Europe, as France had been in 1793. The duel continued between Bonaparte
and Pitt.

So much _eclat_ abroad, so much glory and success terminating in an almost
general peace, did not absorb all the thoughts of the First Consul, and
had not yet succeeded in founding his power on a lasting basis. He felt it
bitterly, and the irritation which he experienced habitually manifested
itself against the remnants of the Jacobin party, the declared enemies of
the order of things which he wished to establish, capable, he thought, of
any crimes, and whose works he had had the opportunity of judging. This
exclusive preoccupation sometimes turned away his attention from more
pressing perils and bolder enemies. A conspiracy to which the police had
lent themselves, and which had failed without any of the accomplices
daring to put their hands on their arms, roused public attention, in the
month of October, 1800, to the dangers which pursued the First Consul.
Since then there had been seized, at the house of a mechanician named
Chevalier, an explosive machine which had given rise to certain
suspicions; but no attempt had been made, and the conspirators, who
plotted in the dark, were as yet only known to Fouche, the minister of
police, clever and foreseeing, constantly hostile to the old enemies of
the Republic, and more disquieted than the First Consul at the royalist
manoeuvres. It was to the Chouans and men of that class that the police
attributed the brigandage which infested the roads in the departments of
the west, the centre, and the south; it was the descents of their former
chiefs upon the Norman coasts which preoccupied Fouche. At one period the
royalists had thought General Bonaparte capable of playing the _role_ of
Monk, and accepting that modest ambition. On the 20th of February, 1800,
Louis XVIII. wrote to him with his own hand, "Whatever may be their
apparent conduct, men like yourself, monsieur, never inspire uneasiness.
You have accepted an eminent place, and I am thankful for it. Better than