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It is to misinterpret the character of the Napoleon Bonaparte who ruled the Republic in the early period of the Consulate, to suppose him incapable of wishing to promote research for its own sake. He desired the glory of his era to depend upon other achievements than those of war. "My intention certainly is," he said to Thibaudeau, "to multiply the works of peace.
Prices of all commodities went up nearly in proportion. The writings of this period give curious details. Thibaudeau, in his Memoirs, speaks of sugar as 500 francs a pound, soap, 230 francs, candles, 140 francs. Mercier, in his lifelike pictures of the French metropolis at that period, mentions 600 francs as carriage hire for a single drive, and 6,000 for an entire day.
He presided at more than half of the 102 sittings devoted to this criticism; and sittings of eight or nine hours were scarcely long enough to satisfy his eager curiosity, his relentless activity, and his determined practicality. From the notes of Thibaudeau one of the members of this revising committee, we catch a glimpse of the part there played by the First Consul.
The more closely one examines that period, the more clearly he sees that the pictures, given by Thibaudeau and Challamel and De Goncourt are not at all exaggerated. The contrast between these gay creatures of the Directory period and the people at large was striking.
A few conventionalists, headed by Tallien, proposed to annul the elections of this third, and wished to suspend, for a longer time, the conventional government. Thibaudeau exposed their design with much courage and eloquence. The whole conventional party adopted his opinion.
This interview confirmed me in the idea I always had of him, that he combined the enlightenment of a wise senator with the uprightness of a genuine good man and the zeal of a true patriot, but that he equally lacked the views and boldness of a statesman." Thibaudeau, "Memoires," 58.
The Corps Législatif was not in session, and it was not convoked. The Senate, after hearing Fouché's unmistakable hints, named a commission of its members to report on hereditary rule, and then waited on events. These were decided mainly in private meetings of the Council of State, where the proposal met with some opposition from Cambacérès, Merlin, and Thibaudeau.
Let the reader imagine facing this party, in the same chamber, about an equal number of representatives elected by the other party; the only ones it could select, its notables, that is to say, the survivors of preceding assemblies, probably Constitutionalists of the year IV and the year V, Conventionalists of the Plain and of the Feuillants of 1792, from Lafayette and Dumolard to Daunou, Thibaudeau and Gregoire, among them Girondists and a few Montagnards, Barere, with others, all of them wedded to the theory the same as their adversaries to traditions.
Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur le Consulat," p. 18: "He sometimes pays them left-handed compliments on their toilet or adventures, which was his way of censuring morals."
Among the "Five Hundred" and the "Ancients," Thibaudeau and Troncon-Ducoudray, the two leaders "du ventre," arrest the arms of Pichegru and other energetic men, prevent them from striking, allow them only to ward off the blow, and always too late.
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