Conservative Senate; but he declined; by which he gave new proofs of his
disinterested and sincere attachment to the constitutional liberty and the
rights of the people. After several conversations with Bonaparte, he was
satisfied of the ambitious views of this military adventurer. He perceived
that the constitution was to serve as an apology for the exercise of
unlimited power in the First Consul; and that representatives and senators
were to be the humble ministers of his will. He saw that the constitution
did not emanate from the will of the people; and was not calculated to
secure and promote their welfare. Bonaparte also had discernment to learn,
that Lafayette was too sincere a friend to civil liberty and to the
interests of the people, to support his purposes, or to submit to his plans
of personal aggrandizement.

We shall have a more just estimation of the noble sentiments with which
Lafayette was animated, in declining the generous offers of the First
Consul, when it is considered, that, in addition to his self-banishment to
private life, he also refused an honorable salary of 7000 dollars, when the
estates which remained in his possession yielded only 2000 dollars. He had
a grant of land from the American Congress, in consideration of his
important services in the revolution, estimated to be worth 100,000
dollars. Before the revolution, his income was 50,000 dollars: but the most
valuable of his patrimonial property, as well as that which accrued to him
in consequence of his marriage, had been seized by the lawless robbers of
the revolution.

It was in conformity to the principles, which he had long professed and by
which he was constantly guided, that he soon after opposed the election of
Bonaparte as Consul for life. He would have consented, perhaps, to the
claims of the aspiring Napoleon to be the First Magistrate of France, under
a constitution, which expressly defined and restricted his power, and at