immediately. "For the glory, as for the happiness of the country, we
proclaim at this very moment Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of the French."

Those present cried, "Long live the Emperor!" Only the sanction of the law
of hereditary succession was submitted to the popular vote. By the force
of his genius as much as by the splendor of his military glory, Napoleon
had conquered France more completely than Italy or Egypt.




CHAPTER VIII.

GLORY AND SUCCESS (1804-1805).


On the eve of the declaration of the Senate in favor of the empire,
Cambaceres had said to Lebrun, "All is over! the monarchy is re-
established! But I have a presentiment that what they are now constructing
will not be durable. We made war upon Europe to give it republics, which
should be daughters of the French Republic; now we shall make it to give
Europe monarchs, sons or brothers of ours; and France, exhausted, will
finally succumb to such fatal attempts."

A year before that, when the consulship for life was proclaimed, the wise
and virtuous Tronchet, when a sorrowful witness of the revolutionary
crimes against which he had defended King Louis XVI., had shown the same
inquietude and fatal presentiment. "This young man begins like Caesar," he
said of General Bonaparte; "I am afraid he may end as he did."