of splendor and renown which, at first, had seemed to him but as the magic mirage of his dreams, but which now appeared as the glittering truth and reality of his waking hours.  The Luxembourg was then too small for the three consuls, but they had to go very circumspectly and carefully to work to prepare the way to the old royal palace of the Bourbons.  It would not do to oust the representatives of the people, who held their sessions there, too suddenly; the distrustful republicans must not be made to apprehend that there was any scheme on foot to revolutionize France back into monarchy, and to again stifle the many-headed monster of the republic under a crown and a sceptre.  It was necessary, before entering the Tuileries, to give the French people proof that men might still be very good republicans, even although they might wish to be housed in the bedchamber of a king.

Hence, before the three consuls transferred their quarters to the Tuileries, the royal palace had to be transformed to a residence worthy of the representatives of the republic.  So, the first move made was to set up a handsome bust of the elder Brutus—­a war-trophy of Bonaparte’s, which he had brought with him from Italy—­in one of the galleries of the Tuileries; and then David had to carve out some other statues of the republican heroes of Greece and Rome and place them in the saloons.  A number of democratic republicans, who were defeated and exiled on the 13th Vendemiaire, were permitted to return to France, and news of the death of WASHINGTON, the noblest and wisest of all republicans, arriving just at that time, Bonaparte ordered that the whole army should wear the badge of mourning for ten days.  Black bands were worn on the arm, and sable streamers waved from the standards, in honor of the deceased republican hero.

However, when these ten days were past, and France and her army had sufficiently expressed their regret, the three consuls entered the Tuileries through the grand portal, on the two sides of which towered aloft two liberty-poles that still bore the old inscription of the republic of 1792.  On the tree to the right was the legend “August 10, 1792,” and on the one to the left, “Royalty in France is overthrown and will never rise again.”  It was between these two significant symbols that Bonaparte first strode into the Tuileries.  It was a very long and imposing procession of carriages which moved that day toward the palace, through the streets of the capital.  They only lacked the outward pomp and magnificence which rendered the latter fetes of the empire so remarkable.  With the exception of the splendid vehicle in which the three consuls rode, and which was drawn by the six grays presented by the Emperor of Austria, there were but few good equipages to be seen.  France of the new day had not had the opportunity to build any state-coaches, and those of old France had been too shamefully misused to admit of their ever serving again; for it would be out of the question to employ, in this solemn procession of the three consuls, the state-carriages of the old aristocracy, that had served as the vehicles in which the democratic republic had transported dead dogs to their place of deposit.  Such had been the fact in the September days of the year 1793.