, and in order to defray the expense of
publication, sold one of his farms for the sum of ten thousand francs.
The book came out; but nobody bought it, in consequence, if Barere is
to be believed, of the villainy of Mr Pitt, who bribed the Directory
to order the Reviewers not to notice so formidable an attack on the
maritime greatness of perfidious Albion.

Barere had been about three years at Bordeaux when he received
intelligence that the mob of the town designed him the honour of a visit
on the ninth of Thermidor, and would probably administer to him what
he had, in his defence of his friend Lebon, described as substantial
justice under forms a little harsh. It was necessary for him to disguise
himself in clothes such as were worn by the carpenters of the dock. In
this garb, with a bundle of wood shavings under his arm, he made his
escape into the vineyards which surrounded the city, lurked during some
days in a peasant's hut, and, when the dreaded anniversary was over,
stole back into the city. A few months later he was again in danger. He
now thought that he should be nowhere so safe as in the neighbourhood
of Paris. He quitted Bordeaux, hastened undetected through those towns
where four years before his life had been in extreme danger, passed
through the capital in the morning twilight, when none were in the
streets except shop-boys taking down the shutters, and arrived safe
at the pleasant village of St Ouen on the Seine. Here he remained in
seclusion during some months. In the meantime Bonaparte returned from
Egypt, placed himself at the head of a coalition of discontented parties,
covered his designs with the authority of the Elders, drove the Five
Hundred out of their hall at the point of the bayonet, and became
absolute monarch of France under the name of First Consul.

Barere assures us that these events almost broke his heart; that he
could not bear to see France again subject to a master; and that if the
representatives had been worthy of that honourable name, they would
have arrested the ambitious general who insulted them. These feelings,
however, did not prevent him from soliciting the protection of the new
government, and from sending to the First Consul a handsome copy of the
essay on the Liberty of the Seas.

The policy of Bonaparte was to cover all the past with a general
oblivion. He belonged half to the Revolution and half to the reaction.
He was an upstart and a sovereign; and had therefore som