methods that may be called conservative, we are strangely ignorant.
But the results of this mental change will stand forth clear and
solid for many a generation in the customs, laws, and institutions of
his adopted country. If the Revolution, intellectually considered,
began and ended with analysis, Napoleon's faculties supplied the
needed synthesis. Together they made modern France.

* * * * *




CHAPTER XIII

THE CONSULATE FOR LIFE


With the view of presenting in clear outlines the chief institutions
of Napoleonic France, they have been described in the preceding
chapter, detached from their political setting. We now return to
consider the events which favoured the consolidation of Bonaparte's
power.

No politician inured to the tricks of statecraft could more firmly
have handled public affairs than the man who practically began his
political apprenticeship at Brumaire. Without apparent effort he rose
to the height whence the five Directors had so ignominiously fallen;
and instinctively he chose at once the policy which alone could have
insured rest for France, that of balancing interests and parties. His
own political views being as yet unknown, dark with the excessive