tify it, but that, having pledged his
word, he felt bound to abide by it. This story seems consonant with
the whole behaviour of Cornwallis, so creditable to him as a man, so
damaging to him as a diplomatist. The later events of the negotiation
aroused much annoyance at Downing Street, and the conduct of
Cornwallis met with chilling disapproval.

The First Consul, on the other hand, showed his appreciation of his
brother's skill with unusual warmth; for when they appeared together
at the opera in Paris, he affectionately thrust his elder brother to
the front of the State box to receive the plaudits of the audience at
the advent of a definite peace. That was surely the purest and noblest
joy which the brothers ever tasted.

With what feelings of pride, not unmixed with awe, must the brothers
have surveyed their career. Less than nine years had elapsed since
their family fled from Corsica, and landed on the coast of Provence,
apparently as bankrupt in their political hopes as in their material
fortunes. Thrice did the fickle goddess cast Napoleon to the ground in
the first two years of his new life, only that his wondrous gifts and
sublime self-confidence might tower aloft the more conspicuously,
bewildering alike the malcontents of Paris, the generals of the old
Empire, the peoples of the Levant, and the statesmen of Britain. Of
all these triumphs assuredly the last was not the least. The Peace of
Amiens left France the arbitress of Europe, and, by restoring to her
all her lost colonies, it promised to place her in the van of the
oceanic and colonizing peoples.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XV

A FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE

ST. DOMINGO--LOUISIANA--INDIA--AUSTRALIA

"Il n'y a rien dans l'histoire du monde de comparable aux forces
navales de l'Angleterre, a l'etendue et a la richesse de son
commerce, a la masse de ses dettes, de ses defenses, de ses moyens,
et a la fragilite des bases sur lesquelles repose l'edifice immense
de sa fortune."--BARON MALOUET, _Considerations historiques sur
l'Empire de la Mer_.

There are abundant reasons for thinking that Napoleon valued the Peace
of Amiens as a necessary preliminary to the restoration of the French
Colonial Empire. A comparison of the dates at which he set on foot his
oceanic schemes will show that they nearly all had their inception in
the closing months of 1801 and in the course of the following year.
The so