provinces and foreign countries, and was everywhere accompanied by
astonishment and sorrow. There is in the departments a separate class of
society, possessing great influence, and constituted entirely of persons
usually called the "Gentry of the Chateaux," who may be said to form the
provincial Faubourg St. Germain, and who were overwhelmed by the news.
The opinion of the Gentry of the Chateaux was not hitherto unfavourable
to the First Consul, for the law of hostages which he repealed had been
felt very severely by them. With the exception of some families
accustomed to consider themselves, in relation to the whole world, what
they were only within the circle of a couple of leagues; that is to say,
illustrious personages, all the inhabitants of the provinces, though they
might retain some attachment to the ancient order of things, had viewed
with satisfaction the substitution of the Consular for the Directorial
government, and entertained no personal dislike to the First Consul.
Among the Chateaux, more than anywhere else, it had always been the
custom to cherish Utopian ideas respecting the management of public
affairs, and to criticise the acts of the Government. It is well known
that at this time there was not in all France a single old mansion
surmounted by its two weathercocks which had not a systems of policy
peculiar to itself, and in which the question whether the First Consul
would play the part of Cromwell or Monk was not frequently canvassed.
In those innocent controversies the little news which the Paris papers
were allowed to publish was freely discussed, and a confidential letter
from Paris sometimes furnished food for the conversation of a whole week.

While I was with Bonaparte he often talked to me about the life in the
Chateaux, which he considered as the happiest for men with sufficient
income and exempt from ambition. He knew and could appreciate this sort
of life, for he often told me the period of his life which he remembered.
with the greatest pleasure was that which he had passed in a Chateau of