During the festival in celebration of the 14th of July, which I have already alluded to, the Emperor before leaving the Hotel des Invalides had announced that he would go in person to distribute the decorations of the Legion of Honour to the army assembled in the camp of Boulogne.  He was not long before he fulfilled his promise.  He left St. Cloud on the 18th and travelled with such rapidity that the next morning, whilst every one was busy with preparations for his reception, he was already at that port, in the midst of the labourers, examining the works.  He seemed to multiply himself by his inconceivable activity, and one might say that he was present everywhere.

At the Emperor’s departure it was generally believed at Paris that the distribution of the crosses at the camp of Boulogne was only a pretext, and that Bonaparte had at length gone to carry into execution the project of an invasion of England, which every body supposed he contemplated.  It was, indeed, a pretext.  The Emperor wished to excite more and more the enthusiasm of the army—­to show himself to the military invested in his new dignity, to be present at some grand manoeuvres, and dispose the army to obey the first signal he might give.  How indeed, on beholding such great preparations, so many transports created, as it were, by enchantment, could any one have supposed that be did not really intend to attempt a descent on England?  People almost fancied him already in London; it was known that all the army corps echelloned on the coast from Maples to Ostend were ready to embark.  Napoleon’s arrival in the midst of his troops inspired them, if possible, with a new impulse.  The French ports on the Channel had for a long period been converted into dockyards and arsenals, where works were carried on with that inconceivable activity which Napoleon knew so well how to inspire.  An almost incredible degree of emulation prevailed amongst the commanders of the different camps, and it descended from rank to rank to the common soldiers and even to the labourers.

As every one was eager to take advantage of the slightest effects of chance, and exercised his ingenuity in converting them into prognostics of good fortune for the Emperor, those who had access to him did not fail to call his attention to some remains of a Roman camp which had been discovered at the Tour d’Ordre, where the Emperor’s tent was pitched.  This was considered an evident proof that the French Caesar occupied the camp which the Roman Caesar had formerly constructed to menace Great Britain.  To give additional force to this allusion, the Tour d’Ordre resumed the name of Caesar’s Tower.  Some medals of William the Conqueror, found in another spot, where, perhaps, they had been buried for the purpose of being dug up, could not fail to satisfy the most incredulous that Napoleon must conquer England.