arrested in France, in consequence of this unexpected measure. These consisted of many of the nobility, commercial men, and travellers. The seizure of two French merchant vessels in the bay of Audierne, by two English frigates, was stated as the immediate canse of this retaliating measure.
But neither internal conspiracies nor external wars, appear to have diverted the mind of the First Consul in the least from prosecuting the schemes of his ambition, to secure himself the permanent exercise of sovereign power. After the chief magistracy had been conferred on him for ten years, he seemed to think the title of First Consul was too simple to convey an adequate idea of the dignified elevation to which he had been raised. Equally ambitious of undivided power and titular splendour, he aspired to the Imperial purple. The measure of conferring on Bonaparte this rank and title, and making them hereditary in his family, according to the laws of primogeniture, was for the first time agitated in the Tribunate in the Beginning of May, when the Tribunate proceeded to vote, "That Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul, be proclaimed Emperor of the French, and invested with the government of the French Republic. That the title of Emperor, and the Imperial power, be made hereditary in his family, in the male line, according to the order of primogeniture: that in introducing into the organization of the constituted authorities, the modifications rendered necessary by the establishment of hereditary power, the equality, the liberty, and the rights of the people, shall be preserved in all their integrity." This decree was carried by acclamation, with the single exception of the vote of one member, who spoke against its adoption. On the 2nd of December, the ceremony of the coronation was celebrated with extraordinary pomp, in the cathedral of Notre Dame.
In May, 1805, the storm that had again been raised
