We feel a sort of contempt for this booby people which comes to
celebrate the yoke preparing for it: these dull victims dancing
before the palace of their sacrificer: this first consul designated
the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of
stupidity on one side, and cunning on the other: the stale hypocrisy
of the courtiers throwing a veil over the arrogance of the master:
all inspired me with an insurmountable disgust. It was necessary
however to constrain one's feelings, and during these solemnities
you were exposed to meet with official congratulations, which at
other times it was more easy to avoid.

Bonaparte then proclaimed that peace was the first want of the
world: every day he signed some new treaty, therein resembling the
care with which Polyphemus counted the sheep as he drove them into
his den. The United States of America also made peace with France,
and sent as their plenipotentiary, a man who did not know a word of
French, apparently ignorant that the most complete acquaintance with
the language was barely sufficient to penetrate the truth, in a
government which knew so well how to conceal it.

The first consul, on the presentation of Mr. Livingston,
complimented him, through an interpreter, on the purity of manners
in America, and added "the old world is very corrupt;" then turning
round to M. de ----, he repeated twice, "explain to him that the
old world is very corrupt: you know something of it, don't you?"
This was one of the most agreeable speeches he ever addressed in
public to this courtier, who was possessed of better taste than his
fellows, and wished to preserve some dignity in his manners,
although he sacrificed that of the mind to his ambition.