I made my neighbour remark this
vocation for royalty, already so decided.
CHAPTER 7.
Paris in 1801
The opposition in the tribunate still continued; that is to say,
about twenty members out of a hundred, tried to speak out against
the measures of every kind, with which tyranny was preparing. A
grand question arose, in the law which gave to the government the
fatal power of creating special tribunals to try persons accused of
state crimes; as if the handing over a man to these extraordinary
tribunals, was not already prejudging the question, that is to say,
if he is a criminal, and a criminal of state; and as if, of all
crimes, political crimes were not those which required the greatest
precaution and independence in the manner of examining them, as the
government is in such causes almost always a party interested.
We have since seen what are the military commissions to try crimes
of state; and the death of the Duke d'Eughien marks to all the
horror which that hypocritical power ought to inspire, which covers
murder with the mantle of the law.
The resistance of the tribunate, feeble as it was, displeased the
first consul; not that it was any obstacle to his designs, but it
kept up the habit of thinking in the nation, which he wished to
stifle entirely. He put into the journals among other things, an
absurd argument against the opposition.
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