UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. THE HISTORY OF NAPOLEON. 2 CHAPTER I. LEGISLATIVE SESSIONS OF 1809 AND 1810. CREATION OF THE DOMAINE EXTRAORDINAIRE. THE STATE THE Legislative Body had at this period wellnigh attained perfection in the performance of the part which Napoleon had long since mentally assigned to it. It had caused itself to be so rarely spoken of, that one scarcely knew whether it was still in existence, and almost the whole of 1809 had passed by without any one perceiving that the Body representing the nation had not held its customary session. It was impossible for that assembly to give any better proof of its being animated by the spirit which had presided at its transformation; but, by a misfortune that seemed attached to its very existence, its docility and actual insignificance served it no better than its former ambition. Though no longer called dangerous, it was considered useless. Whenever the Legislative Body was now mentioned in the Emperor's presence, he exclaimed against the folly of such an institution. All the most important laws, in fact, appeared in the form of decrees or of a Senatus-Consultum, and most frequently the Legislative Body was not CHAP. I. CHAP. I. called upon even to ratify them. The only occupation left to it was the revision of the Code originally framed in the Council of State, or the making of laws for some local interest; even then, there were bitter complaints of the delay to which such laws were subjected, as if they could have been voted by an absent Body. In general the Assembly passed every project presented by Government without any discussion whatever. The official returns of the sessions of 1809 and 1810 are less than a twentieth part of one session in the present day; moreover, at least one half of those short sittings was devoted to the examination of works presented to the Legislative Body by the writers of the day, with the evident intention of filling up their leisure hours. Were no other defects attributable to the Legislative Body, it sinned by reminding France, from its name alone, that she formerly had possessed a national representation. That was sufficient to condemn it, and henceforward it was treated with a contempt that foretold the near and definitive suppression of so troublesome an excresence. The session opened on the 3rd of December, 1809. Some fifty of its members, whose service was expiring, were to be re-elected on the 31st; but a SenatusConsultum appeared dispensing with the useless ceremony, and deciding that the Deputies should remain in the Chamber, not only during the session of 1809, but also in that of 1810. Again, new departments had been added to the Empire, and Deputies ought to have been elected by them, but another Senatus-Consultum saved them alike electoral trouble and all embarrassment as to choice, by enacting that these Deputies should be appointed by the Senate. Nor was this all. The session of 1809, short though it was, had necessarily to be prolonged into the first month of 1810, in consequence of the delay that had occurred in its assembling: what use then would there be in convoking it anew or in making another opening speech in 1810? These were only so many complications—and for so little! It was decided, therefore, that the session of 1810 should immediately follow that of 1809, both making but one, without requiring all the empty show which gave the |