Napoleon I on England

On the conduct of the English government after the Peace of Amiens (Le Moniteur, 20 Thermidor An X — August 8th 1802)

The Times, which is said to be under ministerial surveillance, is full of perpetual invective against France. Two of its four deadly pages are used every day to spread flat slander. Everything low, vile, evil that imagination can conjure, the wretch attributes to the French government. What is its goal?… Who pays for it?… Whom do we want to act upon?
A French newspaper written by miserable emigrants, the most impure remnant, vile refuse, without country, without honor, soiled with all crimes, which is not in the power of any amnesty to wash away, bids even higher on the Times.
Eleven bishops presided over by the atrocious bishop of Arras, rebels to the Fatherland and the Church, meet in London. They print libels against the bishops of the French clergy; they insult the government and the pope, because they have re-established the peace of the gospel among forty million Christians.
The island of Jersey is full of bandits sentenced to death by the courts, for crimes committed after the peace, for assassinations, rapes, arsons!!! The Treaty of Amiens stipulates that people accused of crimes and murders will be handed over respectively; the assassins who are in Jersey, on the contrary, are welcomed! They leave unannounced on fishing boats, land on our coasts, murder the richest owners and burn stacks of wheat or barns.

Georges openly wears his red ribbon in London, as a reward for the infernal machine which destroyed a district of Paris, and killed thirty women, children and peaceful city dwellers. Doesn't this special protection allow us to think that had he succeeded, he would have been granted the Order of the Garter?
Let us make some reflections on this strange behavior of our neighbors.
When two great nations make peace, is it to cause mutual trouble? To win and settle crimes? Is it to give money and protection to all men who want to disturb the state? And does the freedom of the press, in a country, extend to the point of being able to say of a friendly and newly reconciled nation what one would not dare say of a government against which one would have a war to the death? Is not a nation responsible to another nation for all the acts and conduct of its citizens? Do the bills of Parliament not forbid insulting allied governments, and even their ambassadors?

It is said that Richelieu, under Louis XIII, supported the revolution of England and helped to precipitate Charles I on the scaffold. M. de Choiseul, and after him the ministers of Louis XVI, undoubtedly excited the insurrection of America; the former English ministry knew how to take revenge. It incited the massacres of September and influenced in more than one way the movements that caused Louis XVI to perish on the scaffold, destroy and burn our primary manufacturing towns, Lyon, etc., etc. This series of movements and influence which has been so disastrous to both states for so many centuries, do we then wish to extend it further? And would it not be more reasonable and more consistent with the results of experience, to influence each other reciprocally through good commercial relations, through respective surveillance which protects trade, prevents the manufacture of counterfeit money, and refuses criminals a refuge?

Besides, what result can the English government expect by fomenting troubles in the Church, by welcoming and vomiting back into our territory the brigands from the coasts of the North and Morbihan, covered in the blood of the main and richest owners of these unfortunate departments, by spreading by all means, far from containing them and repressing them severely, all the slander with which the English or French writings printed in London are filled? Does it not know that the French government is more solidly established today than the English government? And do they believe that reciprocity would be difficult for the French government?

What would be the effect of this exchange of insults, of this influence of insurrectional committees, of this protection and this encouragement granted to the various assassins? What would civilization, commerce and the well-being of the two nations gain?…
Either the English government authorizes and tolerates these public and private crimes, and then we can tell it that this conduct is not worthy of British generosity, civilization, and honor; or he cannot prevent them, and then we can tell him that there is no government wherever there are no means to repress assassination, calumny, and to protect the social order of Europe.

The English government having declared war, the First Consul, on 30 Floréal an XI (May 20th 1805), brought to the Senate, the Legislative Corps, and to the Tribunate, a message where he said (Bulletin des Lois)

In vain did France invoke the sworn faith; in vain has she recalled the forms received by the nations; in vain did she agree to turn a blind eye to the current non-execution of the Treaty of Amiens from which England claimed to free itself… In vain did she propose to request the mediation of the powers which guaranteed the stipulation whose abrogation was requested. All her proposals were rejected, and the demands of England became more imperious and more absolute. It was not in the principles of the government to give in to threats; it was not in its power to bend the majesty of the French people under laws that were prescribed to them with forms so haughty and so novel; if it had done so, it would have consecrated for England the right to cancel by its sole will all the stipulations which oblige it towards France… The government stopped at the line which its principles and duties had outlined. The negotiations are interrupted, and we are ready to fight, if we are attacked. At the very least we will fight to maintain the faith of the treaties, and for the honor of the French name.

On 5 Prairial An XI (May 25th 1803), the consul responded to the addresses of the senate, the Legislative Corps and the Tribunate (Le Moniteur 6 Prairial An XI— May 26th 1803)

We are forced to wage war to repel an unjust aggression, we will do it with glory… The justice of our cause is admitted, even by our enemies, since they refused to accept mediation offered by the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, two princes whose spirit of justice is recognized by all of Europe…

The English government thought that France was a power of India, and that we had no means of stating our reasons or of defending our just rights against an unjust attack. Strange inconsistency of a government which armed its nation by telling it that France wanted to invade it!… If the King of England is resolved to keep Great Britain in a state of war until that France recognizes its right to execute or violate treaties at will, as well as the privilege of insulting the French government in official or private publications, without us being able to complain about it, we must grieve over the fate of humanity…

Certainly, we want to leave to our nephews the French name always honored, always stainless… We will maintain our right at home to make all the regulations that suit our public administration, and such customs tariffs that the interest of our commerce and our industry may require. Whatever the circumstances may be, we will always leave England the initiative of violent actions against peace and the independence of nations, and it will receive from us the example of moderation which alone can maintain the social order.

Same topic (Le Consulat et l’Empire, Memoirs of Antoine Claire Thibaudeau who sat on the Council of State)

Since the English wish to force us to jump the gap, we will jump it. They could take some frigates, a few colonized people, but I will bring terror in London, and I predict that they will cry the end of this war with tears of blood. The ministers made the King of England lie to the face of Europe: there was no armament in France. There is no negotiation; they have not handed me a single note. Lord Withworth could not help but to agree; and yet it is with the help of these vile assumptions that a government seeks to excite passions! For two months I have suffered all the insolence of England. I wanted to let them fill in the extent of their faults; they took this for weakness, and they redoubled… They are mistaken if they think they are dictating laws to a nation of forty million individuals.

They believed that I feared war, that I feared for my authority. I will have two million men, if needed. The result of the first war was to enlarge France with Belgium and Piedmont. The result of this one will be to establish our federative system even more solidly. The bond of two great nations can only be justice and the observance of treaties. The one against whom they are violated cannot, must not suffer it, under penalty of degrading itself. Once it has begun to drift, it is dependent: It would be better for the French people to be vassals and to raise the throne of the King of England in Paris, than to submit to the whims and arbitrariness of this government.

One day they will demand the salute of our ships; another time they will forbid our navigators from going beyond a given latitude. Even today, they see with jealousy that we are cleaning up our ports, that we are re-establishing our navy; They complain about it, they ask for guarantees. A few days ago, Rear-Admiral Lesseigues touched down in Malta; he had two ships, he found fifteen English ones: they wanted to demand salute, Lesseigues refused it; there were a few insults said. If he had given in, I would have had him carried around on a donkey, which is more ignominious than the guillotine. I flatter myself that when our conduct is known, there will not be a corner in Europe of which we do not approve. When England made peace, she believed that we would tear ourselves apart at home, that the generals would trouble France. No matter how hard the English tried, their intrigues of all kinds were in vain. Everyone only took care of repairing their losses. A little sooner, a little later, we were to have war. It is better to have it now that our maritime trade is not yet restored.

Letter to Vice Admiral Decrès, Minister of the Navy and the Colonies (20 Prairial An XIII — June 9th 1805)

I really do not know what kind of precaution England can take to protect itself from the terrible luck it is facing. A nation is quite crazy, when it has no fortifications, no land army, to put itself in the position of seeing an army of one hundred thousand elite and seasoned men arrive in its midst. There is the masterpiece of the flotilla; it costs money, but you only have to be master of the sea for six hours for England to cease to exist…

Letter to Marshal Berthier, Minister of War, Chief of Staff (9 Thermidor An XIII — July 28th 1805)

I will have to lay siege to the castles of Dover, Chatam, and perhaps Portsmouth… It is possible that I will have enough troops to do all three at once. It is therefore not a question of but, of if, of because; the cases are planned for.

The author of the so-called “Saint Helena manuscript” had attributed these lines to Napoleon: “For lack of anything better, I put forward a project of landing in England. I never thought of executing it; because it would have failed, not that the material for the landing was not possible, but the retreat was not.” Here is Napoleon's rebuttal

The landing in England has always been seen as possible, and the landing once made, the capture of London was unmissable. Master of London, a very powerful party would have been raised against the oligarchy. Did Hannibal when crossing the Alps, Caesar when landing in Epirus or in Africa, look back? London is only a few steps from Calais; and the English army, scattered for the defense of the coasts, would not have reunited in time, once the landing had taken place. Without a doubt, this expedition could not be made with an army corps; but it was certain with 160,000 men, who would have presented themselves before London five days after their landing. The flotillas were only the means of landing these 160,000 men in a few hours, and of seizing all the shallows. It was under the protection of a squadron assembled at Martinique, and coming from there at full sail towards Boulogne, that the passage was to take place; If the combination of this squad meeting did not succeed one year, it would succeed another time. Fifty vessels leaving from Toulon, Brest, Rochefort, Lorient, Cadiz, united at Martinique, would arrive in front of Boulogne, and ensure this landing in England, during the time that the English squadrons would be running the seas to cover the two Indias. (Memoirs of Napoleon)

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“They could laugh about it in Paris,” said the Emperor, “but Pitt did not laugh about it in London; he soon had measured the full extent of the danger; so he threw a coalition on my back just as I raised my arm to strike. The English oligarchy had never been in greater danger.”

“I had allowed myself the possibility of disembarkation; I had the best army that ever existed, that of Austerlitz, that says it all. Four days would have been enough for me to find myself in London; I would not have entered as a conqueror, but as a liberator: I would have renewed William III, but with more generosity and disinterestedness. The discipline of my army would have been perfect; it would have behaved in London as if it had still been in Paris: no sacrifices, not even contributions demanded from the English; we would not have presented them with victors, but with brothers who came to restore them to freedom, to their rights. I would have told them to assemble, to work on their regeneration themselves; that they were our elders in matters of political legislation; that we wanted to have nothing to do with it, other than to enjoy their happiness and prosperity; and I would have been strictly in good faith.

Also, a few months would not have passed before these two nations, so violently hostile, would have consisted only of two peoples now identified by their principles, their maxims, their interests; and I would have left there to operate, from the South to the North, under the republican colors (I was then first consul), the European regeneration, which later I was on the point of operating from the North to the South, under monarchical forms. And these two systems could be equally good, since they both tended to the same goal, and both would have been operated with firmness, moderation and good faith. How many evils that are known to us, how many evils that we do not yet know, would have been spared to this poor Europe! Never was a project, broader in the interests of civilization, conceived with more generous intentions and never came closer to its execution… And what is very remarkable, the obstacles which caused me to fail did not come from men, they all came from the elements: in the South, it was the sea that ruined me; and it was the fire of Moscow, the ice of winter, which destroyed me in the North; thus water, air and fire, all of nature, and nothing but nature, these were the enemies of a universal regeneration, commanded by nature itself!… The problems of Providence are unsolvable!…”

After a few moments of silence, the Emperor returned to developing his invasion plan: “They believed,” he said, “that my invasion was only an empty threat, because they saw no reasonable way to attempt it; but I had done it from afar, I operated without being noticed; I had dispersed all our ships, the English were forced to chase after them to the various points of the globe; ours, however, had no other goal than to return, unexpectedly and all at once, to gather en masse on our coasts. I must have had seventy or eighty French or Spanish vessels in the Channel; I had calculated that I would remain master of it for two months; I had three or four thousand small vessels just waiting for the signal; my hundred thousand men carried out the embarkation and disembarkation maneuver every day, like any other time of exercise; they were full of ardor and good will; the enterprise was very popular among the French, and we were called upon by the wishes of most of the English. My disembarkation completed, I had to calculate only on a single pitched battle; the outcome could not be doubtful; and victory placed us in London; because the locality of the country allowed no war of quarrels. My moral conduct would have done the rest. The English people groaned under the yoke of the oligarchy; as soon as they had seen their pride spared, they would have been ours immediately; we would have been for them but allies who came to deliver them. We would introduce ourselves with the magic words of freedom and equality, etc.” (Memorial of Saint-Helena)

On the power of England in 1805 (Memoirs of Cardinal Bausset)

Mr. Denon, who submitted for approval to the Emperor a series of medals intended to perpetuate the memory of the Austerlitz campaign, showed him one which represented the French eagle suffocating the English leopard in its claws. Napoleon said, throwing it violently: “How dare you say that the French eagle is suffocating the English leopard? I cannot put a single small fishing boat into the sea without the English seizing it. Melt this medal immediately, and never present me with one like it.”

On the war between France and England (Pelet de la Lozère)

This war has gone on for centuries. It will go on for several centuries more, unless we have the fortune of lowering England. Otherwise we will be de facto at war even while we have peace.

On the government of England (Pelet de la Lozère)

The government of England has fallen into the hands of about forty families. This oligarchy easily makes law to the house of Brunswick, foreign to the country. But this cannot last.

What did England gain from the war of 1806? (Bulletin de la Grande Armée, 15, October 25th, 1806)

We wonder what England gains from this war. She could recover Hanover, keep the Cape of Good Hope, keep Malta, make an honorable peace and restore tranquility to the world. She wanted to excite Prussia against France, to push the emperor and France to the limit. Well ! it led Prussia to its ruin, brought greater glory to the emperor, greater power to France; and the time is approaching when we can declare England in a state of continental blockade. Is it then with blood that the English hoped to fuel their trade and revive their industry? Great misfortunes may fall upon England; Europe will attribute them to the loss of this honest minister¹ who wanted to govern through great and liberal ideas, and whom the English people will one day cry with tears of blood.

On the campaign plan of the English ministry in Spain in 1809 (Bulletin de la Grande Armée, 28, January 13th, 1809)

It is difficult to conceive the folly of their campaign plan. It must be attributed, not to the general who commands (Moore), and who is a skillful and wise man, but to this spirit of hatred and rage which animates the English ministry, Thus throwing forward thirty thousand men to expose them to being destroyed, or to have no resource except in flight, it is a conception which can only be inspired by the spirit of passion, or by the most extravagant presumption. The English government, like the liar of the theater, has managed to persuade itself, it has caught itself in its own trap.

On the policy of England

Your only policy, the great Frederick said it long ago, is to knock on all doors a purse in hand. (Le Moniteur 10 Ventôse An X — March 1st, 1802)

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The distance in which England constantly kept the French princes of the armies of the Vendée, where they were constantly announced and vainly expected, sufficiently proves the aim of its policy, which was not the re-establishment of the Bourbon throne, but the destruction of the French by the French. Pitt was actually the Civil War banker; he had all the scourges and all the defeats at his disposal. (Memoirs of Napoleon)

On the military institutions of England (Memoirs of Napoleon)

The military institutions of the English are vicious:

1. they only carry out their recruitment at the price of money, besides that they frequently empty their prisons in their regiments;

2. their discipline is cruel;

3. the nature of their soldiers is such, that they can only draw mediocre non-commissioned officers from it; which obliges them to multiply the officers beyond all proportion;

4. each of their battalions hangs behind it hundreds of women and children: no army carries as much baggage;

5. officer positions are venal: lieutenancies, companies, battalions are bought off;

6. an officer is both a major in the army and captain in his regiment: oddity entirely contrary to all military spirit.

What alliance with England is worth (Le Moniteur 6 Brumaire An XI — October 28th, 1802)

Kaunitz said, in the middle of the last century, to a minister of the King of Prussia who was taking his leave of absence: “The king, your master, will one day learn how heavy the alliance of England is…”
Has there been, for a hundred years, a continental power, having departed from the principles of sound politics, which has not justified Mr. Kaunitz's allegation?

If the king of the Two Sicilies twice saw his borders crossed and his capital in the power of the French; if the elector of Bavaria has seen the same scene repeated twice in his States, if the king of Sardinia has ceased to reign in Savoy and Piedmont; if the House of Orange lost the Stadtholdership; if the oligarchy of Bern and Genoa saw its influence disappear, and Portugal the limits of its provinces covered with troops ready to conquer it, did they not all owe it to the alliance with England?

Of the maritime expeditions of England against the soil of France (Memoirs of Napoleon)

History will note that no maritime expedition from England, however powerful it may have been formed, and whatever protection awaited it, succeeded against the soil of France, whether republican or imperial. The French coast was fatal to it. Its policy triumphed at Quiberon of odious memory. This was its only maritime trophy on our territory. The committee of public safety also triumphed when it learned of the machine-gunning and drowning of its proconsuls.

On the system of lying of England compared to its financial system (Le Moniteur 12 Prairial An XIII — June 1st, 1805)

The English do not lose the habit of inventing news, spreading it among themselves and then spreading it throughout Europe. They are too attached to this resource not to use it constantly. It is true that eight or ten days after the publication of false news, they contradict it themselves; but these eight or ten days have passed, the exchange has been maintained, and the opportunity arrives to bring to light a new falsehood which they even accredit by very official documents; so on for all the months, for all the weeks of the year. This system of lying has much to do with the much vaunted system of finance in England. They have to spend eighteen million and they only have nine million in income. They take out a loan; but they allocate the payment of this loan to a branch of income for the following years. It is true that the following year there is no further increase in direct revenue from the exchequer; but they make new loans and they create another deficit for the other years. They continue in this way for as long as they can go, and they will indeed go on until the inevitable catastrophe which will make the English people feel the emptiness and the disastrous consequences of such a system.

On the English administration (Le Consulat et l’Empire, Memoirs of Antoine Claire Thibaudeau)

England is cited to us for its good administration and its wealth. Well! I have its budget, I will have it printed in the Moniteur; we will see that it has an annual deficit of 5 to 600 million. She has a considerable sinking fund, with which she can, it is said, pay her debt in thirty-eight years; but for that to happen she would have to be willing to stop once and no longer take out loans. It does not call it a deficit, but it carries in its revenues a loan which only increases its debt, and we cannot predict how it will end with such a system. England has a land army of one hundred and ten thousand men which costs it 333 million: it is enormous and the sign of bad administration. The same is true of its navy, which costs it 406 million; it is indeed considerable, but the expense is nonetheless out of proportion.

Of the conduct of English ministers (O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, or A Voice From St. Helena)

I proposed (in the year X) to make a trade treaty according to which France would have taken for one million, products from English factories and colonies, and England in exchange for one million, French goods. The English ministers regarded this as an odious crime and rejected this proposal in the most violent manner. They always refused equal conditions, and then they wanted to persuade the world that it was me who had violated the Treaty of Amiens.

On the machiavellianism of English ministers (Memorial of Saint-Helena)

“English ministers,” said the Emperor, “never present a matter as of their nation to another nation, but rather as of themselves to their own nation. Being little bothered by what their adversaries have said or are saying, they boldly present what their diplomatic agents have said, or what they make them say, hiding behind the public character of these agents, being notarized, they must have faith in their reports. This is how the English ministers had, in time, published a long conversation with me, Napoleon, under the name of Lord Witheworth, which was completely false.”

“The fact is,” added the emperor, “that all English political agents are in the situation of making two reports on the same subject: one public and false, for the ministerial archives, the other confidential and true, for ministers only; and when the responsibility of these is at stake, they produce the first, which, although false, answers everything and protects them.”

“And it is thus,” said the emperor, “that the best institutions become vicious when morality ceases to be their basis, and when agents are no longer driven except by selfishness, pride and insolence. The absolute power does not need to lie; it remains silent. The responsible government, obliged to speak, misrepresents and lies brazenly.”

“It is, moreover, a very remarkable thing that in my great struggle with England, its government had the art of constantly throwing so much odium at my person and my actions; that it so impudently protested about my despotism, my selfishness, my ambition, my perfidy, precisely when it alone was guilty of everything it dared to accuse me of. It was therefore necessary that there existed a very strong prejudice against me, and that I was really something to be feared, since one could be convinced by it. I understand it on the part of kings and cabinets, their existence was at stake; but from the people!!!…”

“The English ministers never stopped talking about my deceptions; but could there be anything comparable to their Machiavellianism, to their selfishness throughout the time of upheavals and convulsions which they themselves fueled?
They sacrificed unfortunate Austria in 1805, solely to escape the invasion with which I threatened them.
They sacrificed it again in 1809, just to make themselves more comfortable on the Spanish peninsula.
They sacrificed Prussia in 1806, in the hope of recovering Hanover.
They did not come to the aid of Russia in 1807, because they preferred to go and seize distant colonies, and that they were trying to take over Egypt.
They presented the spectacle of the infamous bombardment of Copenhagen, in the middle of peace, and the theft of the Danish fleet by a real ambush. They had already given a similar spectacle by the seizure, also in the middle of peace, of four Spanish frigates loaded with rich treasures, which they had carried out as real highwaymen.
Finally, during the Peninsular War, in which they sought to prolong the confusion and anarchy, we only see them hastening to traffic in Spanish needs and blood, by having their services and supplies purchased from the weight of gold and concessions.”

“When all of Europe is slaughtered thanks to their intrigues and their payments, they only care about their own security, the advantages of their trade, the sovereignty of the seas, and the monopoly of the world. For me, I had never done any of that, and, until the unfortunate affair of Spain, which, moreover, comes only after that of Copenhagen, I can say that my morality remains unassailable. My transactions could have been sharp, dictatorial, but never perfidious.”

“And let us be surprised now, let us wonder how it happened that in 1814, England having been the true liberator of Europe, nevertheless no Englishman could take a step on the continent without finding curses, hatred, execration everywhere!… The fact is that every tree bears its fruit, that we only reap what we have sown, and that such must be the infallible result of the misdeeds of the English administration, of the harshness, of the insolence of the ministers in London, and of those of their agents throughout the globe.”

“For half a century, English ministries have always been declining in public consideration and esteem. Formerly they were contested by large national parties, characterized by large, distinct systems; today they are nothing more than the debates of the same oligarchy, always having the same goal, and whose discordant members settle things among themselves with the help of concessions and compromises: they have made the cabinet of Saint-James a shop.”

“Lord Chatam's policy could have had its injustices; but he at least proclaimed them with audacity and energy: they had a certain grandeur. Mr. Pitt introduced cunning and hypocrisy, and Lord Castlereagh, his so-called heir, brought together the height of all kinds of turpitude and immorality. Chatam gloried in being a merchant; Lord Castlereagh, to the great detriment of his nation, gave himself the pleasure of playing the gentleman; he sacrificed his country to fraternize with the greats of the continent, and from then on joined the vices of the salon to the greed of the counter; the duplicity, the flexibility of the courtier to the harshness, the insolence of the upstart.”

“The poor constitution is seriously compromised today: it is a long way from the Foxes, the Sheridans, the Grays; to these great talents, to these fine characters of the opposition, which the victorious oligarchy has so flouted.”

On England in relation to European freedom (Memorial of Saint-Helena)

England is famous for trafficking in everything; may she not start selling freedom, we would buy it from her very dearly, and without making her bankrupt; because modern freedom is essentially moral, and does not betray its commitments. For example, what these poor Spaniards would not pay her to free themselves from the yoke under which they have just been rebuilt! I am sure that we would find them well disposed to it, I have the proof; and yet it is me who would have created this feeling; still my blunder at least will have benefited someone! As for the Italians, I have implanted principles that will never be uprooted: they will always ferment. What could be better for England to do today than to lend a hand to these beautiful movements of modern regeneration? So sooner or later it will have to be accomplished. It is in vain that sovereigns and old aristocracies would multiply their efforts to oppose it: it is the rock of Sisyphus that they hold raised above their heads; but some arms will tire and, at the first fault, everything will collapse on them, Wouldn't it be better to deal amicably? This was my big project. Why would England refuse to have the glory and reap the profit? Everything happens in England as elsewhere. The Castlereagh ministry will pass, and the one who succeeds him, heir to so many faults, will become great, if he will only not continue them. All his genius can be limited only to letting it happen, to obeying the winds that blow; Unlike Castlereagh, he only has to put himself at the head of liberal ideas, instead of joining forces with absolute power, and he will reap the universal blessings, and all the wrongs of England will be forgotten. This act was within Fox's reach; Pitt would not have undertaken it: in Fox the heart heated the genius, whereas in Pitt the genius dried up the heart.

But I hear many people asking me how I, Almighty, did not act in this way; how, speaking so well, I could act so badly.

I respond to those who are in such good faith that nothing here could compare. England can operate on land whose foundations go down to the bowels of the earth; mine still only rested on sand. England reigns over established things; I had the great responsibility, the immense difficulty of establishing them. I was purifying a revolution, despite the disappointed factions; I had gathered into bundles all the scattered goods that should be preserved; but I was obliged to cover them with my nervous arms to save them from everyone's attacks; and it is in this attitude that I repeat again that truly, the res publica, l’État, c’était moi!… The outside in arms attacked our principles; and it is precisely in their name that the inside attacked me in the opposite direction: but if I had relaxed, I would soon have been brought back to the time of the Directory, I would have been the object, and France, the infallible victim of a counter-brumaire.

What did England gain from the treaty of June 9th, 1815 (O’Meara)

“We have never seen before,” said the emperor to an Englishman, “of a treatise as ridiculous as the one made by your ministers on behalf of their country. You give up everything, and don't win anything. All other powers acquire land and millions of souls, while you abandon colonies… What would the English say who lived a hundred years ago, if they could get out of their tombs, to be informed of your successes, and, shifting their gaze towards England and contemplating its despair, learning that, in the peace treaty, there was not a single article stipulated in its favor! that to the contrary, you have renounced conquests and commercial rights necessary for your existence!… In the commercial realm, nothing would have been denied to you. And after such romantic and extraordinary successes; after having been favored by God and events as you were; after having carried out, I dare say it, what the boldest mind had never imagined, what did England gain? The ribbons of the allied sovereigns for Lord Castlereagh!”

On England in 1816 (O’Meara)

England, crushed under the weight of its debts, can be compared to a man who has drunk spirit in abundance to give himself courage and energy, but who, soon enough weakened by the stimulant to which he only owes artificial vigor, stumbles, and ends up falling. The forces of England are depleted by the extraordinary means by which it increased them.

Of the conduct of England towards Napoleon in 1815 (On board the Bellerophon, on August 4th, 1815)

I solemnly protest in the face of the heavens and men against the violation of my most sacred rights, since my person and my freedom are disposed of by force. I went freely on board the Bellerophon; I am not its prisoner, I am the guest of England.

Once placed on board the Bellerophon, I was in the hearth of the English people. If the government, by ordering the captain of the Bellerophon to receive me with all my retinue, only wanted to set a trap for me, it has committed a breach of honor and defiled its flag.

If this act must be consummated, it will be in vain that the English will still speak to Europe about their justice, their laws, and their freedom. The hospitality violated on the Bellerophon will forever compromise the good faith of the English.

I therefore appeal to history: it will say that an enemy, who waged war against the English people for twenty years, came freely in his misfortune to seek asylum under the laws of this people. What more striking proof could he have given of his esteem and confidence? But how did the English respond? They extended a hospitable hand to this enemy, and when in good faith he surrendered himself, they sacrificed him.

On the bill of Parliament which sentenced Napoleon to the exile of Saint-Helena (Dictated by Napoleon at Saint-Helena)

The bill which dragged Napoleon to the rock of Saint Helena is an act of proscription similar to those of Sulla, and worse still. The Romans pursued Hannibal to the depths of Bithynia; Flaminius obtained from King Prusias the death of this great man, and yet in Rome Flaminius was accused of having acted in this way to satisfy his personal hatred. In vain he alleged that Hannibal, still in the vigor of age, could be dangerous, that his death was necessary; a thousand voices replied that what was unjust and ungenerous can never be advantageous to a great nation; that such pretexts would justify assassinations, poisonings, and all kinds of crimes!… The generations that followed reproached their ancestors for this cowardice; they would have paid dearly to erase such a stain from their history. Since the recognition of letters among modern nations, there is no generation that has not united its imprecations with those that Hannibal uttered when drinking hemlock: he cursed this Rome, which, at a time when its fleets and her legions covered Europe, Asia, and Africa, venting her anger on a lone and unarmed man, because she feared him, or because she pretended to fear him.

But the Romans never violated hospitality: Sulla found asylum in the house of Marius; Flaminius, before proscribing Hannibal, did not receive him aboard his ship and did not tell him that he had orders to receive him well; the Roman fleet did not transport him to the port of Ostia; far from resorting to the protection of Roman laws, Hannibal preferred to entrust his person to an Asian king. When he was proscribed, he was not under the protection of the Roman standard: he was under the flags of a king who was an enemy of Rome!

If ever, in the revolutions of the centuries, a king of England comes to appear before the dreaded court of his nation, his defenders will insist on the august character of a king, the respect due to the throne, to a crowned head, to the Lord's anointed! But these adversaries, will they not have the right to answer: One of his ancestors proscribed his host in times of peace; not daring to put him to death in the presence of a people which had its positive laws and its regular and public forms, he had his victim exposed on the most unhealthy of a rock located in the middle of the Ocean, in another hemisphere? This guest perished there after a long agony, tormented by the climate, the needs, and insults of all kinds! Well! this host was also a great sovereign, raised on the bulwark by thirty-six million citizens; he was master of almost all the capitals of Europe; he saw at his court the greatest kings; he was generous to all; he was for twenty years the arbiter of nations; his family was allied to all the sovereign families, even to that of England; he was twice anointed of the Lord; it was twice consecrated by religion!!!

On the conduct of English ministers towards Napoleon (Memoirs of Dr. Antonmarchi, his physician at Saint-Helena)

Napoleon, a few days before his death, said to an Englishman:

“I had come to sit in the homes of the British people; I asked for loyal hospitality, and, against all that there are rights on earth, I was answered with irons. I would have received another welcome from Alexander; the Emperor Francis would have treated me with respect; even the King of Prussia would have been more generous. But it was up to England to surprise, to attract the kings, and to give the world the spectacle of four great powers attacking a single man. It is your ministry which chose this horrible rock, where, in less than three years, the lives of Europeans are consumed, to end mine here with an assassination. And how have you treated me since I was exiled to this rock? There is not an indignity, not a horror that you have not been happy to shower on me. The simplest family communications, the very ones that have never been forbidden to anyone, you have refused me. You have not allowed any news to reach me, any paper from Europe; my wife, even my son, ceased to live for me; you kept me for six years in the torture of secrecy. In this inhospitable island, you have given me as my home the place least suited to be inhabited, the one where the murderous climate of the tropic is most felt. I had to shut myself up between four partitions, in unhealthy air, I who traveled all over Europe on horseback! You murdered me at length, in detail, with premeditation, and the infamous Hudson was the executioner of the great works of your ministers… You will end as the superb Venice, and me, dying on this horrible rock, deprived of my people, and lacking everything, I bequeath the disgrace and horror of my death to the ruling family of England!…”

What could England have become with the France of Napoleon (Memorial of Saint-Helena)

With my France, England would naturally had to end up being nothing more than an appendage. Nature had made it one of our islands as much as those of Oléron or Corsica… On what depend the destinies of empires! That our revolutions be small and insignificant in the organization of the universe? If, instead of the expedition to Egypt, I had made the one to Ireland, if slight disturbances had not hindered my enterprise in Boulogne, what could England be like today? What would the continent be? the political world, etc.

1. Reference to Fox