it thought it wrong. I am sure that in your hearts you in England approved me for showing force of character. Do you not see I am a bit of a pirate like yourselves?" But although the measure was justified by one at least of Bonaparte's victims, Lord Yarmouth, it was certainly impolitic as well as lawless. I have not, indeed, discovered in the newspapers of the time such an outburst of indignation as might have been expected, but according to the Duke of Buckingham, Napoleon, who till then had had admirers in England, became thoroughly execrated. Some of the captives were studying at universities, others copying at the Louvre, then full of foreign spoils, others in search of health in Southern France. The detention was especially hard for travellers in Switzerland, who could not be aware of the fluctuations of diplomacy. Sir William Coll took flight in time from Geneva, and Miss Berry and Mrs. Damer from Lausanne, thanks to a friendly warning from Lord John Campbell. The two ladies were blamed for not giving the signal to others less favoured. Madame de Stael's confidence that the rumour of arrests was unfounded was near proving calamitous to her English friends at Geneva. One hardly knows whether to regard as an extenuating or an aggravating circumstance the apparent impartiality with which the blow fell alike on friends and foes. Gallophobes and Gallophils.
Even if the detention itself had been justifiable,
