In 1800, the Plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise, an attempt to assassinate Napoleon, failed. In 1803, at a time when Britain and France were at peace, Jean Gabriel Peltier, while living in England, argued that Napoleon should be assassinated. The lawyer James Mackintosh defended the French refugee, Peltier against a libel suit instigated by Napoleon – then First Consul of France. Mackintosh's speech was widely published in English and also across Europe in a French translation by Madame de Staël. She was forced to leave Paris as a result.