cannot become the subject of discussion in a public assembly; for instance, if I treat with Austria, and my Ambassador agrees to certain conditions, can those conditions be rejected by the Legislative Body?  It is a monstrous absurdity!  Things would be brought to a fine pass in this way!  Lucchesini and Markow would give dinners every day like Cambaceres; scatter their money about, buy men who are to be sold, and thus cause our propositions to be rejected.  This would be a fine way to manage matters!”

When Bonaparte, according to his custom, talked to me in the evening of what had passed in the Council, his language was always composed of a singular mixture of quotations from antiquity, historical references, and his own ideas.  He talked about the Romans, and I remember when Mr. Fox was at Paris that he tried to distinguish himself before that Foreign Minister, whom he greatly esteemed.  In his enlarged way of viewing the world Bonaparte divided it into two large states, the East and the West:  “What matters,” he would often say, “that two countries are separated by rivers or mountains, that they speak different languages?  With very slight shades of variety France, Spain, England, Italy, and Germany, have the same manners and customs, the same religion, and the same dress.  In them a man can only marry one wife; slavery is not allowed; and these are the great distinctions which divide the civilised inhabitants of the globe.  With the exception of Turkey, Europe is merely a province of the world, and our warfare is but civil strife.  There is also another way of dividing nations, namely, by land and water.”  Then he would touch on all the European interests, speak of Russia, whose alliance he wished for, and of England, the mistress of the seas.  He usually ended by alluding to what was then his favourite scheme—­an expedition to India.

When from these general topics Bonaparte descended to the particular interests of France, he still spoke like a sovereign; and I may truly say that he showed himself more jealous than any sovereign ever was of the dignity of France, of which he already considered himself the sole representative.  Having learned that a captain of the English navy had visited the dockyard of Brest passing himself off as a merchant, whose passport he had borrowed, he flew into a rage because no one had ventured to arrest him.—­[see James’ Naval History for an account of Sir Sidney Smith’s daring exploit.]—­Nothing was lost on Bonaparte, and he made use of this fact to prove to the Council of State the necessity of increasing the number of commissary-generals of police.  At a meeting of the Council he said, “If there had been a commissary of police at Brest he would have arrested the English captain and sent him at once to Paris.  As he was acting the part of a spy I would have had him shot as such.  No Englishman, not even a nobleman, or the English Ambassador, should be admitted into our dockyards.  I will soon regulate all this.”  He afterwards said to me, “There are plenty of wretches who are selling me every day to the English without my being subjected to English spying.”