If Bonaparte were to be neither a Cæsar nor a Cromwell, it was Sieyès, as the civilian and the constitution-maker, who should have swayed the legislative councils in behalf of reform; but his heart was no more engaged in Bonaparte's support now than it had ever been. Anxious to be a leader, and to impose on France a constitution which by its "perfection" should command authority, he had ever been relegated to a second place. Instead of seizing this, his greatest opportunity as a lawgiver, he and Roger-Ducos had softly withdrawn to their carriage. The "perfect" constitution he had prepared would, in view of what had just happened, consequently rest, like the one overthrown, upon military force. Nevertheless, he thoroughly understood that Bonaparte had gone too far, and that his mistake must be retrieved. The country was not ripe for a military despot who, like Charles XII of Sweden, would send his boot to preside over the representatives of the people, or else turn them out of doors without a qualm. Accordingly, the few Bonapartist delegates, who had fled with the rest and had found refuge in the taverns or private houses of the neighborhood, were by his advice, but with some difficulty, found and summoned by Lucien to meet, late as it was, in their respective places, cold and uncomfortable as these were. Upward of fifty out of the Five Hundred--some impartial witnesses have put the number as high as one hundred and twenty--ventured to come, and the semblance of representative government was restored. To them the new, impossible, and clumsy constitution made by Sieyès was presented for consideration.