however, preferred to keep the two cleverest and most questionable
schemers of the age, so as mutually to check each other's movements. A
day later, when the Council was about to institute special
proceedings, Bonaparte again intervened with the remark that the
action of the tribunal would be too slow, too restricted: a signal
revenge was needed for so foul a crime, rapid as lightning:

"Blood must be shed: as many guilty must be shot as the innocent
who had perished--some fifteen or twenty--and two hundred banished,
so that the Republic might profit by that event to purge itself."

This was the policy now openly followed. In vain did some members of
the usually obsequious Council object to this summary procedure.
Roederer, Boulay, even the Second Consul himself, now perceived how
trifling was their influence when they attempted to modify Bonaparte's
plans, and two sections of the Council speedily decided that there
should be a military commission to judge suspects and "deport"
dangerous persons, and that the Government should announce this to
the Senate, Corps Législatif, and Tribunate. Public opinion,
meanwhile, was carefully trained by the official "Moniteur," which
described in detail various so-called anarchist attempts; but an
increasing number in official circles veered round to Fouché's belief
that the outrage was the work of the royalists abetted by England. The
First Consul himself, six days after the event, inclined to this
version. Nevertheless, at a full meeting of the Council of State, on
the first day of the year 1801, he brought up a list of "130 villains
who were troubling the public peace," with a view to inflicting
summary punishment on them. Thibaudeau, Boulay, and Roederer haltingly
expressed their fears that all the 130 might not be guilty of the
recent outrage, and that the Council had no powers to decide on the