Roland was imperturbable.
"Is that your opinion ?" said Bonaparte.
"Yes, general, and I think that physiologically it is as good as any other.

I have a lot of opinions like it, which I bring to light as the occasion offers." "Come back to your Englishman." "Certainly, general." "I asked you what he was like." "Well, he is a gentleman; very brave, very calm, very impassible, very noble, very rich, and, moreover--which may not be a recommendation to you--a nephew of Lord Grenville, prime minister to his Britannic Majesty." "What's that ?" "I said, prime minister to his Britannic Majesty." Bonaparte resumed his walk; then, presently returning to Roland, he said: "Can I see your Englishman ?" "You know, general, that you can do anything." "Where is he ?" "In Paris." "Go find him and bring him here." Roland was in the habit of obeying without reply; he took his hat and went toward the door.
"Send Bourrienne to me," said the First Consul, just as Roland passed into the secretary's room.
Five minutes later Bourrienne appeared.
"Sit down there, Bourrienne," said the First Consul, "and write." Bourrienne sat down, arranged his paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and waited.
"Ready ?" asked the First Consul, sitting down upon the writing table, which was another of his habits; a habit that reduced his secretary to despair, for Bonaparte never ceased swinging himself back and forth all the time he dictated--a motion that shook the table as much as if it had been in the middle of the ocean with a heaving sea.
"I'm ready," replied Bourrienne, who had ended by forcing himself to endure, with more or less patience, all Bonaparte's eccentricities.
"Then write." And he dictated: Bonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, to his Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland.
Called by the will of the French nation to the chief magistracy of the Republic, I think it proper to inform your Majesty personally of this fact.
Must the war, which for two years has ravaged the four quarters of the globe, be perpetuated?
Is there no means of staying it?
How is it that two nations, the most enlightened of Europe, more powerful and strong than their own safety and independence require; how is it that they sacrifice to their ideas of empty grandeur or bigoted antipathies the welfare of commerce, eternal prosperity, the happiness of families?
How is it that they do not recognize that peace is the first of needs and the first of a nation's glories?
These sentiments cannot be foreign to the heart of a king who governs a free nation with the sole object of rendering it happy.
Your Majesty will see in this overture my sincere desire to contribute efficaciously, for the second time, to a general pacification, by an advance frankly made and free of those formalities which, necessary perhaps to disguise the dependence of feeble states, only disclose in powerful nations a mutual desire to deceive.
France and England can, for a long time yet, by the abuse of their powers, and to the misery of their people, carry on the struggle without exhaustion; but, and I dare say it, the fate of all the civilized nations depends on the conclusion of a war which involves the universe.
Bonaparte paused.

"I think that will do," said he.

"Read it over, Bourrienne." Bourrienne read the letter he had just written.

After each paragraph the First Consul nodded approvingly; and said: "Go on." Before the last words were fairly uttered, he took the letter from Bourrienne's hands and signed it with a new pen.