After these come some others, who again have neither talents to boast of nor crimes of which they have to be ashamed.  They have but little pretension to genius, none to consistency, and their honesty equals their capacity.  They joined our political revolution as they might have done a religious procession.  It was at that time a fashion; and they applauded our revolutionary innovations as they would have done the introduction of a new opera, of a new tragedy, of a new comedy, or of a new farce.  To this fraternity appertain a ci-devant Comte de Stult-Tracy, Dubois—­Dubay, Kellerman, Lambrechts, Lemercier, Pleville—­Le Pelley, Clement de Ris, Peregeaux, Berthelemy, Vaubois, Nrignon, D’Agier, Abrial, De Belloy, Delannoy, Aboville, and St. Martin La Motte.

Such are the characteristics of men whose ‘senatus consultum’ bestows an Emperor on France, a King on Italy, makes of principalities departments of a Republic, and transforms Republics into provinces or principalities.  To show the absurdly fickle and ridiculously absurd appellations of our shamefully perverted institutions, this Senate was called the Conservative Senate; that is to say, it was to preserve the republican consular constitution in its integrity, both against the; encroachments of the executive and legislative power, both against the manoeuvres of the factions, the plots of the royalists or monarchists, and the clamours of a populace of levellers.  But during the five years that these honest wiseacres have been preserving, everything has perished—­the Republic, the Consuls, free discussions, free election, the political liberty, and the liberty of the Press; all—­all are found nowhere but in old, useless, and rejected codes.  They have, however, in a truly patriotic manner taken care of their own dear selves.  Their salaries are more than doubled since 1799.

Besides mock Senators, mock praetors, mock quaestors, other ’nomina libertatis’ are revived, so as to make the loss of the reality so much the more galling.  We have also two curious commissions; one called “the Senatorial Commission of Personal Liberty,” and the other “the Senatorial Commission of the Liberty of the Press.”  The imprisonment without cause, and transportation without trial, of thousands of persons of both sexes weekly, show the grand advantages which arise from the former of these commissions; and the contents of our new books and daily prints evince the utility and liberality of the latter.

But from the past conduct of these our Senators, members of these commissions, one may easily conclude what is to be expected in future from their justice and patriotism.  Lenoin Laroche, at the head of the one, was formerly an advocate of some practice, but attended more to politics than to the business of his clients, and was, therefore, at the end of the session of the first assembly (of which he was a member), forced, for subsistence, to become the editor of an insignificant journal.  Here he preached licentiousness,