The First Consul was equally astute. It is said that during the winter a member of the council of state expressed his satisfaction with the peace. "Do the signatures of the great powers make them any less our foes?" was the rejoinder of Bonaparte. The response was of course in the negative. "Well, then," he continued, "draw the necessary conclusion. If these states are always keeping war _in petto_ in order to renew it, the sooner it comes the better; for with every day fades the memory of their defeats, while the prestige of our victories is forgotten in equal measure. Every advantage, then, is on their side. Remember that a first consul is in no respect like these kings by the grace of God, who look on their kingdoms as heirlooms. This is for them an advantage, for us a hindrance. Hated by its neighbors, compelled to hold in restraint various classes of internal malcontents and at the same time to inspire respect in so many external foes, the French state needs glory, and therefore war. It must either surpass all others or fall. I shall put up with peace as long as my neighbors are able to keep it, but I shall think it an advantage if they compel me to take up my arms before they are rusty.... From our point of view I regard the peace as a short armistice, and consider myself doomed to fight almost without intermission throughout my term of office." This language, though credibly reported, was set down at a much later time, as also was a statement of Lucien's in his memoirs that it was ambition, not patriotism, which after the peace of Amiens made war a necessity to his brother. The notices of the time which have come to us from those not in the thick of plot and intrigue--men like Rapp and others of his kind--create a different impression: that Bonaparte was heartily sick of war, and really desired peace, not of course a peace of recession, but one of further penetration for French prestige and influence, an invading peace as it has been aptly styled.
Yet it is impossible to feel sure of the First Consul's innermost desire, in view of the great army at his back eager for war and still posted at the most advantageous strategic points of Europe. Where such an army exists there must be a powerful military party, and such a party must influence a great general. As late as 1875 the great military leaders of the German Empire nearly thwarted the statecraft of Bismarck, and almost succeeded in renewing the Franco-Prussian war for the purpose of reducing France to vassalage. Similar influences may have weighed at times with Bonaparte; but the charge that already in 1802 France was the destined victim of Bonaparte's ambition, and all Europe but its tool, remains unproved. He was not yet convinced that war was essential for the extension of his influence, and there is no proof until two years later that his dreams of Western empire had taken definite form. Then, when France was fighting for her life with an England governed by a narrow-minded and unwholesome king, and when dynastic Europe was all allied against him, he appears to have become convinced that the time had finally arrived when, to defeat England and destroy dynastic rule in Europe, he must by all means at his command unite the Western world under his sway.