Note 268 — Chapter LXVII
Reading edition
The following is a ludicrous instance. When the explosion of the infernal machine took place, a bystander rushed into a company, and exclaimed, "The First Consul is blown up." An Austrian veteran chancing to be of the party, who had witnessed Napoleon's wonderful escapes during the Italian campaigns, exclaimed, in ridicule of the facile credulity of the newsmonger, "He blown up!—Ah, you little know your man—I will wager at this moment he is as well as any of us. I know all his tricks many a day since."—S.