Page:Life of Napoleon Buonaparte.pdf/8

 extinction of the French Directory, which was followed by the constitution, called that of the year eight; in which Buonaparte was confirmed first consul and Cambaceres and Le Brun assistant consuls. The same commission created a senate, a council of state, a tribunate, and a legislative body.

It was a remarkable trait in the character of Buonaparte, that on the attainment of any striking ascendancy, he always stopped into action with confidence and conscious superiority. On the present occasion he prepared for the prosecution of the war with his usual vigour and energy. Leaving Paris in April 1800, he proceeded with a well appointed army for Italy, passed the Great St Bernard by an extraordinary march, and bursting into that country, like a torrent, utterly, defeated the Austrians under general Melas at Maringo, on the 14th of the following June. This battle and that of Hohenlinden, a second time enabled him to dictate terms of peace to Austria, the result of which was the treaty of Luneville with that power, and ultimately that of Amiens with Great Britain, concluded in March 1802. All these successes advanced him another step in his now evident march to sovereignty, by securing him the consulate for life, a measure which excited great dissatisfaction in Great Britain, and contributed, together with the disputes concerning Malta and the treatment of Switzerland, to a rapid renewal of hostilities, the cessation of which had been little more than a truce.

The despair of the friends of the Bourbons at the increasing progress of Buonaparte towards sovereign sway, at this time produced an endeavour at assassination by the explosion of a machine filled with combustibles, as he passed in his