Note 455 — Chapter XVI
Reading edition
"Every one of the ministers wished to give him an entertainment, but he only accepted a dinner from the Minister of Justice (Cambacérès.) He requested that the principal lawyers of the Republic might be there. He was very cheerful at this dinner, conversed at large on the criminal code, to the great astonishment of Tronchet, Treilhard, Merlin, and Target, and expressed his desire to see persons and property placed under the guard of a simple code, suitable to an enlightened age."—Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 64.