"Well, I do not wonder that you sing. You must be a very happy man."
"Alas, sire," he replied, "I ought to be, but I am not."
"And why not?"
"Because, sire," he replied, "I have too many English tormenting me. I have also an aged father, who is almost blind, and a sister who is not yet married, dependent upon me for support."
"But, sir," Napoleon rejoined, "in supporting your father and your sister, you do only that which every good son should do. But what have you to do with the English?"
"They are those," the young man answered, "who have loaned me money, which I am not able to repay. All those who are in debt call their creditors the English."
"Enough! enough! I understand you. You are in debt then. And how is it that with such a salary, you run into debt? I wish to have no man about my person who has recourse to the gold of the English. From this hour you will receive your dismission. Adieu, sir!" Saying this, Napoleon left the room, and returned to his chamber. The young man was stupefied with despair.
But a few moments elapsed when an aid entered and gave him a note, saying, "It is from Napoleon." Trembling with agitation, and not doubting that it confirmed his dismissal, he opened it and read:
"I have wished to dismiss you from my cabinet, for you deserve it; but I have thought of your aged and blind father, and of your young sister; and, for their sake, I pardon you. And, since they are the ones who must most suffer from your misconduct, I send you, with leave of absence for one day only, the sum of two thousand dollars. With this sum disembarrass yourself immediately of all the English who trouble you. And hereafter conduct yourself in such a manner as not to fall into their power. Should you fail in this, I shall give you leave of absence, without permission to return."
Upon the bleak cliff of Boulogne, swept by the storm and the rain, Napoleon had a little hut erected for himself. Often, leaving the palace of St. Cloud by night, after having spent a toilsome day in the cares of state, he passed, with almost the rapidity of the wind, over the intervening space of 180 miles. Arriving about the middle of the next day, apparently unconscious of fatigue, he examined every thing before he allowed himself a moment of sleep. The English exerted all their energies to impede the progress of the majestic enterprise. Their cruisers incessantly hovering around, kept up an almost uninterrupted fire upon the works. Their shells, passing over the cliff, exploded in the harbor and in the crowded camps. The laborers, inspired by the presence of Napoleon, continued proudly their toil, singing as they worked, while the balls of the English were flying around them. For their protection, Napoleon finally constructed large batteries, which would throw twenty-four pound shot three miles, and thus kept the English ships at that distance. It would, however, require a volume to describe the magnitude of the works constructed at Boulogne. Napoleon was indefatigable in his exertions to promote the health and the comfort of the soldiers. They were all well paid, warmly clothed, fed with an abundance of nutritious food, and their camp, divided into quarters traversed by long streets, presented the cheerful aspect of a neat, thriving, well ordered city. The soldiers, thus protected, enjoyed perfect health, and, full of confidence in the enterprise for which they were preparing, hailed their beloved leader with the most enthusiastic acclamations, whenever he appeared.
Spacious as were the quays erected at Boulogne, it was not possible to range all the vessels alongside. They were consequently ranged nine deep, the first only touching the quays. A horse, with a band passing round him, was raised, by means of a yard, transmitted nine times from yard to yard, as he was borne aloft in the air, and in about two minutes was deposited in the ninth vessel. By constant repetition, the embarkation and disembarkation was accomplished with almost inconceivable promptness and precision. In all weather, in summer and winter, unless it blew a gale, the boats went out to man[œuvre in the presence of the enemy. The exercise of landing from the boats along the cliff was almost daily performed. The men first swept the shore by a steady fire of artillery from the boats, and then, approaching the beach, landed men, horses, and cannon. There was not an accident which could happen in landing on an enemies' coast, except the fire from hostile batteries, which was not thus provided against, and often braved. In all these exciting scenes, the First Consul was every where present. The soldiers saw him now on horseback upon the cliff, gazing proudly upon their heroic exertions; again he was galloping over the hard smooth sands of the beach, and again on board of one of the gun-boats going out to try her powers in a skirmish with one of the British cruisers. Frequently he persisted in braving serious danger, and at one time, when visiting the anchorage in a violent gale, the boat was swamped near the shore. The sailors threw themselves into the sea, and bore him safely through the billows to the land. It is not strange that those who have seen the kings of France squandering the revenues of the realm to minister to their own voluptuousness and debauchery, should have regarded Napoleon as belonging to a different race. One day, when the atmosphere was peculiarly clear, Napoleon, upon the cliffs of Boulogne, saw dimly, in the distant horizon, the outline of the English shore. Roused by the sight, he wrote thus to Cambèceres: "From the heights of Ambleteuse, I have seen this day the coast of England, as one sees the heights of Calvary from the Tuileries. We could distinguish the houses and the bustle. It is a ditch that shall be leaped when one is daring enough to try."
Napoleon, though one of the most bold of men in his conceptions, was also the most cautious and prudent in their execution. He had made, in his own mind, arrangements, unrevealed to any one, suddenly to concentrate in the channel the whole French squadron, which, in the harbors of Toulon, Ferrol, and La Rochelle, had been thoroughly equipped, to act in unexpected concert with the vast flotilla. "Eight hours of night," said he, "favorable for us, will now decide the fate of the world."
England, surprised at the magnitude of these preparations, began to be seriously alarmed. She had imagined her ocean-engirdled isle to be in a state of perfect security. Now she learned that within thirty miles of her coast an army of 150,000 most highly-disciplined troops was assembled, that more than two thousand gun-boats were prepared to transport this host, with ten thousand horses, and four thousand pieces of cannon, across the channel, and that Napoleon, who had already proved himself to be the greatest military genius of any age, was to head this army on its march to London. The idea of 150,000 men, led by Bonaparte, was enough to make even the most powerful nation shudder. The British naval officers almost unanimously expressed the opinion, that it was impossible to be secure against a descent on the English coast by the French, under favor of a fog, a calm, or a long winter's night. The debates in Parliament as to the means of resisting the danger, were anxious and stormy. A vote was passed authorizing the ministers to summon all Englishmen, between the ages of 17 and 55, to arms. In every country town the whole male population were seen every morning exercising for war. The aged King George III. reviewed these raw troops, accompanied by the excited Bourbon princes, who wished to recover by the force of the arms of foreigners, that throne from which they had been ejected by the will of the people. From the Isle of Wight to the mouth of the Thames, a system of signals was arranged to give the alarm. Beacon fires were to blaze at night upon every headland, upon the slightest intimation of danger. Carriages were constructed for the rapid conveyance of troops to any threatened point. Mothers and maidens, in beautiful happy England, placed their heads upon their pillows in terror, for the blood-hounds of war were unleashed, and England had unleashed them. She suffered bitterly for the crime. She suffers still in that enormous burden of taxes which the ensuing years of war and woe have bequeathed to her children.
The infamous George Cadoudal, already implicated in the infernal machine, was still in London, living with other French refugees, in a state of opulence, from the money furnished by the British government. The Count d'Artois, subsequently Charles X., and his son, the Duke de Berri, with other persons prominent in the Bourbon interests, were associated with this brawny assassin in the attempts, by any means, fair or foul, to crush Napoleon. The English government supplied them liberally with money; asking no questions, for conscience sake, respecting the manner in which they would employ it. Innumerable conspiracies were formed for the assassination of Napoleon, more than thirty of which were detected by the police. Napoleon at last became exceedingly exasperated. He felt that England was ignominiously supplying those with funds whom she knew to be aiming at his assassination. He was indignant that the Bourbon princes should assume,