This august body of highly-paid members holding office for life had the right of nominating the new members; but hitherto the retiring members had been singled out by lot.

Roederer, acting on a hint of the time-serving Second Consul, now proposed in the Council of State that the retiring members of those Chambers should thenceforth be appointed by the Senate, and not by lot; for the principle of the lot, he quaintly urged, was hostile to the right of election which belonged to the Senate.

Against such conscious sophistry all the bolts of logic were harmless.

The question was left undecided, in order that the Senate might forthwith declare in favour of its own right to determine every year not only the elections to, but the exclusions from, the Tribunate and the _Corps Legislatif_.

A _senatus consultant_ of March legalized this monstrous innovation, which led to the exclusion from the Tribunate of zealous republicans like Benjamin Constant, Isnard, Ganilh, Daunou, and Chenier.