The safeguard of so-called popular adhesion having been secured, the next step was to adopt and execute a comprehensive policy of conciliation. The royalist emigrants were encouraged to return, provided they would accept the new power and lend it the grace of their presence and manners. Amnesty was likewise proclaimed for the victims of Fructidor. Gaudin, who had been an experienced financier under the Bourbons, and had shown his mettle as provisional minister, was put permanently in charge of the treasury. The moderate and able Cambacérès became minister of justice, and Forfait undertook the navy. Carnot, whose castigation of the Directory in his widely read defense had done so much to undermine their prestige and hasten their fall, was recalled and made minister of war. Talleyrand was forgiven for his base desertion on the eve of the Egyptian expedition. As will be recalled, it had been arranged that as the fleet left Toulon for Alexandria he was to start for Constantinople in order to hoodwink the Sultan and prevent the very resistance which afterward proved so disastrous. But at the last moment he refused. In consequence of his scandalous attempt to extort a bribe from the American envoys he was forced to resign his office soon afterward, and he then sought retirement to await results. There never was greed more dishonest than his, a life more licentious, nor a deceit more subtle; but at the same time he was the most adroit diplomat of an age devoted to diplomacy as a political power, and more familiar with the intrigues of courts and the aspirations of European dynasties than were any of his contemporaries, unless possibly Metternich, who did not become prominent until later. He was therefore indispensable, and was reappointed minister of foreign affairs. The great Laplace had been provisionally appointed minister of the interior; but so marked was his unfitness for the post that he soon was transferred to the senate and made way for Lucien Bonaparte.