ESCAPE OF THE REPUBLICAN EXILES. 97 



of hearing their names. A government which had 

 lasted above a year was not the government for the 

 (jrande nation. She longed for a change, if it were 

 to a cabinet of dancing-dogs, and the Five Directors 

 began to tremble for their dignities. 



The government consisted of a mockery of the 

 British legislature : a Council of Elders meagrely 

 corresponded to our House of Lords, and a Council 

 of Five Hundred to our House of Commons. The 

 divisions of faction in those bodies rendered all 

 deliberation a burlesque; but they menaced the 

 power of the Directors, and, to secure that power, 

 their Five Majesties of the Luxembourg, as the 

 Parisians had learned to call them in scorn, deter- 

 mined to make a "New Constitution." To this the 

 preliminary was the illegal and tyrannical seizure of 

 every man who might be formidable to them in the 

 two Houses. To strengthen their hands in this act 

 of the most furious despotism, they brought troops 

 into Paris, headed by Napoleon's lieutenant, Augereau; 

 they held a correspondence with Napoleon, who, like 

 an independent sovereign, or a new Caesar, promised 

 to cross the Rubicon to their assistance ; and they 

 commenced, with congenial activity, the corruption 

 of the two guards of the Councils. For in that day 

 nothing was done without the soldier, and all deliber- 

 ation was carried on under the protection of the 

 bayonet. 



At three in the morning of the day appointed for 



VOL. II. G 



