He forthwith issued a general order, commanding the French army to wrap their banners in crape during ten days in honour of "a great man who fought against tyranny and consolidated the liberties of his country." Talleyrand, appointed minister of foreign affairs by Buonaparte, was now the chief partner of his counsels.

The second Consul, Cambaceres, soon learned to confine himself to the department of justice, and Lebrun to that of finance.

The effective branches of government were, almost from the first, engrossed by Napoleon.

Yet, while with equal audacity and craft he was rapidly consolidating the elements of a new monarchy in his own person--the Bourbonists, at home and abroad, had still nourished the hope that this ultimate purpose was the restoration of the rightful king of France.

Very shortly after the 18th Brumaire, one of the foreign ambassadors resident at Paris had even succeeded in obtaining a private audience for Messieurs Hyde de Neuville and Dandigne, two agents of the exiled princes.