity of a single man. The council of state was his greater self, the senate his instrument of governing; the legislative body was as silent as the tribunate was noisy--neither was a serious check on his plans. Legislation of the greatest importance was under way; it was all devised for purposes of centralization, and was studied in detail by the First Consul. Administration was proceeding with scarcely any friction whatsoever; but this was because Bonaparte kept his eye on each separate office, and carefully superintended its working. By special arrangement foreign relations were considered and settled in secret consultation by the chief of state and Talleyrand; but the latter dared not pretend that in unraveling the threads of so tangled a web, or in their skilful rearrangement, the initiative was his. Carnot, at his old work, with his old genius unimpaired, needed little encouragement; but even in his department every corps, every battalion, every regiment, every company of all the arms,--cavalry, infantry, and artillery of every class, conscript, soldier, reserve, and home guard,--each and all were known to the First Consul. Incredible and exaggerated as such statements must appear, the testimony to their truth is so abundant and unimpeachable that it seems to the reader as if at this crisis there had appeared in Europe a being neither human, demoniac, nor celestial, but a man with superhuman powers of endurance, apprehension, and labor, an angel without perfection, a demon without malevolence. For, on the whole, Bonaparte's work, while replete with dangerous expedients, and, as the future conclusively proved, inspired by self-seeking, was beneficent,