English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. Volume II (of 2). Ashton John
will ride to the Devil.’
To seize all that we have and then clap us in jail,
To devour our victuals, and drink all our ale,
And to grind us to dust is the Corsican’s will —
‘For we know all is grist that e’er comes to his mill.’
To stay quiet, at home, the First Consul can’t bear
Or, mayhap, ‘he would have other fish to fry there’;
So, as fish of that sort does not suit his desire,
‘He leaps out of the frying pan, into the fire.’
He builds barges and cock boats, and craft without end
And numbers the boats which to England he’ll send;
But in spite of his craft, and his barges and boats
‘He still reckons, I think, without one of his hosts.’
He rides upon France and he tramples on Spain,
And holds Holland and Italy tight in a Chain;
These he hazards for more, though I can’t understand,
‘How one bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.’
He trusts that his luck will all danger expel,
‘But the pitcher is broke that goes oft to the well’;
And when our brave soldiers this Bully surround,
‘Though he’s thought Penny Wise, he’ll be foolish in Pound.’
France can never forget that our fathers of yore,
Used to pepper and baste her at sea and at shore;
And we’ll speedily prove to this mock-Alexander,
‘What was sauce for the goose, will be sauce for the Gander.’
I have heard and have read in a great many books,
Half the Frenchmen are Tailors, and t’other half Cooks; —
We’ve fine Trimmings in store for the Knights of the Cloth,
‘And the Cooks that come here, will but spoil their own broth.’
It is said that the French are a numerous race,
And perhaps it is true – for ‘ill weeds grow apace’;
But come when they will, and as many as dare,
‘I expect they’ll arive a day after the fair.’
To invade us more safely these warriors boast
They will wait till a storm drives our fleet from the Coast,
That ’twill be an ‘ill wind,’ will be soon understood,
For a wind that blows Frenchmen, ‘blows nobody good.’
They would treat Britain worse than they’ve treated Mynheer,
But they’ll find ‘they have got the wrong sow by the ear.’
Let them come then in swarms, by this Corsican lead,
And I warrant ‘we’ll hit the right nail on the head.’
The year 1804 was a most eventful one for Napoleon. With all his hatred of England, and his wish for her invasion, he was powerless in that matter, and had plenty to employ him at home. The English had got used to their bugbear the flotilla, and the caricaturist had a rest. Napoleon had his hands full. First and foremost was that conspiracy against his life and government, in which Georges Cadoudal, Moreau, and Pichegru figure so prominently, and which entailed the execution of the Duc d’Enghien.
The Bourbon house he so detested,
He had the Duke d’Enghien arrested;
A sort of trial then took place,
And sentence passed – the usual case.
’Tis said that Boney chose a spot,
To see the gallant fellow shot.
Whatever may have been Napoleon’s conduct in this affair, these two last lines are undoubtedly false. The duke had been residing at Ettenheim, in the duchy of Baden, and was thought to be there in readiness to head the Royalists in case of need, that his hunting was but a pretext to cover flying visits to Paris, and that he was the person whom Georges Cadoudal and his fellow conspirators always received bareheaded. He was seized, brought to Paris, and lodged in the Château de Vincennes. A few hours’ rest, and he was roused at midnight to go before his judges. It was in vain he pleaded the innocence of his occupations, and begged to have an interview with the First Consul; yet he declared he had borne arms against France, and his wish to serve in the war on the English side against France; and owned that he received a pension of one hundred and fifty guineas a month from England. He was found guilty and condemned to death, and two hours afterwards was led out into the ditch of the fortress, and there shot, a priest being refused him. O’Meara, describing a conversation with Napoleon on this subject, says: ‘I now asked if it were true that Talleyrand had retained a letter written by the Duc d’Enghien to him until two days after the duke’s execution? Napoleon’s reply was, “It is true; the duke had written a letter offering his services, and asking a command in the Army from me, which that scelerato, Talleyrand, did not make known until two days after his execution.” I observed that Talleyrand, by his culpable concealment of the letter, was virtually guilty of the death of the duke. “Talleyrand,” replied Napoleon, “is a briccone, capable of any crime. I,” continued he, “caused the Duc d’Enghien to be arrested in consequence of the Bourbons having landed assassins in France to murder me. I was resolved to let them see that the blood of one of their princes should pay for their attempts, and he was accordingly tried for having borne arms against the republic, found guilty, and shot, according to the existing laws against such a crime.”’
Ansell (June 2, 1804) gives us ‘The Cold Blooded Murderer, or the Assassination of the Duc d’Enghien,’ in which the duke is represented as being bound to a tree, a soldier on either side holding a torch, whilst Napoleon is running his sword into his heart. D’Enghien bravely cries out, ‘Assassin! your Banditti need not cover my Eyes, I fear not Death, tho’ perhaps a guiltless countenance may appall your bloodthirsty soul.’ Napoleon, whilst stabbing his victim, says: ‘Now de whole World shall know de courage of de first grand Consul, dat I can kill my enemies in de Dark, as well as de light, by Night as well as by Day, – dare – and dare I had him – hark, vat noise was dat? ah! ’tis only de Wind – dare again, and dare – Now I shall certainly be made Emperor of de Gulls.’1 Devils are rejoicing over the deed, and are bearing a crown. They say: ‘This glorious deed does well deserve a Crown, thus let us feed his wild ambition, untill some bold avenging hand shall make him all our own.’
A Captain Wright figures in this plot; and, as he was an Englishman, and his name is frequent both in the caricature and satire of the day, some notice of him must be given. He was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and somehow got mixed up with this conspiracy. He took Georges Cadoudal and others on board either at Deal or Hastings, and crossed over to Beville, where there was a smuggler’s rope let down from an otherwise inaccessible cliff. By means of this they were drawn up, and went secretly to Paris. The plot failed, and they were thrown into prison, Wright being afterwards captured at sea. Cadoudal went to the scaffold, Pichegru was found strangled in his cell; and Wright, the English said, after being tortured in prison, to compel him to give evidence against his companions, was assassinated by order of Napoleon.
The latter, however, always indignantly denied it, saying that Captain Wright committed suicide. In O’Meara’s book he denies it several times, and an extract or two will be worth noting. ‘In different nights of August, September, and December 1803 and January 1804, Wright landed Georges, Pichegru, Rivière, Costa, St. Victor, La
Gauls.