(Letter to the Emperor of Austria, July 28, 1810.)] [Footnote 12103: Note presented by the French ambassador, Otto, Aug.

17, 1802.] [Footnote 12104: Stanislas Girardin, III., 296.

(Words of the First consul, Floreal 24, year XI.): "I had proposed to the British minister, for several months, to make an arrangement by which a law should be passed in France and in England prohibiting newspapers and the members of the government from expressing either good or ill of foreign governments.

He never would consent to it."-- St.Girardin: "He could not."-- Bonaparte: "Why ?"--St.Girardin: "Because an agreement of that sort would have been opposed to the fundamental law of the country." Bonaparte: "I have a poor opinion," etc.] [Footnote 12105: Hansard, vol.XXXVI., p.1298.

(Dispatch of Lord Whitworth, Feb.21, 1803, conversation with the First consul at the Tuileries.)--Seeley, 'A Short History of Napoleon the First." "Trifles is a softened expression, Lord Whitworth adds in a parenthesis which has never been printed; "the expression he made use of is too insignificant and too low to have a place in a dispatch or anywhere else, save in the mouth of a hack-driver."] [Footnote 12106: Lanfrey, "Histoire de Napoleon," II., 482.