bring lenity and pardon. At present it would be premature." Such, word
for word, was Bonaparte's reply. If with this be compared what he said
on the subject at St. Helena it will be found that his ideas continued
nearly unchanged; the only difference is that, instead of the impetuosity
of 1800, he expressed himself with the calmness which time and adversity
naturally produce.

--["It was," says the 'Memorial of St. Helena', "an illegal and
tyrannical act, but still it was a necessary evil. It was the fault
of the law. He was a hundred, nay, a thousand fold guilty, and yet
it was doubtful whether he would be condemned. We therefore
assailed him with the shafts of honour and public opinion. Yet I
repeat it was a tyrannical act, and one of those violent measures
which are at times necessary in great nations and in extraordinary
circumstances."]--

Bonaparte, as I have before observed, loved contrasts; and I remember at
the very time he was acting so violently against Latour-Foissac he
condescended to busy himself about a company of players which he wished
to send to Egypt, or rather that he pretended to wish to send there,
because the announcement of such a project conveyed an impression of the
prosperous condition of our Oriental colony. The Consuls gravely
appointed the Minister of the Interior to execute this business, and the
Minister in his turn delegated his powers to Florence, the actor. In
their instructions to the Minister the Consuls observed that it would be
advisable to include some female dancers in the company; a suggestion
which corresponds with Bonaparte's note, in which were specified all that
he considered necessary for the Egyptian expedition.

The First Consul entertained singular notions respecting literary