The government knew that Napoleon was again admired by the people, and that they regretted his loss. To counteract these sentiments, coarse and vulgar caricatures were exposed to the eyes of the populace; and his person and his character became the theme of false and scandalous libels published under the direction of the ministry. No effect was produced. The mob looked at the caricatures with a smile of contempt; and the actions of Napoleon, which, under his reign, excited the greatest censure and disapprobation, now found the most zealous apologists and defenders.
If Napoleon was accused of having overthrown the republican government, and enslaved the country by the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, they answered[17]:--"At that era, anarchy, emboldened by the misfortunes of the country, could only be repressed by victory. Civil war had been organized in twenty departments; insurrections had taken place in many, rapine infected them all; robbery and murder took place with impunity on many of the principal high roads. Two dreadful laws, the law of the hostages, and that of the forced loans, occasioned greater evils than they could cure. No nation had ever existed in which the finances of the state were in equal confusion; and a succession of partial bankruptcies prolonged the opprobrium of the general bankruptcy of the country. The money of the public was robbed whilst in transit on the high roads. Robbers even carried it off from the houses of the receivers, and the deficiency could not be made good by the most violent exactions. The jacobins were on the point of recommencing their reign of terror. The royalists had recourse without scruple to all the measures which might enable them to satiate their revenge; and the peaceable friends of the law were placed between the conflicting parties in a state of disgraceful weakness and neutrality. Such was the desperate situation of France when Napoleon seized the helm of the state. Instead of imputing the slavery of the country to him, he ought to have been blessed; for he delivered us from the spoliations, the murders, and the tyranny which were consequent upon the reign of anarchy and terror."
[Footnote 17: I cannot express their thoughts more forcibly than by copying the passage, which I have quoted in my text, from the View of the Revolution by Lacretelle.]