In 1802 La Fayette met at a dinner party Lord Cornwallis, the newly appointed British minister to France. During their conversation Cornwallis asked La Fayette’s opinion regarding Napoleon’s administration, as to whether it was consistent with his ideas of liberty. La Fayette boldly replied that it was not. Spies were not long in carrying this daring answer to Bonaparte. Napoleon was displeased; and when next he met La Fayette, he said, “Lord Cornwallis claims that you are not yet corrected.” “Of what?” asked La Fayette—“of my love of liberty? What should disgust me with that? The extravagances and crimes of terrorist tyranny have only served to make me hate more heartily every arbitrary régime, and attach myself more strongly to my principles.” “But you have spoken to him of our affairs,” said the Consul, with evident displeasure. “No one is further than myself,” replied La Fayette, “from seeking a foreign ambassador to censure what is passing in my own country; but if he ask me if this is liberty, I must answer No.” “I must say to you, General La Fayette,” said Bonaparte,—“and I perceive it with pain,—that, by your manner of speaking of the acts of the government, you give its enemies the weight of your name.” “What more can I do?” was the fearless reply. “I live in the country in retirement; I avoid, as far as I can, occasions of speaking of public affairs; but when any one demands of me if your administration of the government is conformable to my ideas of liberty, I shall say that it is not. I wish to be prudent, but I cannot be false.” “But are you not convinced,” replied he, “that in the state in which I found France I was forced to irregular measures?” “That is not the question,” he answered. “I speak neither of the time, nor of this or that act; it is the tendency—yes, General, it is the tendency of affairs—which pains me and disturbs me.” “As to the rest,” Napoleon then replied, “I have spoken to you as the chief of the government; and in that capacity I complain of you. But as a private individual I ought to be content, because, in all which has been told me concerning you, I have perceived that in spite of your severity upon the acts of government, there has always been on your part personal good will for me.” “You are right,” he answered. “A free government with you at its head—I should have nothing more to desire.” One day La Fayette dined at the house of Madame de Staël, with Joseph Bonaparte and some members of that ephemeral opposition, whom Napoleon had not expelled. “You are dissatisfied,” Joseph said to him, in the midst of the conversation. “You are not with us; but permit me to say to you that you are no more with these gentlemen. They desire a rotation of directors who differ in their striking of the shoulder. To-day it is one man; to-morrow it will be another; in place of that, if we have a régime conformed to your principles, you would be pleased that my brother should remain chief.”