From this review:

After his first success, at the Siege of Toulon, he sent a letter to the Ministry of War declaring that the English had been unreservedly routed. In fact, they had sunk twelve French warships and stolen another twelve, and burned all the timber stocks needed for repairs and constructions. An expression eventually gained prominence in France: “to lie like an army bulletin.” Broers cites the Toulon letter as the first example of this tendency.

I disagree with Boers' citing this Toulon letter as lying. N. was entirely correct in stating that the English had been unreservedly routed. The English and Allies only escaped complete destruction by the slimmest of margins and were for the most part panicked in their retreat. That so many French ships were burned (not sunk!) is entirely due the luck of the English having the intrepid Sir Sidney Smith available to volunteer his services to do this difficult and dangerous job of arson. This destruction was very much a last second thing conducted with no real planning or preparation. The difficulty of this arson is emphasized by the fact that only half (Smith's assigned half) of the fleet was burned; the Spanish were assigned to burn the other half and entirely failed. The French Jacobins rushed in on the heels of Sidney Smith's work to put out the fires and in fact saved much of the invaluable marine stores (yes, the timber stock was burnt but much was also saved.) So, the French were actually lucky and worked very hard to save as much as they did. It was these unburnt ships that formed the bulk of the ships-of-the-line, including the Orient, that took N. to Egypt in 1798.

N.'s work at the Siege of Toulon was brilliant and innovative. Without having to conduct a traditional slow siege by the book with trenches, etc., N., using his artillery as the only available tool and a raw undisciplined army, forced the English, Spanish, and Neapolitans to leave Toulon as fast as they could. Were the English unreservedly routed from Toulon? Absolutely.

The only way that N. could be accused of lying is if he was trying to somehow coverup the fact of the ships being burned but that's just not possible; the fleet burning could not possibly be hidden from anyone, it was a spectacular show and seen by everyone present. . . it was in all of the papers.

Even if Boers -and only heaven only knows why- doesn't agree with N. that the English were routed at Toulon, from everything I've read, the English at the time certainly felt routed... even if they may not have used this specific word. "Disaster" is probably the most common English word to describe Toulon.

All in all, I think Boers used a very poor example to demonstrate to "lie like a bulletin."