The London newspapers attacked the first consul bitterly enough; the English nation was too enlightened not to perceive the drift of his actions.  Whenever any translations from the English papers were brought to him, he used to apostrophize Lord Whitworth, who answered him with equal coolness and propriety that the King of Great Britain himself was not protected from the sarcasms of newswriters, and that the constitution permitted no violation of their liberty on that score.  However, the English government caused M. Peltier to be prosecuted for some articles in his journal directed against the first consul.  Peltier had the honour to be defended by Mr. Mackintosh, who made upon this occasion one of the most eloquent speeches that has been read in modern times; I will mention farther on, under what circumstances this speech came into my hands.

CHAPTER 11.

Rupture with England.—­Commencement of my Exile.

I was at Geneva, living from taste and from circumstances in the society of the English, when the news of the declaration of war reached us.  The rumour immediately spread that the English travellers would all be made prisoners:  as nothing similar had ever been heard of in the law of European nations, I gave no credit to it, and my security was nearly proving injurious to my friends:  they contrived however, to save themselves.  But persons entirely unconnected with political affairs, among whom was Lord Beverley, the father of eleven children, returning from Italy with his wife and daughters, and a hundred other persons provided with French passports, some of them repairing to different universities for education, others to the South for the recovery of their health, all travelling under the safeguard of laws recognised by all nations, were arrested, and have been languishing for ten years in country towns, leading the most miserable life that the imagination can conceive.  This scandalous act was productive of no advantage; scarcely two thousand English, including very few military, became the victims of this caprice of the tyrant, making a few poor individuals suffer, to gratify his spleen against the invincible nation to which they belong.

During the summer of 1803 began the great farce of the invasion of England; flat-bottomed boats were ordered to be built from one end of France to the other; they were even constructed in the forests on the borders of the great roads.  The French, who have in all things a very strong rage for imitation, cut out deal upon deal, and heaped phrase upon phrase:  while in Picardy some erected a triumphal arch, on which was inscribed, “the road to London,” others wrote, “To Bonaparte the Great.  We request you will admit us on board the vessel which will bear you to England, and with you the destiny and the vengeance of the French people.”  This vessel, on board of which Bonaparte was to embark, has had time to wear herself out in harbour.  Others put, as a device for their flags in the roadstead, “a good wind, and thirty hours”.  In short, all France resounded with gasconades, of which Bonaparte alone knew perfectly the secret.