n spite of some unjust
and cruel chastisement, Bonaparte continued, during his stay in Italy, an
object of ridicule in conversation, as well as in pamphlets and
caricatures. One of these represented him in the ragged garb of a
sans-culotte, pale and trembling on his knees, with bewildered looks and
his hair standing upright on his head like pointed horns, tearing the map
of the world to pieces, and, to save his life, offering each of his
generals a slice, who in return regarded him with looks of contempt mixed
with pity.

I have just heard of a new plot, or rather a league against Bonaparte's
ambition. At its head the Generals Jourdan, Macdonald, Le Courbe, and
Dessolles are placed, though many less victorious generals and officers,
civil as well as military, are reported to be its members. Their object
is not to remove or displace Bonaparte as an Emperor of the French; on
the contrary, they offer their lives to strengthen his authority and to
resist his enemies; but they ask and advise him to renounce, for himself,
for his relations, and for France, all possessions on the Italian side of
the Alps, as the only means to establish a permanent peace, and to avoid
a war with other States, whose safety is endangered by our great
encroachments. A mutinous kind of address to this effect has been sent
to the camp of Boulogne and to all other encampments of our troops, that
those generals and other military persons there, who chose, might both
see the object and the intent of the associates. It is reported that
Bonaparte ordered it to be burnt by the hands of the common executioner
at Boulogne; that sixteen officers there who had subscribed their names
in appropriation of the address were broken, and dismissed with disgrace;
that Jourdan is deprived of his command in Italy, and ordered to render
an account of his conduct to the Emperor. Dessolles is also said to be
dismissed, and with Macdonald, Le Courbe, and eighty-four others of His
Majesty's subjects, whose names appeared under the remonstrance (or
petition, as some call it), exiled to different departments of this
country, where they are to expect their Sovereign's further
determination, and, in the meantime, remain under the inspection and
responsibility of his constituted authorities and commissaries of police.
As it is as dangerous to inquire as to converse on this and other
subjects, which the mysterious policy of our Government condemns to
silence or oblivion, I