"En loyauté comme en vaillance, Mack est un homme singulier; Retenu sur parole, il s'échappe de France; Libre dans Ulm, il se rend prisonnier." My father's imprisonment had lasted from the 27th Ventôse, year VII (17th March 1799) to the 15th Germinal, year IX (5th April 1801), during which period great events had taken place. Bonaparte saw his gigantic designs upon the East miscarry before the successful resistance of a paltry seaport town like St. Jean-d'Acre. He had heard no news from Europe for ten months, when suddenly he learnt, through the medium of a stray Gazette that came in his way, of our reverses in Italy, of the re-capture of Mantua, the battle of Novi and the death of Joubert. He immediately left Egypt, reached Fréjus after a forty days' crossing on board _la Muiron_, and arrived in Paris on the 16th October 1799; a month later he overthrew the Directory on the famous 18th of Brumaire, and had himself appointed First Consul. He then married his sister Caroline to Murat, set out for Italy on May 6th, 1800, crossed the Saint Bernard with his army on the 19th and 20th, and defeated the Austrians at Marengo on June 14th, 1800--the same day that Kléber was assassinated at Cairo by Soliman. On January 12, 1801, Murat left Milan to invade Naples and to deliver Rome. On the 18th February the armistice to which we have referred, and to which my father owed his liberty, was concluded between France and the King of Naples. And finally, as we have seen, my father reached the headquarters at Florence on the 5th April, from whence he hastened to despatch to the First Consul the report we have just read, which I have copied from the manuscript written and signed in his own handwriting. When he landed at Ancona, on the 23rd Germinal, year IX, my father at once wrote the following letter to the Consuls:-- "CITIZEN CONSULS,--I have the honour to inform you that we arrived at this town yesterday, with ninety-four prisoners, the officers and non-commissioned officers among whom about equal the soldiers and marines, and most of them are blind or maimed. We will confine ourselves for the present to informing you that the treatment we experienced at the hands of the Government of Naples disgraces that State in the eyes of humanity and of all nations, for the most frightful means were employed to get rid of us, even poisoning being resorted to. "I have the honour to send to you at the headquarters at Florence a detailed report of all the scandalous deeds which the Neapolitan Government committed with regard to us. "Accept, Citizen Consuls, our respectful greetings." In the following July he wrote to Murat:--