10,000 old men, who only ask to be allowed to live peaceably in obedience
to the established laws? Do you not know, gentlemen, members of the
council, that excepting two or three you all pass for royalists? You,
Citizen Defermon, don't they take you for a partisan of the Bourbons? Must
I send Citizen Portalis to Sinnamari, and Citizen Devaisne to Madagascar,
and then must I make for myself a Babeuf council? No, no, Citizen Truguet,
you won't get me to make any change; there are none to fear except the
Septembrisers. They would not spare even you yourself, and it would be in
vain for you to tell them that you defended them at the Council of State.
They would cut your throat, just the same as mine or the throats of your
colleagues."

He went out without giving time for any one to answer him. Cambaceres,
moderate and prudent, equally clever in giving counsel and at yielding
when counsels were useless, deemed the anger of the First Consul too
passionate to admit of contradiction. The Council of State, several times
consulted, was brought over with repugnance to the idea of an
extraordinary measure. The First Consul wished a law; it was decided to
involve the great bodies of the State in the arbitrary act which he was
about to commit. "The consuls do not know what may happen," said he. "So
long as I am alive I am not afraid of any one daring to ask me an account
of my actions; but I may be killed, and then I cannot answer for my two
colleagues. You are not very firmly placed in your stirrups," he added,
turning to Cambaceres, with a smile. "Better to have a law now as well as
for the future." The Council of State hesitated from a repugnance to form
a proscription list, assuring him that it would be rejected by the
Tribunate and the Legislative Body. "You are always afraid of the
Tribunate," said Bonaparte, "because it rejected one or two of your laws;
but there are only a few Jacobins in the Legislative Body, ten or twelve
at most. The others know well that but for me they would all have been