Under a growing irritability the sentiment of patriotism, which is the very essence of the citizen--who before belonging to himself belongs to his country-- became extinct in the soul of the disappointed inventor.

His thoughts turned towards other nations.

He crossed the frontier, and forgetting the ineffaceable past, offered the fulgurator to Germany.
There, as soon as his exorbitant demands were made known, the government refused to receive his communication.

Besides, it so happened that the military authorities were just then absorbed by the construction of a new ballistic engine, and imagined they could afford to ignore that of the French inventor.
As the result of this second rebuff Roch's anger became coupled with hatred--an instinctive hatred of humanity--especially after his _pourparlers_ with the British Admiralty came to naught.

The English being practical people, did not at first repulse Thomas Roch.