Senate, and with the advice of his Council of State, exclusively. You
know that the Senators, as well as the Councillors of State, are
nominated by the Emperor; that he changes the latter according to his
whim, and that, though the former, according to the present constitution,
are to hold their offices for life, the alterations which remove entirely
the legislature and the tribunate may also make Senators movable. But as
all members of the Senate are favourites or relatives, he will probably
not think it necessary to resort to such a measure of policy.

In a former letter I have already mentioned the heterogeneous composition
of the Senate. The tribunate and legislative corps are worthy to figure
by its side; their members are also ci-devant mechanics of all
descriptions, debased attorneys or apostate priests, national spoilers or
rebellious regicides, degraded nobles or dishonoured officers. The nearly
unanimous vote of these corps for a consulate for life, and for an
hereditary Emperor, cannot, therefore, either be expressive of the
national will, or constitute the legality of Bonaparte's sovereignty.

In the legislature no vote opposed, and no voice declaimed against,
Bonaparte's Imperial dignity; but in the tribunate, Carnot--the
infamously notorious Carnot--'pro forma', and with the permission of the
Emperor 'in petto', spoke against the return of a monarchical form of
Government. This farce of deception and roguery did not impose even on
our good Parisians, otherwise, and so frequently, the dupes of all our
political and revolutionary mountebanks. Had Carnot expressed a
sentiment or used a word not previously approved by Bonaparte, instead of
reposing himself in the tribunate, he would have been wandering in
Cayenne.

Son of an obscure attorney at Nolay, in Burgundy, he was brought up, like