cognised 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.

Towards the autumn I believed myself forgotten by Bonaparte: I
heard from Paris that he was completely absorbed in his English
expedition, that he was preparing to set out for the coast, and to
embark himself to direct the descent. I put no faith in this
project; but I flattered myself that he would be satisfied if I
lived at a few leagues distance from Paris, with the small number of
friends who would come that distance to visit a person in disgrace.
I thought also that being sufficiently well known to make my
banishment talked of all over Europe, the first consul would wish to
avoid this eclat. I had calculated according to my own wishes; but I
was not yet thoroughly acquainted with the character of the man who
was to domineer over Europe. Far from wishing to keep upon terms
with persons who had distinguished themselves, in whatever line that
was, he wished to make all such merely a pedestal for his own
statue, either by treading them underfoot, or by making them
subservient to his designs.

I arrived at a little country seat, I had at ten leagues from Paris,
with the