[Footnote 88:  Instructions of Talleyrand to the French envoys (September 11th); also Ernouf’s “Maret, Duc de Bassano,” chs. xxvii. and xxviii., for the bona fides of Pitt in these negotiations.

It seems strange that Baron du Casse, in his generally fair treatment of the English case, in his “Negociations relatives aux Traites de Luneville et d’Amiens,” should have prejudiced his readers at the outset by referring to a letter which he attributes to Lord Malmesbury.  It bears no date, no name, and purports to be “Une Lettre de Lord Malmesbury, oubliee a Lille.”  How could the following sentences have been penned by Malmesbury, and written to Lord Grenville?—­“Mais enfin, outre les regrets sinceres de Meot et des danseuses de l’Opera, j’eus la consolation de voir en quittant Paris, que des Francais et une multitude de nouveaux convertis a la religion catholique m’accompagnaient de leurs voeux, de leurs prieres, et presque de leurs larmes....  L’evenement de Fructidor porta la desolation dans le coeur de tous les bons ennemis de la France.  Pour ma part, j’en fut consterne:  je ne l’avais point prevu.”  It is obviously the clumsy fabrication of a Fructidorian, designed for Parisian consumption:  it was translated by a Whig pamphleteer under the title “The Voice of Truth!”—­a fit sample of that partisan malevolence which distorted a great part of our political literature in that age.]

[Footnote 89:  Bonaparte’s letters of September 28th and October 7th to Talleyrand.]

[Footnote 90:  See too Marsh’s “Politicks of Great Britain and France,” ch. xiii.; “Correspondence of W.A.  Miles on the French Revolution,” letters of January 7th and January 18th, 1793; also Sybel’s “Europe during the French Revolution,” vol. ii.]

[Footnote 91:  Pallain, “Le Ministere de Talleyrand sous le Directoire,” p. 42.]

[Footnote 92:  Bourrienne, “Memoirs,” vol. i., ch. xii.  See too the despatch of Sandoz-Rollin to Berlin of February 28th, 1798, in Bailleu’s “Preussen und Frankreich,” vol. i., No. 150.]

[Footnote 93:  The italics are my own.  I wish to call attention to the statement in view of the much-debated question whether in 1804-5 Napoleon intended to invade our land, unless he gained maritime supremacy.  See Desbriere’s “Projets de Debarquement aux Iles Britanniques,” vol. i., ad fin.]

[Footnote 94:  Letter of October 10th, 1797; see too those of August 16th and September 13th.]

[Footnote 95:  The plan of menacing diverse parts of our coasts was kept up by Bonaparte as late as April 13th, 1798.  In his letter of this date he still speaks of the invasion of England and Scotland, and promises to return from Egypt in three or four months, so as to proceed with the invasion of the United Kingdom.  Boulay de la Meurthe, in his work, “Le Directoire et l’Expedition d’Egypte,” ch. i., seems to take this promise seriously.  In any case the Directors’ hopes for the invasion of Ireland were dashed by the premature rising of the Irish malcontents in May, 1798.  For Poussielgue’s mission to Malta, see Lavalette’s “Mems.,” ch. xiv.]