the same time provided a sufficient guaranty of the liberties of the
people.

On this occasion he wrote thus to the First Consul--"When a man, who is
deeply impressed with a sense of the gratitude he owes you, and who is too
ardent a lover of glory to be indifferent to yours, connects his suffrage
with conditional restrictions, those restrictions not only secure him from
suspicion, but prove amply, that no one will more gladly than himself
behold in you the chief magistrate for life, of a free and independent
republic.

"The eighteenth Brumaire saved France from destruction and I felt myself
reassured and recalled by the liberal declarations to which you have
connected the sanction of your honor. In your consular authority there was
afterwards discerned that salutary dictatorial prerogative, which under the
auspices of a genius like yours, accomplished such glorious purposes--yet
less glorious, let me add, than the restoration of liberty would prove.

"It is not possible, general, that you, the first among that order of
mankind, which surveys every age and every country, can desire that a
revolution, marked by an unexampled series of stupendous victories and
unheard of sufferings, shall give nothing to the world but a renovated
system of arbitrary government. The people of this country have been
acquainted with their rights too long, to forget them forever: but perhaps
they may recover and enjoy them better now than during the period of
revolutionary effervescence. And you, by the strength of your character and
the influence of public confidence, by the superiority of your talents,
your power, and your fortunes, in re-establishing the liberties of France,
can allay all agitations, calm all anxieties and subdue all dangers.