cabinet, in which were the three Consuls, the Ministers, and the Council
of State. The Ambassadors presented their credentials to the First
Consul, who handed them to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. These
presentations were followed by others; for example, the Tribunal of
Cassation, over which the old advocate, Target, who refused to defend
Louis XVI., then presided. All this passed in view of the three Consuls;
but the circumstance which distinguished the First Consul from his
colleagues was, that the official personages, on leaving the audience-
chamber, were conducted to Madame Bonaparte's apartments, in imitation of
the old practice of waiting on the Queen after presentation to the King.

Thus old customs of royalty crept by degrees into the former abodes of
royalty. Amongst the rights attached to the Crown, and which the
Constitution of the year VIII. did not give to the First Consul, was one
which he much desired to possess, and which, by the most happy of all
usurpations, he arrogated to himself. This was the right of granting
pardon. Bonaparte felt a real pleasure in saving men under the sentence
of the law; and whenever the imperious necessity of his policy, to which,
in truth, he sacrificed everything, permitted it, he rejoiced in the
exercise of mercy. It would seem as if he were thankful to the persons
to whom he rendered such service merely because he had given them
occasion to be thankful to him. Such was the First Consul: I do not
speak of the Emperor. Bonaparte, the First Consul, was accessible to the
solicitations of friendship in favour of persons placed under
proscription. The following circumstance, which interested me much,
affords an incontestable proof of what I state:--

Whilst we were still at the Luxembourg, M. Defeu, a French emigrant, was
taken in the Tyrol with arms in his hand by the troops of the Republic.
He was carried to Grenoble, and thrown into the military prison of that