It was from Malmaison, the pretty country-house dear to Madame Bonaparte,
that the First Consul replied to the message of the Senate. "Senators,"
said he, "the honorable proof of esteem embodied in your deliberation of
the 18th will be always graven upon my heart. In the three years that have
just passed away, fortune has smiled upon the Republic; but fortune is
inconstant, and how many men whom she has loaded with her favors have
lived more than a few years!

"The interest of my glory and that of my happiness would seem to assign as
the term of my public life the moment when the peace of the world is
proclaimed.

"But you judge that I ought to make a new sacrifice for the people; I will
do it if the wish of the people commands what your suffrage authorizes."
In all times, and under all forms of arbitrary government, the appeal to
the people has offered to power an easy resource; Cambaceres had cleverly
suggested it to the First Consul. In explaining to the Council of State
the reasons which rendered the vote of the Senate unacceptable, he
formulated immediately the proposal which ought to be put before the
nation: "Napoleon Bonaparte, shall he be consul for life?" To this first
question Roederer proposed to add a second, immediately rejected by the
explicit wish of the First Consul himself: "Shall he have the right of
appointing his successor?" For three weeks, in all the cities and in all
the villages, the registries of votes remained open. The Tribunate and the
Corps Legislatif presented themselves in a body at the Tuileries, in order
to vote into the hands of the First Consul. The Senate had the honor of
casting up the votes. It remained mute and powerless in consequence of its
awkward proposal. "Come to the help of people who have made a mistake in
trying to divine your purposes too deeply," said Cambaceres to the First