Napoleon's suppositions became certainties to these courtiers and also to the populace.
Peace still reigned on the continent; admiration for the Emperor was unanimous in France; he cajoled all interests, persons, vanities, and things, in short, everything, even memories.

This attack, therefore, directed against his senator, seemed in the eyes of all an assault upon the public welfare.

The luckless and innocent gentlemen were the objects of general opprobrium.

A few nobles living quietly on their estates deplored the affair among themselves but dared not open their lips; in fact, how was it possible for them to oppose the current of public opinion.

Throughout the department the deaths of the eleven persons killed by the Simeuse brothers in 1792 from the windows of the hotel Cinq-Cygne were brought up against them.