After the coup d'etat of Brumaire, not only are the vanquished of the old parties all brought back under the protection of the law, but, again, their notables are promoted to the highest offices.

Among the monarchists of the Constituent Assembly Mabuet is made councilor of State, and Maury archbishop of Paris; forty-seven other ecclesiastics who, like himself, refused to take the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, are appointed, like him, to episcopal thrones.

Among the Feuillants of the Legislative Assembly, Vaublanc is made prefect, Beugnot a councilor of State and minister of the finances in the grand-duchy of Berg, Matthieu Dumas a brigadier-general and director of reviews, Narbonne becomes the aid-de-camp and the intimate interlocutor of Napoleon, and then ambassador to Vienna; if Lafayette had been willing, not to ask for but to accept the post, he would have been made a marshal of France .-- Among the few Girondists or Federalists who did not perish after the 2nd June, Riouffe is prefect and baron, Lanjuinais is senator and count; among others proscribed, or half proscribed, the new Regime restores to and places at the head of affairs the superior and special employees whom the Reign of Terror had driven away, or singled out for slaughter, particularly the heads of the financial and diplomatic services who, denounced by Robespierre on the 8th Thermidor, or arrested on the morning of the 9th already felt their necks under the blade of the guillotine; Reinhart and Otto are ambassadors, Mollien is count and treasury minister, Miot becomes councilor of state, Comte de Melito minister of finances at Naples, while Gaudin is made minister of finances in France and Duc de Gaete.

Among the transported or fugitives of Fructidor, Barthelemy becomes senator, Barbe-Marbois director of the Treasury and first president of the Cour des Comptes; Simeon, councilor of State and then minister of justice in Westphalia; Portalis is made minister of worship, and Fontanes grand-master of the University.

The First Consul passes the sponge over all political antecedents: not only does he summon to his side the moderates and half-moderates of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, of the Convention and of the Directory, but again he seeks recruits among pure royalists and pure Jacobins, among the men the most devoted to the ancient Regime and amongst those most compromised by the Revolution, at both extremities of the most extreme opinions.