Besides, if it was skillfully computed, it was by no means conveniently divided. I recall on this subject the remark of a man of much wit, and who, notwithstanding the disapprobation which his remark implied, nevertheless desired the establishment of the Republican system, everywhere except in the almanac. When the decree of the Convention which ordered the adoption of the Republican calendar was published, he remarked: "They have done finely; but they have to fight two enemies who never yield, the beard, and the white shirt."
--[That is to say, the barber and the washerwoman, for whom ten days was too long an interval.--TRANS.]--
The truth is, the interval from one decadi to another was too long for the working-classes, and for all those who were constantly occupied.
I do not know whether it was the effect of a deep-rooted habit, but people accustomed to working six days in succession, and resting on the seventh, found nine days of consecutive labor too long, and consequently the suppression of the decadi was universally approved. The decree which ordered the publication of marriage bans on Sunday was not so popular, for some persons were afraid of finding in this the revival of the former dominance of the clergy over the civil authorities.
A few days after the solemn re-establishment of the catholic worship, there arrived at the Tuileries a general officer, who would perhaps have preferred the establishment of Mahomet, and the change of Notre Dame into a mosque. He was the last general-in-chief of the army of Egypt, and was said to have turned Mussulman at Cairo, ex-Baron de Menou. In spite of the defeat by the English which he had recently undergone in Egypt, General Abdallah-Menou was well received by the First Consul, who appointed him soon after governor-general of Piedmont. General Menou was of tried courage, and had given proof of it elsewhere, as well as on the field of battle, and amid the most trying circumstances.
After the 10th of August, although belonging to the Republican party, he had accompanied Louis Sixteenth to the Assembly, and had been denounced as a Royalist by the Jacobins. In 1795 the Faubourg Saint Antoine having risen en masse, and advanced against the Convention, General Menou had surrounded and disarmed the seditious citizens; but he had refused to obey the atrocious orders of the commissioners of the Convention, who decreed that the entire faubourg should be burned, in order to punish the inhabitants for their continued insurrections. Some time afterwards, having again refused to obey the order these commissioners of the Convention gave, to mow down with grapeshot the insurrectionists of Paris, he had been summoned before a commission, which would not have failed to send him to the guillotine, if General Bonaparte, who had succeeded him in the command of the army of the interior, had not used all his influence to save his life. Such repeated acts of courage and generosity are enough, and more than enough, to cause us to pardon in this brave officer, the very natural pride with which he boasted of having armed the National Guards, and having caused the tricolor to be substituted for the white flag. The tricolor he called my flag. From the government of Piedmont he passed to that of Venice; and died in 1810
for love of an actress, whom he had followed from Venice to Reggio, in spite of his sixty years.
The institution of the order of the Legion of Honor preceded by a few days the proclamation of the Consulate for life, which proclamation was the occasion of a fete, celebrated on the 15th of August. This was the anniversary of the birth of the First Consul, and the opportunity was used in order to make for the first time this anniversary a festival.
On that day the First Consul was thirty-three years old.
In the month of October following I went with the First Consul on his journey into Normandy, where we stopped at Ivry, and the First Consul visited the battlefield. He said, on arriving there, "Honor to the memory of the best Frenchman who ever sat upon the throne of France," and ordered the restoration of the column, which had been formerly erected, in memory of the victory achieved by Henry the Fourth. The reader will perhaps desire to read here the inscriptions, which were engraved by his order, on the four faces of the pyramid.
First Inscription.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL, TO THE MEMORY
OF HENRY THE FOURTH, VICTORIOUS OVER THE
ENEMIES OF THE STATE, ON THE FIELD
OF IVRY, 14TH MARCH, 1590.
Second Inscription.
GREAT MEN LOVE THE GLORY OF THOSE WHO RESEMBLE THEM.
Third Inscription.
THE 7TH BRUMAIRE, YEAR XI, OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL, HAVING VISITED THIS FIELD, ORDERED THE REBUILDING
OF THE MONUMENT DESTINED TO PERPETUATE THE MEMORY OF
HENRY IV., AND THE VICTORY OF IVRY.
Fourth Inscription.
THE WOES EXPERIENCED BY FRANCE, AT THE EPOCH
OF THE BATTLE OF IVRY, WERE THE RESULT
OF THE APPEAL MADE BY THE OPPOSING PARTIES IN FRANCE TO
SPAIN AND ENGLAND. EVERY FAMILY, EVERY PARTY
WHICH CALLS IN FOREIGN POWERS TO ITS AID, HAS MERITED AND WILL MERIT, TO THE MOST DISTANT POSTERITY
THE MALEDICTION OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE.
All these inscriptions have since been effaced, and replaced by this, "On this spot Henry the Fourth stood the day of the battle of Ivry, 14th March, 1590."
Monsieur Ledier, Mayor of Ivry, accompanied the First Consul on this excursion; and the First Consul held a long conversation with him, in which he appeared to be agreeably impressed. He did not form so good an opinion of the Mayor of Evreux, and interrupted him abruptly, in the midst of a complimentary address which this worthy magistrate was trying to make him, by asking if he knew his colleague, the Mayor of Ivry. "No, general," replied the mayor. "Well, so much the worse for you; I trust you will make his acquaintance."
