Again, if Napoleon was bent solely on the invasion of England, why should he in June, 1805, have offered to Russia and Austria so gratuitous an affront as the annexation of the Ligurian Republic?  He must have known that this act would hurry them into war.  Thiers considers the annexation of Genoa a “grave fault” in the Emperor’s policy—­but many have doubted whether Napoleon did not intend Genoa to be the gate leading to a new avenue of glory, now that the success of his naval dispositions was doubtful.  Marbot gives the general opinion of military circles when he says that the Emperor wanted to provoke a continental war in order to escape the ridicule which the failure of his Boulogne plans would otherwise have aroused.  “The new coalition came just at the right moment to get him out of an annoying situation.”  The compiler of the Fouche “Memoirs,” which, though not genuine, may be accepted as generally correct, took the same view.  He attributes to Napoleon the noteworthy words:  “I may fail by sea, but not by land; besides, I shall be able to strike the blow before the old coalition machines are ready:  the kings have neither activity nor decision of character:  I do not fear old Europe.”  The Emperor also remarked to the Council of State that the expense of all the preparations at Boulogne was fully justified by the fact that they gave him “fully twenty days’ start over all enemies....  A pretext had to be found for raising the troops and bringing them together without alarming the Continental Powers:  and that pretext was afforded me by the projected descent upon England."[338]

It is also quite possible that his aim was Ireland as much as England.  It certainly was in the plan of September, 1804:  and doubtless it still held a prominent place in his mind, except during the few days when he pictured Calder vanquished and Nelson scouring the West Indies.  Then he doubtless fixed his gaze solely upon London.  But there is much indirect evidence which points to Ireland as forming at least a very important part of his scheme.  Both Nelson and Collingwood believed him to be aiming at Ireland.[339]

But indeed Napoleon is often unfathomable.  Herein lies much of the charm of Napoleonic studies.  He is at once the Achilles, the Mercury, and the Proteus of the modern world.  The ease with which his mind grasped all problems and suddenly concentrated its force on some new plan may well perplex posterity as it dazed his contemporaries.  If we were dealing with any other man than Napoleon, we might safely say that an invasion of England, before the command of the sea had been secured, was infinitely less likely than a descent on Ireland.  The landing of a corps d’armee there would have provoked a revolution; and British ascendancy would have vanished in a week.  Even had Nelson returned and swept the seas, Ireland would have been lost to the United Kingdom; and Britain, exhausted also by the expenses which the Boulogne preparations had compelled her to make for the defence of London, must have succumbed.