“Well! the English Ambassador is gone; and we must again go to war.  Were my generals as great fools as some of my Ministers, I should despair indeed of the issue of my contest with these insolent islanders.  Many believe that had I been more ably supported in my Cabinet, I should not have been under the necessity of taking the field, as a rupture might have been prevented.”

“Such, Citizen First Consul!” answered the trembling and bowing Minister, “is not the opinion of the Counsellor of State, Citizen Joseph Bonaparte.”

“Well, then,” said Napoleon, as recollecting himself, “England wishes for war, and she shall suffer for it.  This shall be a war of extermination, depend upon it.”

The name of Joseph alone moderated Napoleon’s fury, and changed its object.  It is with him what the harp of David was with Saul.  Talleyrand knows it, and is no loser by that knowledge.  I must, however, in justice, say that, had Bonaparte followed his Minister’s advice, and suffered himself to be entirely guided by his counsel, all hostilities with England at that time might have been avoided; her Government would have been lulled into security by the cession of Malta, and some commercial regulations, and her future conquest, during a time of peace, have been attempted upon plans duly organized, that might have ensured success.  He never ceased to repeat, “Citizen First Consul! some few years longer peace with Great Britain, and the ‘Te Deums’ of modern Britons for the conquest and possession of Malta, will be considered by their children as the funeral hymns of their liberty and independence.”

It was upon this memorable occasion of Lord Whitworth’s departure, that Bonaparte is known to have betrayed the most outrageous acts of passion; he rudely forced his mother from his closet, and forbade his own sisters to approach his person; he confined Madame Bonaparte for several hours to her chamber; he dismissed favourite generals; treated with ignominy members of his Council of State; and towards his physician, secretaries, and principal attendants, he committed unbecoming and disgraceful marks of personal outrage.  I have heard it affirmed that, though her husband, when shutting her up in her dressing-room, put the key in his pocket, Madame Napoleon found means to resent the ungallant behaviour of her spouse, with the assistance of Madame Remusat.

LETTER III.

Paris, August, 1805.

My Lord:—­No act of Bonaparte’s government has occasioned so many, so opposite, and so violent debates, among the remnants of revolutionary factions comprising his Senate and Council of State, as the introduction and execution of the religious concordat signed with the Pope.  Joseph was here again the ostensible negotiator, though he, on this as well as on former occasions, concluded nothing that had not been prepared and digested by Talleyrand.