The celebration was set for February ninth, 1800, and proved a great success. It had already been decided to reawaken public enthusiasm by instituting great military ceremonies when the captured standards from Aboukir were finally deposited in the Hospital of the Invalides. These and the Washington festival were interwoven with consummate art: while the First Consul's victories were recalled in the imposing parade, the simple and impressive words of an able orator, M. de Fontanes, reminded the nation that the immortal Washington had shown as a general more strength than brilliancy, and had awakened little enthusiasm but great confidence; that he was one of the men inspired to rule who appear from time to time in the world; that he was neither partizan nor demagogue; and that when peace had once been signed he had laid down his arms to become the wisest of constructive legislators. "Yes, Washington! thy counsels shall be heard--thou warrior, legislator, administrator! He who in his youth surpassed thee in battle, like thee shall close with conquering hands the wounds of his country." Minds less quick than those of the Parisians would have discovered the moral of the address even without the peroration. When the official journal next day published the glowing words and described the brilliant ceremony, the coming monarch was already lodged under the roof of the Bourbons. Since Bonaparte had made the liberation of Lafayette an indispensable condition of the treaty ratified at Campo Formio, it might have been expected that this name, so long used elsewhere in a natural juxtaposition, would on such an occasion have been mentioned in connection with that of Washington; but the honors of that day were to be shared with the dead foreigner, not with the living Frenchman.
[Footnote 15: Further references are the Tratchefski Archives in Vol. LXX, Société d'histoire de Russie. Martens: Traités de la Russie. Montgelas: Denkwürdigkeiten. Eckart: Montgelas. Fournier: Studien und Skizzen. Reinach: Correspondance Royaliste. Pingaud: d'Antraigues. Stanhope: Life of Pitt.]
Policy of the First Consul -- His Family -- The New Officials -- The Council of State -- Bonaparte's Ubiquity -- Foreign Affairs -- France and Russia -- The Mistake of Prussia -- Peace Impossible -- Bonaparte's Plans -- His Aims -- The Temper of Great Britain -- Bonaparte's Appeal to the Army -- The Military Situation.