I.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--When preparations were made for the departure of our army of
England for Germany, it excited both laughter and murmuring among the
troops. Those who had always regarded the conquest of England as
impracticable in present circumstances, laughed, and those who had in
their imagination shared the wealth of your country, showed themselves
vexed at their disappointment. To keep them in good spirits, the company
of the theatre of the Vaudevilles was ordered from hence to Boulogne, and
several plays, composed for the occasion, were performed, in which the
Germans were represented as defeated, and the English begging for peace
on their knees, which the Emperor of the French grants upon condition
that one hundred guineas ready money should be paid to each of his
soldiers and sailors. Every corps in its turn was admitted gratis to
witness this exhibition of the end of all their labours; and you can form
no idea what effect it produced, though you are not a stranger to our
fickle and inconsiderate character. Ballads, with the same predictions
and the same promises, were written and distributed among the soldiers,
and sung by women sent by Fouche to the coast. As all productions of
this sort were, as usual, liberally rewarded by the Emperor, they poured
in from all parts of his Empire.

Three poets and authors of the theatre of the Vaudevilles, Barrel, Radet,
and Desfontaines, each received two hundred napoleons d'or for their
common production of a ballad, called "Des Adieux d'un Grenadier au Camp
de Boulogne." From this I have extracted the following sample, by which
you may judge of the remainder:

THE GRENADIER'S ADIEU

TO THE CAMP AT BOULOGNE

The drum is beating, we must march, We're summon'd to another field, A
field that to our conq'ring swords Shall soon a laurel harvest yield. If
English folly light the torch Of war in Germany again The loss is
theirs--the gain is ours March! march! commence the bright campaign.

There, only by their glorious deeds Our chiefs and gallant bands are
known; There, often have they met their foes, And victory was all their
own: There, hostile ranks, at our approach, Prostrate beneath our feet
shall bow; There, smiling conquest waits to twine A laurel wreath round
every brow.

Adieu, my pretty turf-built hut * Adieu, my little garden, too! I made, I
deck'd you all myself, And I am loth to part with you: But since my arms
I must resume, And leave