Lucien kept his voice calm as he answered. ‘Victories are all very well, but the people want peace, brother.’

‘Peace?’ Napoleon pressed a hand over his heart. ‘Don’t they understand that I want peace too? There is no man in France who yearns for peace more than I do. But we can only have peace once our enemies are defeated. At the moment they will not accept anything less than the restoration of the Bourbons and the destruction of all that the revolution has achieved.’

Talleyrand coughed lightly and Napoleon rounded on him with a cynical smile. ‘Are you ill, or is it that you have something to say?’

‘Citizen Consul, I am merely concerned about the notion of having peace only when our enemies are defeated.’

‘Really? I would have thought it was axiomatic.’

‘There is another way. We must negotiate a peace.’

Napoleon sighed wearily. ‘That’s precisely what we are trying to do. Even with their armies defeated and an armistice agreed, the Austrians are delaying moves towards signing a peace treaty at every opportunity.’

‘They will see reason, in time,’ Talleyrand offered.

‘If they don’t see the gleam of English gold first, to lure them back into war.’

‘Precisely,’ Talleyrand countered. ‘The problem is England. While we are at war with England there will be no prospect of peace for France. We must deal with England.’

‘Oh, we’ll deal with them all right.’ Napoleon nodded. ‘The moment we land a French army on their shores. We’ll dictate peace terms from their houses of Parliament.’

‘You misunderstand me, Citizen Consul. I meant that we must deal with them in the sense of making peace with England.’

‘Oh.’ Napoleon looked disappointed. ‘But there can be no chance of peace while Pitt is Prime Minister.That man has made the destruction of our revolution his life’s mission. He denies us peace, and is prepared to ruin his country to bribe other nations to oppose us.’

‘True,’ Talleyrand conceded. ‘So we must wait until he is replaced, and, provided that we proceed shrewdly, that could happen rather sooner than you might suppose.’

Napoleon narrowed his eyes. ‘Explain yourself.’

‘England’s strength relies on her trade. She needs customers for her goods, so we must attack her trade in order to hurt her enough to compel her to negotiate.’

‘How?’ Lucien asked. ‘You know the state of our navy. Most of our fleet is laid up, the best officers fled during the revolution, and man for man, ship for ship, they are no match for the Royal Navy.’ He glanced at Napoleon.‘That was made perfectly clear at Aboukir Bay.’

‘Thank you for reminding me,’ Napoleon replied coldly.

‘Then we don’t attack their sea trade,’ Talleyrand continued. ‘We cut them off from their customers instead. We make treaties and alliances with whatever nations we can, and at the same time we make sure that we use our diplomatic contacts to undermine England at every opportunity.’