"I am not a competent judge," retorted the Minister; "Madame de

Talleyrand is here, and has not the honour of being a Frenchwoman; but I

dare say the Marquis will agree with me that in no society in the British

Islands, among a dozen of ladies, has he counted more beauties, or

admired greater accomplishments or more perfection."

To this the Marquis bowed assent, saying that in all his general remarks

the party present, of course, was not included. All the ladies, who were

well acquainted with his absent and blundering conversation, very

good-humouredly laughed, and Madame Murat assured him that if he would

give her the address of the belle in France who had transformed a gallant

Frenchman into a chevalier of British beauty, she would attempt to make

up their difference. "She is no more, Madame," said the Marquis; "she

was, unfortunately, guillotined two days before----" the father of Madame

Louis, he was going to say, when Talleyrand interrupted him with a

significant look, and said, "Before the fall of Robespierre, you mean."

From these and other traits of the Marquis's character, you may see that

he erred more from absence of mind than any premeditation to give

offence. He received, however, the next morning, a lettre de cachet from

Fouche, which exiled him to Blois, and forbade him to return to Paris

without further orders from the Minister of Police. I know, from high

authority, that to the interference of Princesse Louis alone is he

indebted for not being shut up in the Temple, and, perhaps, transported

to our colonies, for having depreciated the power and means of France to

invade England. I am perfectly convinced that none of those who spoke on

the subject of the invasion expressed anything but what they really

thought; and that, of the whole party, none, except Talleyrand, the

Marquis, and myself, entertained the least doubt of the success of the

expedition; so firmly did they rely on the former fortune of Bonaparte,

his boastings, and his assurance.

After dinner I had an opportunity of conversing for ten minutes with

Madame Louis Bonaparte, whom I found extremely amiable, but I fear that

she is not happy. Her husband, though the most stupid, is, however, the

best tempered of the Bonapartes, and seemed very attentive and attached

to her. She was far advanced in her pregnancy, and looked,

notwithstanding, uncommonly well. I have heard that Louis is inclined to

inebriation, and when in that situation is very brutal to his wife, and

very indelicate with other women before her eyes. He intrigues with her

own servants and the number of his illegitimate children is said to be as

many as his years. She asked General Murat to present me and recommend

me to Fouche, which he did with great politeness; and the Minister

assured me that he should be glad to see me at his hotel, which I much

doubt. The last words Madame Louis said to me, in showing me a princely

crown, richly set with diamonds, and given her by her brother-in-law,

Napoleon, were, "Alas! grandeur is not always happiness, nor the most

elevated the most fortunate lot."

LETTER XVII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

My LORD:--The arrival of the Pope in this country was certainly a grand

epoch, not only in the history of the Revolution, but in the annals of

Europe. The debates in the Sacred College for and against this journey,

and for and against his coronation of Bonaparte, are said to have been

long as well as violent, and arranged according to the desires of

Cardinal Fesch only by the means of four millions of livres distributed

apropos among its pious members. Of this money the Cardinals Mattei,

Pamphili, Dugnani, Maury, Pignatelli, Roverella, Somaglia, Pacca,

Brancadoro, Litta, Gabrielli, Spina, Despuig, and Galefli, are said to

have shared the greatest part; and from the most violent

anti-Bonapartists, they instantly became the strenuous adherents of

Napoleon the First, who, of course, cannot be ignorant of their real

worth.

The person entrusted by Bonaparte and Talleyrand to carry on at Rome the

intrigue which sent Pius VII. to cross the Alps was Cardinal Fesch,

brother of Madame Letitia Bonaparte by the side of her mother, who, in a

second marriage, chose a pedlar of the name of Nicolo Fesch, for her

husband.

Joseph, Cardinal Fesch, was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, on the 8th of

March, 1763, and was in his infancy received as a singing boy (enfant de

choeur) in a convent of his native place. In 1782, whilst he was on a

visit to some of his relations in the Island of Sardinia, being on a

fishing party some distance from shore, he was, with his companions,

captured by an Algerine felucca, and carried a captive to Algiers. Here

he turned Mussulman, and, until 1790, was a zealous believer in, and

professor of, the Alcoran. In that year he found an opportunity to

escape from Algiers, and to return to Ajaccio, when he abjured his

renegacy, exchanged the Alcoran for the Bible, and, in 1791, was made a

constitutional curate, that is to say, a revolutionary Christian priest.

In 1793, when even those were proscribed, he renounced the sacristy of

his Church for the bar of a tavern, where, during 1794 and 1795, he

gained a small capital by the number and liberality of his English

customers. After the victories of his nephew Napoleon in Italy during

the following year, he was advised to reassume the clerical habit, and

after Napoleon's proclamation of a First Consul, he was made Archbishop

of Lyons. In 1802, Pius VII. decorated him with the Roman purple, and he

is now a pillar of the Roman faith, in a fair way of seizing the Roman

tiara. If letters from Rome can be depended upon, Cardinal Fesch, in the

name of the Emperor of the French, informed His Holiness the Pope that he

must either retire to a convent or travel to France, either abdicate his

own sovereignty, or inaugurate Napoleon the First a Sovereign of France.

Without the decision of the Sacred College, effected in the manner

already stated, the majority of the faithful believe that this pontiff

would have preferred obscurity to disgrace.

While Joseph Fesch was a master of a tavern he married the daughter of a

tinker, by whom he had three children. This marriage, according to the

republican regulations, had only been celebrated by the municipality at

Ajaccio; Fesch, therefore, upon again entering the bosom of the Church,

left his municipal wife and children to shift for themselves, considering

himself still, according to the canonical laws, a bachelor. But Madame

Fesch, hearing, in 1801, of her ci-devant husband's promotion to the

Archbishopric of Lyons, wrote to him for some succours, being with her

children reduced to great misery. Madame Letitia Bonaparte answered her

letter, enclosing a draft for six hundred livres--informing her that the

same sum would be paid her every six months, as long as she continued

with her children to reside at Corsica, but that it would cease the

instant she left that island. Either thinking herself not sufficiently

paid for her discretion, or enticed by some enemy of the Bonaparte

family, she arrived secretly at Lyons in October last year, where she

remained unknown until the arrival of the Pope. On the first day His

Holiness gave there his public benediction, she found means to pierce the

crowd, and to approach his person, when Cardinal Fesch was by his side.

Profiting by a moment's silence, she called out loudly, throwing herself

at his feet: "Holy Father! I am the lawful wife of Cardinal Fesch, and

these are our children; he cannot, he dares not, deny this truth. Had he

behaved liberally to me, I should not have disturbed him in his present

grandeur; I supplicate you, Holy Father, not to restore me my husband,

but to force him to provide for his wife and children, according to his

present circumstances."--"Matta--ella e matta, santissimo padre! She is

mad--she is mad, Holy Father," said the Cardinal; and the good pontiff

ordered her to be taken care of, to prevent her from doing herself or the

children any mischief. She was, indeed, taken care of, because nobody

ever since heard what has become either of her or her children; and as

they have not returned to Corsica, probably some snug retreat has been

allotted them in France.

The purple was never disgraced by a greater libertine than Cardinal

Fesch: his amours are numerous, and have often involved him in

disagreeable scrapes. He had, in 1803, an unpleasant adventure at Lyons,

which has since made his stay in that city but short. Having thrown his

handkerchief at the wife of a manufacturer of the name of Girot, she

accepted it, and gave him an appointment at her house, at a time in the

evening when her husband usually went to the play. His Eminence arrived

in disguise, and was received with open arms. But he was hardly seated

by her side before the door of a closet was burst open, and his shoulders

smarted from the lashes inflicted by an offended husband. In vain did he

mention his name and rank; they rather increased than decreased the fury

of Girot, who pretended it was utterly impossible for a Cardinal and

Archbishop to be thus overtaken with the wife of one of his flock; at

last Madame Girot proposed a pecuniary accommodation, which, after some

opposition, was acceded to; and His Eminence signed a bond for one

hundred thousand livres--upon condition that nothing should transpire of

this intrigue--a high price enough for a sound drubbing. On the day when

the bond was due, Girot and his wife were both arrested by the police

commissary, Dubois (a brother of the prefect of police at Paris), accused

of being connected with the coiners, a capital crime at present in this

country. In a search made in their house, bad money to the amount of

three thousand livres was discovered; which they had received the day

before from a man who called himself a merchant from Paris, but who was a

police spy sent to entrap them. After giving up the bond of the

Cardinal, the Emperor graciously remitted the capital punishment, upon

condition that they should be transported for life to Cayenne.

This is the prelate on whom Bonaparte intends to confer the Roman tiara,

and to constitute a successor of St. Peter. It would not be the least

remarkable event in the beginning of the remarkable nineteenth century

were we to witness the papal throne occupied by a man who from a singing

boy became a renegade slave, from a Mussulman a constitutional curate,

from a tavern-keeper an archbishop, from the son of a pedlar the uncle of

an Emperor, and from the husband of the daughter of a tinker, a member of

the Sacred College.

His sister, Madame Letitia Bonaparte, presented him, in 1802, with an

elegant library, for which she had paid six hundred thousand livres--and

his nephew, Napoleon, allows him a yearly pension double that amount.

Besides his dignity as a prelate, His Eminence is Ambassador from France

at Rome, a Knight of the Spanish Order of the Golden Fleece, a grand

officer of the Legion of Honour, and a grand almoner of the Emperor of

the French.

The Archbishop of Paris is now in his ninety-sixth year, and at his death

Cardinal Fesch is to be transferred to the see of this capital, in

expectation of the triple crown and the keys of St. Peter.

LETTER XVIII.

Paris, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--The amiable and accomplished Amelia Frederique, Princess

Dowager of the late Electoral Prince, Charles Louis of Baden, born a

Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, has procured the Electoral House of Baden

the singular honour of giving consorts to three reigning and Sovereign

Princes,--to an Emperor of Russia, to a King of Sweden, and to the

Elector of Bavaria. Such a distinction, and such alliances, called the

attention of those at the head of our Revolution; who, after attempting

in vain to blow up hereditary thrones by the aid of sans-culotte

incendiaries, seated sans-culottes upon thrones, that they might degrade

what was not yet ripe for destruction.

Charles Frederick, the reigning Elector of Baden, is now near fourscore

years of age. At this period of life if any passions remain, avarice is

more common than ambition; because treasures may be hoarded without

bustle, while activity is absolutely necessary to push forward to the

goal of distinction. Having bestowed a new King on Tuscany, Bonaparte

and Talleyrand also resolved to confer new Electors on Germany. A more

advantageous fraternity could not be established between the innovators

here and their opposers in other countries, than by incorporating the

grandfather-in-law of so many Sovereigns with their own revolutionary

brotherhood; to humble him by a new rank, and to disgrace him by

indemnities obtained from their hands. An intrigue between our Minister,

Talleyrand, and the Baden Minister, Edelsheim, transformed the oldest

Margrave of Germany into its youngest Elector, and extended his dominions

by the spoils obtained at the expense of the rightful owners. The

invasion of the Baden territory in time of peace, and the seizure of the

Duc d'Enghien, though under the protection of the laws of nations and

hospitality, must have soon convinced Baron Edelsheim what return his

friend Talleyrand expected, and that Bonaparte thought he had a natural

right to insult by his attacks those he had dishonoured by his

connections.

The Minister, Baron Edelsheim, is half an illuminato, half a philosopher,

half a politician, and half a revolutionist. He was, long before he was

admitted into the council chamber of his Prince, half an atheist, half an

intriguer, and half a spy, in the pay of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

His entry upon the stage at Berlin, and particularly the first parts he

was destined to act, was curious and extraordinary; whether he acquitted

himself better in this capacity than he has since in his political one is

not known. He was afterwards sent to this capital to execute a

commission, of which he acquitted himself very ill; exposing himself

rashly, without profit or service to his employer. Frederick II.,

dreading the tediousness of a proposed congress at Augsburg, wished to

send a private emissary to sound the King of France. For this purpose he

chose Edelsheim as a person least liable to suspicion. The project of

Frederick was to idemnify the King of Poland for his first losses by

robbing the ecclesiastical Princes of Germany. This, Louis XV. totally

rejected; and Edelsheim returned with his answer to the Prussian Monarch,

then at Freyburg. From thence he afterwards departed for London, made

his communications, and was once again sent back to Paris, on pretence

that he had left some of his travelling trunks there; and the Bailli de

Foulay, the Ambassador of the Knights of Malta, being persuaded that the

Cabinet of Versailles was effectually desirous of peace, was, as he had

been before, the mediator. The Bailli was deceived. The Duc de

Choiseul, the then Prime Minister, indecently enough threw Edelsheim into

the Bastille, in order to search or seize his papers, which, however,

were secured elsewhere. Edelsheim was released on the morrow, but

obliged to depart the kingdom by the way of Turin, as related by

Frederick II. in his "History of the Seven Years' War." On his return he

was disgraced, and continued so until 1778; when he again was used as

emissary to various Courts of Germany. In 1786 the Elector of Baden sent

him to Berlin, on the ascension of Frederick William II., as a

complimentary envoy. This Monarch, when he saw him, could not forbear

laughing at the high wisdom of the Court that selected such a personage

for such an embassy, and of his own sagacity in accepting it. He quitted

the capital of Prussia as he came there, with an opinion of himself that

the royal smiles of contempt had neither altered nor diminished.

You see, by this account, that Edelsheim has long been a partisan of the

pillage of Germany called indemnities; and long habituated to affronts,

as well as to plots. To all his other half qualities, half modesty can

hardly be added, when he calls himself, or suffers himself to be called,

"the Talleyrand of Carlsrhue." He accompanied his Prince last year to

Mentz; where this old Sovereign was not treated by Bonaparte in the most

decorous or decent manner, being obliged to wait for hours in his

antechamber, and afterwards stand during the levees, or in the

drawing-rooms of Napoleon or of his wife, without the offer of a chair,

or an invitation to sit down. It was here where, by a secret treaty,

Bonaparte became the Sovereign of Baden, if sovereignty consists in the

disposal of the financial and military resources of a State; and they

were agreed to be assigned over to him whenever he should deem it proper

or necessary to invade the German Empire, in return for his protection

against the Emperor of Germany, who can have no more interest than intent

to attack a country so distant from his hereditary dominions, and whose

Sovereign is, besides, the grandfather of the consort of his nearest and

best ally.

Talleyrand often amused himself at Mentz with playing on the vanity and

affected consequence of Edelsheim, who was delighted if at any time our

Minister took him aside, or whispered to him as in confidence. One

morning, at the assembly of the Elector Arch-Chancellor, where Edelsheim

was creeping and cringing about him as usual, he laid hold of his arm and

walked with him to the upper part of the room. In a quarter of an hour

they both joined the company, Edelsheim unusually puffed up with vanity.

"I will lay and bet, gentlemen," said Talleyrand, "that you cannot, with

all your united wits, guess the grand subject of my conversation with the

good Baron Edelsheim." Without waiting for an answer, he continued: "As

the Baron is a much older and more experienced traveller than myself, I

asked him which, of all the countries he had visited, could boast the

prettiest and kindest women. His reply was really very instructive, and

it would be a great pity if justice were not done to his merit by its

publicity."

Here the Baron, red as a turkey-cock and trembling with anger,

interrupted. "His Excellency," said he, "is to-night in a humour to

joke; what we spoke of had nothing to do with women."

"Nor with men, either," retorted Talleyrand, going away.

This anecdote, Baron Dahlberg, the Minister of the Elector of Baden to

our Court, had the ingenuity to relate at Madame Chapui's as an evidence

of Edelsheim's intimacy with Talleyrand; only he left out the latter

part, and forgot to mention the bad grace with which this impertinence of

Talleyrand was received; but this defect of memory Count von Beust, the

envoy of the Elector Arch-Chancellor, kindly supplied.

Baron Edelsheim is a great amateur of knighthoods. On days of great

festivities his face is, as it were, illuminated with the lustre of his

stars; and the crosses on his coat conceal almost its original colour.

Every petty Prince of Germany has dubbed him a chevalier; but Emperors

and Kings have not been so unanimous in distinguishing his desert, or in

satisfying his desires.

At Mentz no Prince or Minister fawned more assiduously upon Bonaparte

than this hero of chivalry. It could not escape notice, but need not

have alarmed our great man, as was the case. The prefect of the palace

was ordered to give authentic information concerning Edelsheim's moral

and political character. He applied to the police commissary, who,

within twenty hours, signed a declaration affirming that Edelsheim was

the most inoffensive and least dangerous of all imbecile creatures that

ever entered the Cabinet of a Prince; that he had never drawn a sword,

worn a dagger, or fired a pistol in his life; that the inquiries about

his real character were sneered at in every part of the Electorate, as

nowhere they allowed him common sense, much less a character; all blamed

his presumption, but none defended his capacity.

After the perusal of this report, Bonaparte asked Talleyrand: "What can

Edelsheim mean by his troublesome assiduities? Does he want any

indemnities, or does he wish me to make him a German Prince? Can he have

the impudence to hope that I shall appoint him a tribune, a legislator,

or a Senator in France, or that I shall give him a place in my Council of

State?"

"No such thing," answered the Minister; "did not Your Majesty condescend

to notice at the last fete that this eclipsed moon was encompassed in a

firmanent of stars. You would, Sire, make him the happiest of mortals

were you to nominate him a member of your Legion of Honour."

"Does he want nothing else?" said Napoleon, as if relieved at once of an

oppressive burden. "Write to my chancellor of the Legion of Honour,

Lacepede, to send him a patent, and do you inform him of this favour."

It is reported at Carlsruhe, the capital of Baden, that Baron Edelsheim

has composed his own epitaph, in which he claims immortality, because

under his Ministry the Margravate of Baden was elevated into an

Electorate!!!

LETTER XIX.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--The sensation that the arrival of the Pope in this country

caused among the lower classes of people cannot be expressed, and if

expressed, would not be believed. I am sorry, however, to say that,

instead of improving their morals or increasing their faith, this journey

has shaken both morality and religion to their foundation.

According to our religious notions, as you must know, the Roman pontiff

is the vicar of Christ, and infallible; he can never err. The atheists

of the National Convention and the Theophilanthropists of the Directory

not only denied his demi-divinity, but transformed him into a satyr; and

in pretending to tear the veil of superstition, annihilated all belief in

a God. The ignorant part of our nation, which, as everywhere else,

constitutes the majority, witnessing the impunity and prosperity of

crime, and bestowing on the Almighty the passions of mortals, first

doubted of His omnipotence in not crushing guilt, and afterwards of His

existence in not exterminating the blasphemous from among the living.

Feeling, however, the want of consolation in their misfortunes here, and

hope of a reward hereafter for unmerited sufferings upon earth, they all

hailed as a blessing the restoration of Christianity; and by this

political act Bonaparte gained more adherents than by all his victories

he had procured admirers.

Bonaparte's character, his good and his bad qualities, his talents and

his crimes, are too recent and too notorious to require description.

Should he continue successful, and be attended by fortune to his grave,

future ages may perhaps hail him a hero and a great man; but by his

contemporaries it will always be doubtful whether mankind has not

suffered more from his ambition and cruelties than benefited by his

services. Had he satisfied himself by continuing the Chief Magistrate of

a Commonwealth; or, if he judged that a monarchical Government alone was

suitable to the spirit of this country, had he recalled our legitimate

King, he would have occupied a principal, if not the first, place in the

history of France,--a place much more exalted than he can ever expect to

fill as an Emperor of the French. Let his prosperity be ever so

uninterrupted, he cannot be mentioned but as an usurper, an appellation

never exciting esteem, frequently inspiring contempt, and always odious.

The crime of usurpation is the greatest and most enormous a subject can

perpetrate; but what epithet can there be given to him who, to preserve

an authority unlawfully acquired, asssociates in his guilt a Supreme

Pontiff, whom the multitude is accustomed to reverence as the

representative of their God, but who, by this act of scandal and

sacrilege, descends to a level with the most culpable of men? I have

heard, not only in this city but in villages, where sincerity is more

frequent than corruption, and where hypocrites are as little known as

infidels, these remarks made by the people:

"Can the real vicar of Christ, by his inauguration, commit the double

injustice of depriving the legitimate owner of his rights, and of

bestowing as a sacred donation what belongs to another; and what he has

no power, no authority, to dispose of? Can Pius VII. confer on Napoleon

the First what belongs to Louis XVIII.? Would Jesus Christ, if upon

earth, have acted thus? Would his immediate successors, the Apostles,

not have preferred the suffering of martyrdom to the commission of any

injury? If the present Roman pontiff acts differently from what his

Master and predecessors would have done, can he be the vicar of our

Saviour?"

These and many similar reflections the common people have made, and make

yet. The step from doubt to disbelief is but short, and those brought up

in the Roman Catholic religion, who hesitate about believing Pius VII. to

be the vicar of Christ, will soon remember the precepts of atheists and

freethinkers, and believe that Christ is not the Son of God, and that God

is only the invention of fear.

The fact is, that by the Pope's performance of the coronation of an

Emperor of the French, a religious as well as a political revolution was

effected; and the usurper in power, whatever his creed may be, will

hereafter, without much difficulty, force it on his slaves. You may,

perhaps, object that Pius VII., in his official account to the Sacred

College of his journey to France, speaks with enthusiasm of the

Catholicism of the French people. But did not the Goddess of Reason, did

not Robespierre as a high priest of a Supreme Being, speak as highly of

their sectaries? Read the Moniteur of 1793 and 1794, and you will be

convinced of the truth of this assertion. They, like the Pope, spoke of

what they saw, and they, like him, did not see an individual who was not

instructed how to perform his part, so as to give satisfaction to him

whom he was to please, and to those who employed him. As you have

attended to the history of our Revolution, you have found it in great

part a cruel masquerade, where none but the unfortunate Louis XVI.

appeared in his native and natural character and without a mask.

The countenance of Pius VII. is placid and benign, and a kind of calmness

and tranquillity pervades his address and manners, which are, however,

far from being easy or elegant. The crowds that he must have been

accustomed to see since his present elevation have not lessened a

timidity the consequence of early seclusion. Nothing troubled him more

than the numerous deputations of our Senate, Legislative Body, Tribunate,

National Institute, Tribunals, etc., that teased him on every occasion.

He never was suspected of any vices, but all his virtues are negative;

and his best quality is, not to do good, but to prevent evil. His piety

is sincere and unaffected, and it is not difficult to perceive that he

has been more accustomed to address his God than to converse with men. He

is nowhere so well in his place as before the altar; when imploring the

blessings of Providence on his audience he speaks with confidence, as to

a friend to whom his purity is known, and who is accustomed to listen

favourably to his prayers. He is zealous but not fanatical, but equally

superstitious as devout. His closet was crowded with relics, rosaries,

etc., but there he passed generally eight hours of the twenty-four upon

his knees in prayer and meditation. He often inflicted on himself

mortifications, observed fast-days, and kept his vows with religious

strictness.

None of the promises made him by Cardinal Fesch, in the name of Napoleon

the First, were performed, but all were put off until a general

pacification. He was promised indemnity for Avignon, Bologna, Ferrara,

and Ravenna; the ancient supremacy and pecuniary contributions of the

Gallican Church, and the restoration of certain religious orders, both in

France and Italy; but notwithstanding his own representations, and the

activity of his Cardinal, Caprara, nothing was decided, though nothing

was refused.

By some means or other he was made perfectly acquainted with the crimes

and vices of most of our public functionaries. Talleyrand was surprised

when Cardinal Caprara explained to him the reason why the Pope refused to

admit some persons to his presence, and why he wished others even not to

be of the party when he accepted the invitations of Bonaparte and his

wife to their private societies. Many are, however, of opinion that

Talleyrand, from malignity or revenge, often heightened and confirmed His

Holiness's aversion. This was at least once the case with regard to De

Lalande. When Duroc inquired the cause of the Pope's displeasure against

this astronomer, and hinted that it would be very agreeable to the

Emperor were His Holiness to permit him the honour of prostrating

himself, he was answered that men of talents and learning would always be

welcome to approach his person; that he pitied the errors and prayed for

the conversion of this savant, but was neither displeased nor offended

with him. Talleyrand, when informed of the Pope's answer, accused

Cardinal Caprara of having misinterpreted his master's communications;

and this prelate, in his turn, censured our Minister's bad memory.

You must have read that this De Lalande is regarded in France as the

first astronomer of Europe, and hailed as the high priest of atheists; he

is said to be the author of a shockingly blasphemous work called "The

Bible of a People who acknowledge no God." He implored the ferocious

Robespierre to honour the heavens by bestowing, on a new planet pretended

to be discovered, his ci-devant Christian-name, Maximilian. In a letter

of congratulation to Bonaparte, on the occasion of his present elevation,

he also implored him to honour the God of the Christians by styling

himself Jesus Christ the First, Emperor of the French, instead of

Napoleon the First. But it was not his known impiety that made

Talleyrand wish to exclude him from insulting with his presence a

Christian pontiff. In the summer of 1799, when the Minister was in a

momentary disgrace, De Lalande was at the head of those who imputed to

his treachery, corruptions, and machinations all the evils France then

suffered, both from external enemies and internal factions. If

Talleyrand has justly been reproached for soon forgetting good offices

and services done him, nobody ever denied that he has the best

recollection in the world of offences or attacks, and that he is as

revengeful as unforgiving.

The only one of our great men whom Pius VII. remained obstinate and

inflexible in not receiving, was the Senator and Minister of Police,

Fouche. As His Holiness was not so particular with regard to other

persons who, like Fouche, were both apostate priests and regicide

subjects, the following is reported to be the cause of his aversion and

obduracy:

In November, 1793, the remains of a wretch of the name of

Challiers--justly called, for his atrocities, the Murat of Lyons--were

ordered by Fouche, then a representative of the people in that city, to

be produced and publicly worshipped; and, under his particular auspices,

a grand fete was performed to the memory of this republican martyr, who

had been executed as an assassin. As part of this impious ceremony, an

ass, covered with a Bishop's vestments, having on his head a mitre, and

the volumes of Holy Writ tied to his tail, paraded the streets. The

remains of Challiers were then burnt, and the ashes distributed among his

adorers; while the books were also consumed, and the ashes scattered in

the wind. Fouche proposed, after giving the ass some water to drink in a

sacred chalice, to terminate the festivity of the day by murdering all

the prisoners, amounting to seven thousand five hundred; but a sudden

storm prevented the execution of this diabolical proposition, and

dispersed the sacrilegious congregation.

LETTER XX.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Though all the Bonapartes were great favourites with Pius VII.,

Madame Letitia, their mother, had a visible preference. In her

apartments he seemed most pleased to meet the family parties, as they

were called, because to them, except the Bonapartes, none but a few

select favourites were invited,--a distinction as much wished for and

envied as any other Court honour. After the Pope had fixed the evening

he would appear among them, Duroc made out a list, under the dictates of

Napoleon, of the chosen few destined to partake of the blessing of His

Holiness's presence; this list was merely pro form, or as a compliment,

laid before him; and after his tacit approbation, the individuals were

informed, from the first chamberlain's office, that they would be

honoured with admittance at such an hour, to such a company, and in such

an apartment. The dress in which they were to appear was also

prescribed. The parties usually met at six o'clock in the evening. On

the Pope's entrance all persons, of both sexes, kneeled to receive his

blessing. Tea, ice, liqueurs, and confectionery were then served. In

the place of honour were three elevated elbow-chairs, and His Holiness

was seated between the Emperor and Empress, and seldom spoke to any one

to whom Napoleon did not previously address the word. The exploits of

Bonaparte, particularly his campaigns in Egypt, were the chief subjects

of conversation. Before eight o'clock the Pope always retired,

distributing his blessing to the kneeling audience, as on his entry. When

he was gone, card-tables were brought in, and play was permitted. Duroc

received his master's orders how to distribute the places at the

different tables, what games were to be played, and the amount of the

sums to be staked. These were usually trifling and small compared to

what is daily risked in our fashionable circles.

Often, after the Pope had returned to his own rooms, Madame Letitia

Bonaparte was admitted to assist at his private prayers. This lady,

whose intrigues and gallantry are proverbial in Corsica, has, now that

she is old (as is generally the case), turned devotee, and is surrounded

by hypocrites and impostors, who, under the mask of sanctity, deceive and

plunder her. Her antechambers are always full of priests; and her closet

and bedroom are crowded with relics, which she collected during her

journey to Italy last year. She might, if she chose, establish a

Catholic museum, and furnish it with a more curious collection, in its

sort, than any of our other museums contain. Of all the saints in our

calendar, there is not one of any notoriety who has not supplied her with

a finger, a toe, or some other part; or with a piece of a shirt, a

handkerchief, a sandal, or a winding-sheet. Even a bit of a pair of

breeches, said to have belonged to Saint Mathurin, whom many think was a

sans-cullotte, obtains her adoration on certain occasions. As none of

her children have yet arrived at the same height of faith as herself, she

has, in her will, bequeathed to the Pope all her relics, together with

eight hundred and seventy-nine Prayer-books, and four hundred and

forty-six Bibles, either in manuscript or of different editions. Her

favourite breviary, used only on great solemnities, was presented to her

by Cardinal Maury at Rome, and belonged, as it is said, formerly to Saint

Francois, whose commentary, written with his own hand, fills the margins;

though many, who with me adore him as a saint, doubt whether he could

either read or write.

Not long ago she made, as she thought, an exceedingly valuable

acquisition. A priest arrived direct from the Holy City of Jerusalem,

well recommended by the inhabitants of the convents there, with whom he

pretended to have passed his youth. After prostrating himself before the

Pope, he waited on Madame Letitia Bonaparte. He told her that he had

brought with him from Syria the famous relic, the shoulder-bone of Saint

John the Baptist; but that, being in want of money for his voyage, he

borrowed upon it from a Grecian Bishop in Montenegro two hundred louis

d'or. This sum, and one hundred louis d'or besides, was immediately

given him; and within three months, for a large sum in addition to those

advanced, this precious relic was in Madame Letitia's possession.

Notwithstanding this lady's care not to engage in her service any person

of either sex who cannot produce, not a certificate of civism from the

municipality as was formerly the case, but a certificate of Christianity,

and a billet of confession signed by the curate of the parish, she had

often been robbed, and the robbers had made particularly free with those

relics which were set in gold or in diamonds. She accused her daughter,

the Princesse Borghese, who often rallies the devotion of her mamma, and

who is more an amateur of the living than of the dead, of having played

her these tricks. The Princess informed Napoleon of her mother's losses,

as well as of her own innocence, and asked him to apply to the police to

find out the thief, who no doubt was one of the pious rogues who almost

devoured their mother.

On the next day Napoleon invited Madame Letitia to dinner, and Fouche had

orders to make a strict search, during her absence, among the persons

composing her household. Though he, on this occasion, did not find what

he was looking for, he made a discovery which very much mortified Madame

Letitia.

Her first chambermaid, Rosina Gaglini, possessed both her esteem and

confidence, and had been sent for purposely from Ajaccio, in Corsica, on

account of her general renown for great piety, and a report that she was

an exclusive favourite with the Virgin Mary, by whose interference she

had even performed, it was said, some miracles; such as restoring stolen

goods, runaway cattle, lost children, and procuring prizes in the

lottery. Rosina was as relic-mad as her mistress; and as she had no

means to procure them otherwise, she determined to partake of her lady's

by cutting off a small part of each relic of Madame Letitia's principal

saints. These precious 'morceaux' she placed in a box upon which she

kneeled to say her prayers during the day; and which, for a

mortification, served her as a pillow during the night. Upon each of the

sacred bits she had affixed a label with the name of the saint it

belonged to, which occasioned the disclosure. When Madame Letitia heard

of this pious theft, she insisted on having the culprit immediately and

severely punished; and though the Princesse Borghese, as the innocent

cause of poor Rosina's misfortune, interfered, and Rosina herself

promised never more to plunder saints, she was without mercy turned away,

and even denied money sufficient to carry her back to Corsica. Had she

made free with Madame Letitia's plate or wardrobe, there is no doubt but

that she had been forgiven; but to presume to share with her those sacred

supports on her way to Paradise was a more unpardonable act with a

devotee than to steal from a lover the portrait of an adored mistress.

In the meantime the police were upon the alert to discover the person

whom they suspected of having stolen the relics for the diamonds, and not

the diamonds for the relics. Among our fashionable and new saints,

surprising as you may think it, Madame de Genlis holds a distinguished

place; and she, too, is an amateur and collector of relics in proportion

to her means; and with her were found those missed by Madame Letitia.

Being asked to give up the name of him from whom she had purchased them,

she mentioned Abbe Saladin, the pretended priest from Jerusalem. He, in

his turn, was questioned, and by his answers gave rise to suspicion that

he himself was the thief. The person of whom he pretended to have bought

them was not to be found, nor was any one of such a description

remembered to have been seen anywhere. On being carried to prison, he

claimed the protection of Madame Letitia, and produced a letter in which

this lady had promised him a bishopric either in France or in Italy. When

she was informed of his situation, she applied to her son Napoleon for

his liberty, urging that a priest who from Jerusalem had brought with him

to Europe such an extraordinary relic as the shoulder of Saint John,

could not be culpable.

Abbe Saladin had been examined by Real, who concluded, from the accent

and perfection with which he spoke the French language, that he was some

French adventurer who had imposed on the credulity and superstition of

Madame Letitia; and, therefore, threatened him with the rack if he did

not confess the truth. He continued, however, in his story, and was

going to be released upon an order from the Emperor, when a gendarme

recognized him as a person who, eight years before, had, under the name

of Lanoue, been condemned for theft and forgery to the galleys, whence he

had made his escape. Finding himself discovered, he avowed everything.

He said he had served in Egypt, in the guides of Bonaparte, but deserted

to the Turks and turned Mussulman, but afterwards returned to the bosom

of the Church at Jerusalem. There he persuaded the friars that he had

been a priest, and obtained the certificates which introduced him to the

Pope and to the Emperor's mother; from whom he had received twelve

thousand livres for part of the jaw bone of a whale, which he had sold

her for the shoulder-bone of a saint. As the police believe the

certificates he has produced to be also forged, he is detained in prison

until an answer arrives from our Consul in Syria.

Madame Letitia did not resign without tears the relic he had sold her;

and there is reason to believe that many other pieces of her collections,

worshipped by her as remains of saints, are equally genuine as this

shoulder-bone of Saint John.

LETTER XXI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--That the population of this capital has, since the Revolution,

decreased near two hundred thousand souls, is not to be lamented. This

focus of corruption and profligacy is still too populous, though the

inhabitants do not amount to six hundred thousand; for I am well

persuaded that more crimes and excesses of every description are

committed here in one year than are perpetrated in the same period of

time in all other European capitals put together. From not reading in

our newspapers, as we do in yours, of the robberies, murders, and frauds

discovered and punished, you may, perhaps, be inclined to suppose my

assertion erroneous or exaggerated; but it is the policy of our present

Government to labour as much as possible in the dark; that is to say, to

prevent, where it can be done, all publicity of anything directly or

indirectly tending to inculpate it of oppression, tyranny, or even

negligence; and to conceal the immorality of the people so nearly

connected with its own immoral power. It is true that many vices and

crimes here, as well as everywhere else, are unavoidable, and the natural

consequences of corruption, and might be promulgated, therefore, without

attaching any reproach to our rulers; but they are so accustomed to the

mystery adherent to tyranny, that even the most unimportant lawsuit,

uninteresting intrigue, elopement, or divorce, are never allowed to be

mentioned in our journals, without a previous permission from the prefect

of police, who very seldom grants it.

Most of the enormities now deplored in this country are the consequence

of moral and religious licentiousness, that have succeeded to political

anarchy, or rather were produced by it, and survive it. Add to this the

numerous examples of the impunity of guilt, prosperity of infamy, misery

of honesty, and sufferings of virtue, and you will not think it

surprising that, notwithstanding half a million of spies, our roads and

streets are covered with robbers and assassins, and our scaffolds with

victims.

The undeniable TRUTH that this city alone is watched by one hundred

thousand spies (so that, when in company with six persons, one has reason

to dread the presence of one spy), proclaims at once the morality of the

governors and that of the governed: were the former just, and the latter

good, this mass of vileness would never be employed; or, if employed,

wickedness would expire for want of fuel, and the hydra of tyranny perish

by its own pestilential breath.

According to the official registers published by Manuel in 1792, the

number of spies all over France during the reign of Louis XVI. was

nineteen thousand three hundred (five thousand less than under Louis

XV.); and of this number six thousand were distributed in Paris, and in a

circle of four leagues around it, including Versailles. You will

undoubtedly ask me, even allowing for our extension of territory, what

can be the cause of this disproportionate increase of distrust and

depravity? I will explain it as far as my abilities admit, according to

the opinions of others compared with my own remarks.

When factions usurped the supremacy of the Kings, vigilance augmented

with insecurity; and almost everybody who was not an opposer, who refused

being an accomplice, or feared to be a victim, was obliged to serve as an

informer and vilify himself by becoming a spy. The rapidity with which

parties followed and destroyed each other made the criminals as numerous

as the sufferings of honour and loyalty innumerable; and I am sorry to

say few persons exist in my degraded country, whose firmness and

constancy were proof against repeated torments and trials, and who, to

preserve their lives, did not renounce their principles and probity.

Under the reign of Robespierre and of the Committee of Public Safety,

every member of Government, of the clubs, of the tribunals, and of the

communes, had his private spies; but no regular register was kept of

their exact number. Under the Directory a Police Minister was nominated,

and a police office established. According to the declaration of the

Police Minister, Cochon, in 1797, the spies, who were then regularly

paid, amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand; and of these, thirty

thousand did duty in this capital. How many there were in 1799, when

Fouche, for the first time, was appointed a chief of the department of

police, is not known, but suppose them doubled within two years; their

increase since is nevertheless immense, considering that France has

enjoyed upwards of four years' uninterrupted Continental peace, and has

not been exposed to any internal convulsions during the same period.

You may, perhaps, object that France is not rich enough to keep up as

numerous an army of spies as of soldiers; because the expense of the

former must be triple the amount of the latter. Were all these spies,

now called police agents, or agents of the secret police, paid regular

salaries, your objection would stand, but most of them have no other

reward than the protection of the police; being employed in

gambling--houses, in coffee--houses, in taverns, at the theatres, in the

public gardens, in the hotels, in lottery offices, at pawnbrokers', in

brothels, and in bathing-houses, where the proprietors or masters of

these establishments pay them. They receive nothing from the police, but

when they are enabled to make any great discoveries, those who have been

robbed or defrauded, and to whom they have been serviceable, are, indeed,

obliged to present them with some douceur, fixed by the police at the

rate of the value recovered; but such occurrences are merely accidental.

To these are to be added all individuals of either sex who by the law are

obliged to obtain from the police licenses to exercise their trade, as

pedlars, tinkers, masters of puppet-shows, wild beasts, etc. These, on

receiving their passes, inscribe themselves, and take the oaths as spies;

and are forced to send in their regular reports of what they hear or see.

Prostitutes, who, all over this country, are under the necessity of

paying for regular licenses, are obliged also to give information, from

time to time, to the nearest police commissary of what they observe or

what they know respecting their visitors, neighbours, etc. The number of

unfortunate women of this description who had taken out licenses during

the year 12, or from September, 1803, to September, 1804, is officially

known to have amounted to two hundred and twenty thousand, of whom forty

thousand were employed by the armies.

It is no secret that Napoleon Bonaparte has his secret spies upon his

wife, his brothers, his sisters, his Ministers, Senators, and other

public functionaries, and also upon his public spies. These are all

under his own immediate control and that of Duroc, who does the duty of

his private Police Minister, and in whom he confides more than even in

the members of his own family. In imitation of their master, each of the

other Bonapartes, and each of the Ministers, have their individual spies,

and are watched in their turn by the spies of their secretaries, clerks,

etc. This infamous custom of espionage goes ad infinitum, and appertains

almost to the establishment and to the suite of each man in place, who

does not think himself secure a moment if he remains in ignorance of the

transactions of his rivals, as well as of those of his equals and

superiors.

Fouche and Talleyrand are reported to have disagreed before Bonaparte on

some subject or other, which is frequently the case. The former,

offended at some doubts thrown out about his intelligence, said to the

latter:

"I am so well served that I can tell you the name of every man or woman

you have conversed with, both yesterday and today; where you saw them,

and how long you remained with them or they with you."

"If such commonplace espionage evinces any merit," retorted Talleyrand,

"I am even here your superior; because I know not only what has already

passed with you and in your house, but what is to pass hereafter. I can

inform you of every dish you had for your dinners this week, who provided

these dinners, and who is expected to provide your meats to-morrow and

the day after. I can whisper you, in confidence, who slept with Madame

Fouche last night, and who has an appointment with her to-night."

Here Bonaparte interrupted them, in his usual dignified language: "Hold

both your tongues; you are both great rogues, but I am at a loss to

decide which is the greatest."

Without uttering a single syllable, Talleyrand made a profound reverence

to Fouche. Bonaparte smiled, and advised them to live upon good terms if

they were desirous of keeping their places.

A man of the name of Ducroux, who, under Robespierre, had from a barber

been made a general, and afterwards broken for his ignorance, was engaged

by Bonaparte as a private spy upon Fouche, who employed him in the same

capacity upon Bonaparte. His reports were always written, and delivered

in person into the hands both of the Emperor and of his Minister. One

morning he, by mistake, gave to Bonaparte the report of him instead of

that intended for him. Bonaparte began to read: "Yesterday, at nine

o'clock, the Emperor acted the complete part of a madman; he swore,

stamped, kicked, foamed, roared--", here poor Ducroux threw himself at

Bonaparte's feet, and called for mercy for the terrible blunder he had

committed.

"For whom," asked Bonaparte, "did you intend this treasonable

correspondence? I suppose it is composed for some English or Russian

agent, for Pitt or for Marcoff. How long have you conspired with my

enemies, and where are your accomplices?"

"For God's sake, hear me, Sire," prayed Ducroux. "Your Majesty's enemies

have always been mine. The report is for one of your best friends; but

were I to mention his name, he will ruin me."

"Speak out, or you die!" vociferated Bonaparte.

"Well,'Sire, it is for Fouche--for nobody else but Fouche."

Bonaparte then rang the bell for Duroc, whom he ordered to see Ducroux

shut up in a dungeon, and afterwards to send for Fouche. The Minister

denied all knowledge of Ducroux, who, after undergoing several tortures,

expiated his blunder upon the rack.

LETTER XXII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--The Pope, during his stay here, rose regularly every morning at

five o'clock, and went to bed every night before ten. The first hours of

the day he passed in prayers, breakfasted after the Mass was over,

transacted business till one, and dined at two. Between three and four

he took--his siesta, or nap; afterwards he attended the vespers, and when

they were over he passed an hour with the Bonapartes, or admitted to his

presence some members of the clergy. The day was concluded, as it was

begun, with some hours of devotion.

Had Pius VII. possessed the character of a Pius VI., he would never have

crossed the Alps; or had he been gifted with the spirit and talents of

Sextus V. or Leo X., he would never have entered France to crown

Bonaparte, without previously stipulating for himself that he should be

put in possession of the sovereignty of Italy. You can form no idea what

great stress was laid on this act of His Holiness by the Bonaparte

family, and what sacrifices were destined to be made had any serious and

obstinate resistance been apprehended. Threats were, indeed, employed

personally against the Pope, and bribes distributed to the refractory

members of the Sacred College; but it was no secret, either here or at

Milan, that Cardinal Fesch had carte blanche with regard to the

restoration of all provinces seized, since the war, from the Holy See, or

full territorial indemnities in their place, at the expense of Naples and

Tuscany; and, indeed, whatever the Roman pontiff has lost in Italy has

been taken from him by Bonaparte alone, and the apparent generosity which

policy and ambition required would, therefore, have merely been an act of

justice. Confiding foolishly in the honour and rectitude of Napoleon,

without any other security than the assertion of Fesch, Pius VII., within

a fortnight's stay in France, found the great difference between the

promises held out to him when residing as a Sovereign at Rome, and their

accomplishment when he had so far forgotten himself and his sacred

dignity as to inhabit as a guest the castle of the Tuileries.

Pius VII. mentioned, the day after his arrival at Fontainebleau, that it

would be a gratification to his own subjects were he enabled to

communicate to them the restoration of the former ecclesiastical domains,

as a free gift of the Emperor of the French, at their first conference,

as they would then be as well convinced of Napoleon's good faith as he

was himself. In answer, His Holiness was informed that the Emperor was

unprepared to discuss political subjects, being totally occupied with the

thoughts how to entertain worthily his high visitor, and to acknowledge

becomingly the great honour done and the great happiness conferred on him

by such a visit. As soon as the ceremony of the coronation was over,

everything, he hoped, would be arranged to the reciprocal satisfaction of

both parties.

About the middle of last December, Bonaparte was again asked to fix a day

when the points of negotiation between him and the Pope could be

discussed and settled. Cardinal Caprara, who made this demand, was

referred to Talleyrand, who denied having yet any instructions, though in

daily expectation of them. Thus the time went on until February, when

Bonaparte informed the Pope of his determination to assume the crown of

Italy, and of some new changes necessary, in consequence on the other

side of the Alps.

Either seduced by caresses, or blinded by his unaccountable partiality

for Bonaparte, Pius VII., if left to himself, would not only have

renounced all his former claims, but probably have made new sacrifices to

this idol of his infatuation. Fortunately, his counsellors were wiser

and less deluded, otherwise the remaining patrimony of Saint Peter might

now have constituted a part of Napoleon's inheritance, in Italy. "Am I

not, Holy Father!" exclaimed the Emperor frequently, "your son, the work

of your hand? And if the pages of history assign me any glory, must it

not be shared with you--or rather, do you not share it with me? Anything

that impedes my successes, or makes the continuance of my power uncertain

or hazardous, reflects on you and is dangerous to you. With me you will

shine or be obscured, rise or fall. Could you, therefore, hesitate (were

I to demonstrate to you the necessity of such a measure) to remove the

Papal See to Avignon, where it formerly was and continued for centuries,

and to enlarge the limits of my kingdom of Italy with the Ecclesiastical

States? Can you believe my throne at Milan safe as long as it is not the

sole throne of Italy? Do you expect to govern at Rome when I cease to

reign at Milan? No, Holy Father! the pontiff who placed the crown on my

head, should it be shaken, will fall to rise no more." If what Cardinal

Caprara said can be depended upon, Bonaparte frequently used to

intimidate or flatter the Pope in this manner.

The representations of Cardinal Caprara changed Napoleon's first

intention of being again crowned by the Pope as a King of Italy. His

crafty Eminence observed that, according to the Emperor's own

declaration, it was not intended that the crowns of France and Italy

should continue united. But were he to cede one supremacy confirmed by

the sacred hands of a pontiff, the partisans of the Bourbons, or the

factions in France, would then take advantage to diminish in the opinion

of the people his right and the sacredness of His Holiness, and perhaps

make even the crown of the French Empire unstable. He did not deny that

Charlemagne was crowned by a pontiff in Italy, but this ceremony was

performed at Rome, where that Prince was proclaimed an Emperor of the

Holy Roman and German Empires, as well as a King of Lombardy and Italy.

Might not circumstances turn out so favourably for Napoleon the First

that he also might be inaugurated an Emperor of the Germans as well as of

the French? This last compliment, or prophecy, as Bonaparte's courtiers

call it (what a prophet a Caprara!), had the desired effect, as it

flattered equally Napoleon's ambition and vanity. For fear, however, of

Talleyrand and other anti-Catholic counsellors, who wanted him to

consider the Pope merely as his first almoner, and to treat him as all

other persons of his household, His Eminence sent His Holiness as soon as

possible packing for Rome. Though I am neither a cardinal nor a prophet,

should you and I live twenty years longer, and the other Continental

Sovereigns not alter their present incomprehensible conduct, I can,

without any risk, predict that we shall see Rome salute the second

Charlemagne an Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, if before that time

death does not put a period to his encroachments and gigantic plans.

LETTER XXIII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--No Sovereigns have, since the Revolution, displayed more

grandeur of soul, and evinced more firmness of character, than the

present King and Queen of Naples. Encompassed by a revolutionary volcano

more dangerous than the physical one, though disturbed at home and

defeated abroad, they have neither been disgraced nor dishonoured. They

have, indeed, with all other Italian Princes, suffered territorial and

pecuniary losses; but these were not yielded through cowardice or

treachery, but enforced by an absolute necessity, the consequence of the

desertion or inefficacy of allies.

But Their Sicilian Majesties have been careful, as much as they were

able, to exclude from their councils both German Illuminati and Italian

philosophers. Their principal Minister, Chevalier Acton, has proved

himself worthy of the confidence with which his Sovereigns have honoured

him, and of the hatred with which he has been honoured by all

revolutionists--the natural and irreconcilable enemies of all legitimate

sovereignty.

Chevalier Acton is the son of an Irish physician, who first was

established at Besancon in France, and afterwards at Leghorn in Italy. He

is indebted for his present elevation to his own merit and to the

penetration of the Queen of Sardinia, who discovered in him, when young,

those qualities which have since distinguished him as a faithful

counsellor and an able Minister. As loyal as wise, he was, from 1789, an

enemy to the French Revolution. He easily foresaw that the specious

promise of regeneration held out by impostors or fools to delude the

ignorant, the credulous and the weak, would end in that universal

corruption and general overthrow which we since have witnessed, and the

effects of which our grandchildren will mourn.

When our Republic, in April, 1792, declared war against Austria, and

when, in the September following, the dominions of His Sardinian Majesty

were invaded by our troops, the neutrality of Naples continued, and was

acknowledged by our Government. On the 16th of December following, our

fleet from Toulon, however, cast anchor in the Bay of Naples, and a

grenadier of the name of Belleville was landed as an Ambassador of the

French Republic, and threatened a bombardment in case the demands he

presented in a note were not acceded to within twenty-four hours. Being

attacked in time of peace, and taken by surprise, the Court of Naples was

unable to make any resistance, and Chevalier Acton informed our grenadier

Ambassador that this note had been laid before his Sovereign, who had

ordered him to sign an agreement in consequence.

When in February, 1793, the King of Naples was obliged, for his own

safety, to join the league against France, Acton concluded a treaty with

your country, and informed the Sublime Porte of the machinations of our

Committee of Public Safety in sending De Semonville as an Ambassador to

Constantinople, which, perhaps, prevented the Divan from attacking

Austria, and occasioned the capture and imprisonment of our emissary.

Whenever our Government has, by the success of our arms, been enabled to

dictate to Naples, the removal of Acton has been insisted upon; but

though he has ceased to transact business ostensibly as a Minister, his

influence has always, and deservedly, continued unimpaired, and he still

enjoys the just confidence and esteem of his Prince.

But is His Sicilian Majesty equally well represented at the Cabinet of

St. Cloud as served in his own capital? I have told you before that

Bonaparte is extremely particular in his acceptance of foreign diplomatic

agents, and admits none near his person whom he does not believe to be

well inclined to him.

Marquis de Gallo, the Ambassador of the King of the Two Sicilies to the

Emperor of the French, is no novice in the diplomatic career. His

Sovereign has employed him for these fifteen years in the most delicate

negotiations, and nominated him in May, 1795, a Minister of the Foreign

Department, and a successor of Chevalier Acton, an honour which he

declined. In the summer and autumn, 1797, Marquis de Gallo assisted at

the conferences at Udine, and signed, with the Austrian

plenipotentiaries, the Peace of Campo Formio, on the 17th of October,

1797.

During 1798, 1799, and 1800 he resided as Neapolitan Ambassador at

Vienna, and was again entrusted by his Sovereign with several important

transactions with Austria and Russia. After a peace had been agreed to

between France and the Two Sicilies, in March, 1801, and the Court of

Naples had every reason to fear, and of course to please, the Court of

St. Cloud, he obtained his present appointment, and is one of the few

foreign Ambassadors here who has escaped both Bonaparte's private

admonitions in the diplomatic circle and public lectures in Madame

Bonaparte's drawing-room.

This escape is so much the more fortunate and singular as our Government

is far from being content with the mutinous spirit (as Bonaparte calls

it) of the Government of Naples, which, considering its precarious and

enfeebled state, with a French army in the heart of the kingdom, has

resisted our attempts and insults with a courage and dignity that demand

our admiration.

It is said that the Marquis de Gallo is not entirely free from some

taints of modern philosophy, and that he, therefore, does not consider

the consequences of our innovations so fatal as most loyal men judge

them; nor thinks a sans-culotte Emperor more dangerous to civilized

society than a sans-culotte sovereign people.

It is evident from the names and rank of its partisans that the

Revolution of Naples in 1799 was different in many respects from that of

every other country in Europe; for, although the political convulsions

seem to have originated among the middle classes of the community, the

extremes of society were everywhere else made to act against each other;

the rabble being the first to triumph, and the nobles to succumb. But

here, on the contrary, the lazzaroni, composed of the lowest portion of

the population of a luxurious capital, appear to have been the most

strenuous, and, indeed, almost the only supporters of royalty; while the

great families, instead of being indignant at novelties which levelled

them, in point of political rights, with the meanest subject, eagerly

embraced the opportunity of altering that form of Government which alone

made them great. It is, however, but justice to say that, though Marquis

de Gallo gained the good graces of Bonaparte and of France in 1797, he

was never, directly or indirectly, inculpated in the revolutionary

transactions of his countrymen in 1799, when he resided at Vienna; and

indeed, after all, it is not improbable that he disguises his real

sentiments the better to, serve his country, and by that means has

imposed on Bonaparte and acquired his favour.

The address and manners of a courtier are allowed Marquis de Gallo by all

who know him, though few admit that he possesses any talents as a

statesman. He is said to have read a great deal, to possess a good

memory and no bad judgment; but that, notwithstanding this, all his

knowledge is superficial.

LETTER XXIV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--You have perhaps heard that Napoleon Bonaparte, with all his

brothers and sisters, was last Christmas married by the Pope according to

the Roman Catholic rite, being previously only united according to the

municipal laws of the French Republic, which consider marriage only as a

civil contract. During the last two months of His Holiness's residence

here, hardly a day passed that he was not petitioned to perform the same

ceremony for our conscientious grand functionaries and courtiers, which

he, however, according to the Emperor's desire, declined. But his

Cardinals were not under the same restrictions, and to an attentive

observer who has watched the progress of the Revolution and not lost

sight of its actors, nothing could appear more ridiculous, nothing could

inspire more contempt of our versatility and inconsistency, than to

remark among the foremost to demand the nuptial benediction, a

Talleyrand, a Fouche, a Real, an Augereau, a Chaptal, a Reubel, a Lasnes,

a Bessieres, a Thuriot, a Treilhard, a Merlin, with a hundred other

equally notorious revolutionists, who were, twelve or fifteen years ago,

not only the first to declaim against religious ceremonies as ridiculous,

but against religion itself as useless, whose motives produced, and whose

votes sanctioned, those decrees of the legislature which proscribed the

worship, together with its priests and sectaries. But then the fashion of

barefaced infidelity was as much the order of the day as that of external

sanctity is at present. I leave to casuists the decision whether to the

morals of the people, naked atheism, exposed with all its deformities, is

more or less hurtful than concealed atheism, covered with the garb of

piety; but for my part I think the noonday murderer less guilty and much

less detestable than the midnight assassin who stabs in the dark.

A hundred anecdotes are daily related of our new saints and fashionable

devotees. They would be laughable were they not scandalous, and

contemptible did they not add duplicity to our other vices.

Bonaparte and his wife go now every morning to hear Mass, and on every

Sunday or holiday they regularly attend at vespers, when, of course, all

those who wish to be distinguished for their piety or rewarded for their

flattery never neglect to be present. In the evening of last Christmas

Day, the Imperial chapel was, as usual, early crowded in expectation of

Their Majesties, when the chamberlain, Salmatoris, entered, and said to

the captain of the guard, loud enough to be heard by the audience, "The

Emperor and the Empress have just resolved not to come here to-night, His

Majesty being engaged by some unexpected business, and the Empress not

wishing to come without her consort." In ten minutes the chapel was

emptied of every person but the guards, the priests, and three old women

who had nowhere else to pass an hour. At the arrival of our Sovereigns,

they were astonished at the unusual vacancy, and indignantly regarded

each other. After vespers were over, one of Bonaparte's spies informed

him of the cause, when, instead of punishing the despicable and

hypocritical courtiers, or showing them any signs of his displeasure, he

ordered Salmatoris under arrest, who would have experienced a complete

disgrace had not his friend Duroc interfered and made his peace.

At another time, on a Sunday, Fouche entered the chapel in the midst of

the service, and whispered to Bonaparte, who immediately beckoned to his

lord-in-waiting and to Duroc. These both left the Imperial chapel, and

returning in a few minutes at the head of five grenadiers, entered the

grand gallery, generally frequented by the most scrupulous devotees, and

seized every book. The cause of this domiciliary visit was an anonymous

communication received by the Minister of Police, stating that libels

against the Imperial family, bound in the form of Prayer-books, had been

placed there. No such libels were, however, found; but of one hundred

and sixty pretended breviaries, twenty-eight were volumes of novels,

sixteen were poems, and eleven were indecent books. It is not necessary

to add that the proprietors of these edifying works never reclaimed them.

The opinions are divided here, whether this curious discovery originated

in the malice of Fouche, or whether Talleyrand took this method of duping

his rival, and at the same time of gratifying his own malignity. Certain

it is that Fouche was severely reprimanded for the transaction, and that

Bonaparte was highly offended at the disclosure.

The common people, and the middle classes, are neither so ostentatiously

devout, nor so basely perverse. They go to church as to the play, to

gape at others, or to be stared at themselves; to pass the time, and to

admire the show; and they do not conceal that such is the object of their

attendance. Their indifference about futurity equals their ignorance of

religious duties. Our revolutionary charlatans have as much brutalized

their understanding as corrupted their hearts. They heard the Grand Mass

said by the Pope with the same feelings as they formerly heard

Robespierre proclaim himself a high priest of a Supreme Being; and they

looked at the Imperial processions with the same insensibility as they

once saw the daily caravans of victims passing for execution.

Even in Bonaparte's own guard, and among the officers of his household

troops, several examples of rigour were necessary before they would go to

any place of worship, or suffer in their corps any almoners; but now,

after being drilled into a belief of Christianity, they march to the Mass

as to a parade or to a review. With any other people, Bonaparte would

not so easily have changed in two years the customs of twelve, and forced

military men to kneel before priests, whom they but the other day were

encouraged to hunt and massacre like wild beasts.

On the day of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin, a company of gendarmes

d'Elite, headed by their officers, received publicly, and by orders, the

sacrament; when the Abbe Frelaud approached Lieutenant Ledoux, he fell

into convulsions, and was carried into the sacristy. After being a

little recovered, he looked round him, as if afraid that some one would

injure him, and said to the Grand Vicar Clauset, who inquired the cause

of his accident and terror: "Good God! that man who gave me, on the 2d of

September, 1792, in the convent of the Carenes, the five wounds from

which I still suffer, is now an officer, and was about to receive the

sacrament from my hands." When this occurrence was reported to

Bonaparte, Ledoux was dismissed; but Abbe Frelaud was transported, and

the Grand Vicar Clauset sent to the Temple, for the scandal their

indiscretion had caused. This act was certainly as unjust towards him

who was bayoneted at the altar, as towards those who served the altar

under the protection of the bayonets.

LETTER XXV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Although the seizure of Sir George Rumbold might in your

country, as well as everywhere else, inspire indignation, it could

nowhere justly excite surprise. We had crossed the Rhine seven months

before to seize the Duc d'Enghien; and when any prey invited, the passing

of the Elbe was only a natural consequence of the former outrage, of

audacity on our part, and of endurance or indifference on the part of

other Continental States. Talleyrand's note at Aix-la-Chapelle had also

informed Europe that we had adopted a new and military diplomacy, and, in

confounding power with right, would respect no privileges at variance

with our ambition, interest or, suspicions, nor any independence it was

thought useful or convenient for us to invade.

It was reported here, at the time, that Bonaparte was much offended with

General Frere, who commanded this political expedition, for permitting

Sir George's servant to accompany his master, as Fouche and Real had

already tortures prepared and racks waiting, and after forcing your agent

to speak out, would have announced his sudden death, either by his own

hands or by a coup-de-sang, before any Prussian note could require his

release. The known morality of our Government must have removed all

doubts of the veracity of this assertion; a man might, besides, from the

fatigues of a long journey, or from other causes, expire suddenly; but

the exit of two, in the same circumstances, would have been thought at

least extraordinary, even by our friends, and suspicious by our enemies.

The official declaration of Rheinhard (our Minister to the Circle of

Lower Saxony) to the Senate at Hamburg, in which he disavowed all

knowledge on the subject of the capture of Sir George Rumbold, occasioned

his disgrace. This man, a subject of the Elector of Wurtemberg by birth,

is one of the negative accomplices of the criminals of France who, since

the Revolution, have desolated Europe. He began in 1792 his diplomatic

career, under Chauvelin and Talleyrand, in London, and has since been the

tool of every faction in power. In 1796 he was appointed a Minister to

the Hanse Towns, and, without knowing why, he was hailed as the point of

rally to all the philosophers, philanthropists, Illuminati and other

revolutionary amateurs, with which the North of Germany, Poland, Denmark,

and Sweden then abounded.

A citizen of Hamburg--or rather, of the world--of the name of Seveking,

bestowed on him the hand of a sister; and though he is not accused of

avarice, some of the contributions extorted by our Government from the

neutral Hanse Towns are said to have been left behind in his coffers

instead of being forwarded to this capital. Either on this account, or

for some other reason, he was recalled from Hamburg in January, 1797, and

remained unemployed until the latter part of 1798, when he was sent as

Minister to Tuscany.

When, in the summer of 1799, Talleyrand was forced by the Jacobins to

resign his place as a Minister of the Foreign Department, he had the

adroitness to procure Rheinhard to be nominated his successor, so that,

though no longer nominally the Minister, he still continued to influence

the decisions of our Government as much as if still in office, because,

though not without parts, Rheinhard has neither energy of character nor

consistency of conduct. He is so much accustomed, and wants so much to

be governed, that in 1796, at Hamburg, even the then emigrants, Madame de

Genlis and General Valence, directed him, when he was not ruled or

dictated to by his wife or brother-in-law.

In 1800 Bonaparte sent him as a representative to the Helvetian Republic,

and in 1802, again to Hamburg, where he was last winter superseded by

Bourrienne, and ordered to an inferior station at the: Electoral Court at

Dresden. Rheinhard will never become one of those daring diplomatic

banditti whom revolutionary Governments always employ in preference. He

has some moral principles, and, though not religious, is rather

scrupulous. He would certainly sooner resign than undertake to remove by

poison, or by the steel of a bravo, a rival of his own or a person

obnoxious to his employers. He would never, indeed, betray the secrets

of his Government if he understood they intended to rob a despatch or to

atop a messenger; but no allurements whatever would induce him to head

the parties perpetrating these acts of our modern diplomacy.

Our present Minister at Hamburg (Bourrienne) is far from being so nice. A

revolutionist from the beginning of the Revolution, he shared, with the

partisans of La Fayette, imprisonment under Robespierre, and escaped

death only by emigration. Recalled afterwards by his friend, the late

Director (Barras), he acted as a kind of secretary to him until 1796,

when Bonaparte demanded him, having known him at the military college.

During all Bonaparte's campaigns in Italy, Egypt, and Syria, he was his

sole and confidential secretary--a situation which he lost in 1802, when

Talleyrand denounced his corruption and cupidity because he had rivalled

him in speculating in the funds and profiting by the information which

his place afforded him. He was then made a Counsellor of State, but in

1803 he was involved in the fraudulent bankruptcy of one of our principal

houses to the amount of a million of livres--and, from his correspondence

with it, some reasons appeared for the suspicion that he frequently had

committed a breach of confidence against his master, who, after erasing

his name from among the Counsellors of State, had him conveyed a prisoner

to the Temple, where he remained six months. A small volume, called Le

Livre Rouge of the Consular Court, made its appearance about that time,

and contained some articles which gave Bonaparte reason to suppose that

Bourrienne was its author. On being questioned by the Grand Judge

Regnier and the Minister Fouce, before whom he was carried, he avowed

that he had written it, but denied that he had any intention of making it

public. As to its having found its way to the press during his

confinement, that could only be ascribed to the ill-will or treachery of

those police agents who inspected his papers and put their seals upon

them. "Tell Bonaparte," said he, "that, had I been inclined to injure

him in the public opinion, I should not have stooped to such trifles as

Le Livre Rouge, while I have deposited with a friend his original orders,

letters, and other curious documents as materials for an edifying history

of our military hospitals during the campaigns of Italy and Syria all

authentic testimonies of his humanity for the wounded and dying French

soldiers."

After the answers of this interrogatory had been laid before Bonaparte,

his brother Joseph was sent to the Temple to negotiate with Bourrienne,

who was offered his liberty and a prefecture if he would give up all the

original papers that, as a private secretary, he had had opportunity to

collect.

"These papers," answered Bourrienne, "are my only security against your

brother's wrath and his assassins. Were I weak enough to deliver them up

to-day, to-morrow, probably, I should no longer be counted among the

living; but I have now taken my measures so effectually that, were I

murdered to-day, these originals would be printed to-morrow. If Napoleon

does not confide in my word of honour, he may trust to an assurance of

discretion, with which my own interest is nearly connected. If he

suspects me of having wronged him, he is convinced also of the eminent

services I have rendered him, sufficient surely to outweigh his present

suspicion. Let him again employ me in any post worthy of him and of me,

and he shall soon see how much I will endeavour to regain his

confidence."

Shortly afterwards Bourrienne was released, and a pension, equal to the

salary of a Counsellor of State; was granted him until some suitable

place became vacant. On Champagny's being appointed a Minister of the

Home Department, the embassy at Vienna was demanded by Bourrienne, but

refused, as previously promised to La Rochefoucauld, our late Minister at

Dresden. When Rheinhard, in a kind of disgrace, was transferred to that

relatively insignificant post, Bourrienne was ordered, with extensive

instructions, to Hamburg. The Senate soon found the difference between a

timid and honest Minister, and an unprincipled and crafty intriguer. New

loans were immediately required from Hanover; but hardly were these

acquitted, than fresh extortions were insisted on. In some secret

conferences Bourrienne is, however, said to have hinted that some

douceurs were expected for alleviating the rigour of his instructions.

This hint has, no doubt, been taken, because he suddenly altered his

conduct, and instead of hunting the purses of the Germans, pursued the

persons of his emigrated countrymen; and, in a memorial, demanded the

expulsion of all Frenchmen who were not registered and protected by him,

under pretence that every one of them who declined the honour of being a

subject of Bonaparte, must be a traitor against the French Government and

his country.

Bourrienne is now stated to have connected himself with several

stock-jobbers, both in Germany, Holland, and England; and already to have

pocketed considerable sums by such connections. It is, however, not to

be forgotten that several houses have been ruined in this capital by the

profits allowed him, who always refused to share their losses, but,

whatever were the consequences, enforced to its full amount the payment

of that value which he chose to set on his communications.

A place in France would, no doubt, have been preferable to Bourrienne,

particularly one near the person of Bonaparte. But if nothing else

prevented the accomplishment of his wishes, his long familiarity with all

the Bonapartes, whom he always treated as equals, and even now (with the

exception of Napoleon) does not think his superiors, will long remain an

insurmountable barrier.

I cannot comprehend how Bonaparte (who is certainly no bad judge of men)

could so long confide in Bourrienne, who, with the usual presumption of

my countrymen, is continually boasting, to a degree that borders on

indiscretion, and, by an artful questioner, may easily be lead to

overstep those bounds. Most of the particulars of his quarrel with

Napoleon I heard him relate himself, as a proof of his great consequence,

in a company of forty individuals, many of whom were unknown to him. On

the first discovery which Bonaparte made of Bourrienne's infidelity,

Talleyrand complimented him upon not having suffered from it. "Do you

not see," answered Bonaparte, "that it is also one of the extraordinary

gifts of my extraordinary good fortune?

"Even traitors are unable to betray me. Plots respect me as much as

bullets." I need not tell you that Fortune is the sole divinity

sincerely worshipped by Napoleon.

LETTER XXVI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Joseph Bonaparte leads a much more retired life, and sees less

company, than any of his brothers or sisters. Except the members of his

own family, he but seldom invites any guests, nor has Madame Joseph those

regular assemblies and circles which Madame Napoleon and Madame Louis

Bonaparte have. His hospitality is, however, greater at his countryseat

Morfontaine than at his hotel here. Those whom he likes, or does not

mistrust (who, by the bye, are very few), may visit him without much

formality in the country, and prolong their stay, according to their own

inclination or discretion; but they must come without their servants, or

send them away on their arrival.

As soon as an agreeable visitor presents himself, it is the etiquette of

the house to consider him as an inmate; but to allow him at the same time

a perfect liberty to dispose of his hours and his person as suits his

convenience or caprice. In this extensive and superb mansion a suite of

apartments is assigned him, with a valet-de--chambre, a lackey, a

coachman, a groom, and a jockey, all under his own exclusive command. He

has allotted him a chariot, a gig, and riding horses, if he prefers such

an exercise. A catalogue is given him of the library of the chateau; and

every morning he is informed what persons compose the company at

breakfast, dinner, and supper, and of the hours of these different

repasts. A bill of fare is at the same time presented to him, and he is

asked to point out those dishes to which he gives the preference, and to

declare whether he chooses to join the company or to be served in his own

rooms.

During the summer season, players from the different theatres of Paris

are paid to perform three times in the week; and each guest, according to

the period of his arrival, is asked, in his turn, to command either a

comedy or a tragedy, a farce or a ballet. Twice in the week concerts are

executed by the first performers of the opera-bouffe; and twice in the

week invitations to tea-parties are sent to some of the neighbours, or

accepted from them.

Besides four billiard-tables, there are other gambling-tables for Rouge

et Noir, Trente et Quarante, Faro, La Roulette, Birribi, and other games

of hazard. The bankers are young men from Corsica, to whom Joseph, who

advances the money, allows all the gain, while he alone suffers the loss.

Those who are inclined may play from morning till night, and from night

till morning, without interruption, as no one interferes. Should Joseph

hear that any person has been too severely treated by Fortune, or

suspects that he has not much cash remaining, some rouleaux of napoleons

d'or are placed on the table of his dressing-room, which he may use or

leave untouched, as he judges proper.

The hours of Joseph Bonaparte are neither so late as yours in England,

nor so early as they were formerly in France. Breakfast is ready served

at ten o'clock, dinner at four, and supper at nine. Before midnight he

retires to bed with his family, but visitors do as they like and follow

their own usual hours, and their servants are obliged to wait for them.

When any business calls Joseph away, either to preside in the Senate

here, or to travel in the provinces, he notifies the visitors, telling

them at the same time not to displace themselves on account of his

absence, but wait till his return, as they would not observe any

difference in the economy of his house, of which Madame Joseph always

does the honours, or, in her absence, some lady appointed by her.

Last year, when Joseph first assumed a military rank, he passed nearly

four months with the army of England on the coast or in Brabant. On his

return, all his visitors were gone, except a young poet of the name of

Montaigne, who does not want genius, but who is rather too fond of the

bottle. Joseph is considered the best gourmet or connoisseur in liquors

and wines of this capital, and Montaigne found his Champagne and burgundy

so excellent that he never once went to bed that he was not heartily

intoxicated. But the best of the story is that he employed his mornings

in composing a poem holding out to abhorrence the disgusting vice of

drunkenness, and presented it to Joseph, requesting permission to

dedicate it to him when published. To those who have read it, or only

seen extracts from it, the compilation appears far from being

contemptible, but Joseph still keeps the copy, though he has made the

author a present of one hundred napoleons d'or, and procured him a place

of an amanuensis in the chancellory of the Senate, having resolved never

to accept any dedication, but wishing also not to hurt the feelings of

the author by a refusal.

In a chateau where so many visitors of licentious and depraved morals

meet, of both sexes, and where such an unlimited liberty reigns,

intrigues must occur, and have of course not seldom furnished materials

for the scandalous chronicle. Even Madame Joseph herself has either been

gallant or calumniated. Report says that to the nocturnal assiduities of

Eugene de Beauharnais and of Colonel la Fond-Blaniac she is exclusively

indebted to the honour of maternity, and that these two rivals even

fought a duel concerning the right of paternity. Eugene de Beauharnais

never was a great favourite with Joseph Bonaparte, whose reserved manners

and prudence form too great a contrast to his noisy and blundering way to

accord with each other. Before he set out for Italy, it was well known

in our fashionable circles that he had been interdicted the house of his

uncle, and that no reconciliation took place, notwithstanding the

endeavours of Madame Napoleon. To humble him still more, Joseph even

nominated la Fond-Blaniac an equerry to his wife, who, therefore, easily

consoled herself for the departure of her dear nephew.

The husband of Madame Miot (one of Madame Joseph's ladies-in-waiting) was

not so patient, nor such a philosopher as Joseph Bonaparte. Some

charitable person having reported in the company of a 'bonne amie' of

Miot, that his wife did not pass her nights in solitude, but that she

sought consolation among the many gallants and disengaged visitors at

Morfontaine, he determined to surprise her. It was past eleven o'clock

at night when his arrival was announced to Joseph, who had just retired

to his closet. Madame Miot had been in bed ever since nine, ill of a

migraine, and her husband was too affectionate not to be the first to

inform her of his presence, without permitting anybody previously to

disturb her. With great reluctance, Madame Miot's maid delivered the key

of her rooms, while she accompanied him with a light. In the antechamber

he found a hat and a greatcoat, and in the closet adjoining the bedroom,

a coat, a waistcoat, and a pair of breeches, with drawers, stockings, and

slippers. Though the maid kept coughing all the time, Madame Miot and

her gallant did not awake from their slumber, till the enraged husband

began to use the bludgeon of the lover, which had also been left in the

closet. A battle then ensued, in which the lover retaliated so

vigorously, that the husband called out "Murder! murder!" with all his

might. The chateau was instantly in an uproar, and the apartments

crowded with half-dressed and half-naked lovers. Joseph Bonaparte alone

was able to separate the combatants; and inquiring the cause of the riot,

assured them that he would suffer no scandal and no intrigues in his

house, without seriously resenting it. An explanation being made, Madame

Miot was looked for but in vain; and the maid declared that, being warned

by a letter from Paris of her husband's jealousy and determination to

surprise her, her mistress had reposed herself in her room; while, to

punish the ungenerous suspicions of her husband, she had persuaded

Captain d' Horteuil to occupy her place in her own bed. The maid had no

sooner finished her deposition, than her mistress made her appearance and

upbraided her husband severely, in which she was cordially joined by the

spectators. She inquired if, on seeing the dress of a gentleman, he had

also discovered the attire of a female; and she appealed to Captain d'

Horteuil whether he had not the two preceding nights also slept in her

bed. To this he, of course, assented; adding that, had M. Miot attacked

him the first night, he would not then perhaps have been so roughly

handled as now; for then he was prepared for a visit, which this night

was rather unexpected. This connubial farce ended by Miot begging pardon

of his wife and her gallant; the former of whom, after much entreaty by

Joseph, at last consented to share with him her bed. But being

disfigured with two black eyes and suffering from several bruises, and

also ashamed of his unfashionable behaviour, he continued invisible for

ten days afterwards, and returned to this city as he had left it, by

stealth.

This Niot was a spy under Robespierre, and is a Counsellor of State under

Bonaparte. Without bread, as well as without a home, he was, from the

beginning of the Revolution, one of the most ardent patriots, and the

first republican Minister in Tuscany. After the Sovereign of that

country had, in 1793, joined the League, Miot returned to France, and

was, for his want of address to negotiate as a Minister, shut up to

perform the part of a spy in the Luxembourg, then transformed into a

prison for suspected persons. Thanks to his patriotism, upwards of two

hundred individuals of both sexes were denounced, transferred to the

Conciergerie prison, and afterwards guillotined. After that, until 1799,

he continued so despised that no faction would accept him for an

accomplice; but in the November of that year, after Bonaparte had

declared himself a First Consul, Miot was appointed a tribune, an office

from which he was advanced, in 1802, to be a Counsellor of State. As Miot

squanders away his salary with harlots and in gambling-houses, and is

pursued by creditors he neither will nor can pay, it was merely from

charity that his wife was received among the other ladies of Madame

Joseph Bonaparte's household.

LETTER XXVII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Notwithstanding the ties of consanguinity, honour, duty,

interest, and gratitude, which bound the Spanish Bourbons to the cause of

the Bourbons of France, no monarch has rendered more service to the cause

of rebellion, and done more harm to the cause of royalty, than the King

of Spain.

But here, again, you must understand me. When I speak of Princes whose

talents are known not to be brilliant, whose intellects are known to be

feeble, and whose good intentions are rendered null by a want of firmness

of character or consistency of conduct; while I deplore their weakness

and the consequent misfortunes of their contemporaries, I lay all the

blame on their wicked or ignorant counsellors; because, if no Ministers

were fools or traitors, no Sovereigns would tremble on their thrones, and

no subjects dare to shake their foundation. Had Providence blessed

Charles IV. of Spain with the judgment in selecting his Ministers, and

the constancy of persevering in his choice, possessed by your George

III.; had the helm of Spain been in the firm and able hands of a

Grenville, a Windham, and a Pitt, the Cabinet of Madrid would never have

been oppressed by the yoke of the Cabinet of St. Cloud, nor paid a heavy

tribute for its bondage, degrading as well as ruinous.

"This is the age of upstarts," said Talleyrand to his cousin, Prince de

Chalais, who reproached him for an unbecoming servility to low and vile

personages; "and I prefer bowing to them to being trampled upon and

crushed by them." Indeed, as far as I remember, nowhere in history are

hitherto recorded so many low persons who, from obscurity and meanness,

have suddenly and at once attained rank and notoriety. Where do we read

of such a numerous crew of upstart Emperors, Kings, grand pensionaries,

directors, Imperial Highnesses, Princes, Field-marshals, generals,

Senators, Ministers, governors, Cardinals, etc., as we now witness

figuring upon the theatre of Europe, and who chiefly decide on the

destiny of nations? Among these, several are certainly to be found whose

superior parts have made them worthy to pierce the crowd and to shake off

their native mud; but others again, and by far the greatest number of

these 'novi homines', owe their present elevation to shameless intrigues

or atrocious crimes.

The Prime Minister--or rather, the viceroy of Spain, the Prince of

Peace--belongs to the latter class. From a man in the ranks of the

guards he was promoted to a general-in-chief, and from a harp player in

antechambers to a president of the councils of a Prince; and that within

the short period of six years. Such a fortune is not common; but to be

absolutely without capacity as well as virtue, genius as well as good

breeding, and, nevertheless, to continue in an elevation so little

merited, and in a place formerly so subject to changes and so unstable,

is a fortune that no upstart ever before experienced in Spain.

An intrigue of his elder brother with the present Queen, then Princess of

Asturia, which was discovered by the King, introduced him first at Court

as a harp player, and, when his brother was exiled, he was entrusted with

the correspondence of the Princess with her gallant. After she had

ascended the throne, he thought it more profitable to be the lover than

the messenger, and contrived, therefore, to supplant his brother in the

royal favour. Promotions and riches were consequently heaped upon him,

and, what is surprising, the more undisguised the partiality of the Queen

was, the greater the attachment of the King displayed itself; and it has

ever since been an emulation between the royal couple who should the most

forget and vilify birth and supremacy by associating this man not only in

the courtly pleasures, but in the functions of Sovereignty. Had he been

gifted with sound understanding, or possessed any share of delicacy,

generosity, or discretion, he would, while he profited by their imprudent

condescension, have prevented them from exposing their weaknesses and

frailties to a discussion and ridicule among courtiers, and from becoming

objects of humiliation and scandal among the people. He would have

warned them of the danger which at all times attends the publicity of

foibles and vices of Princes, but particularly in the present times of

trouble and innovations. He would have told them: "Make me great and

wealthy, but not at the expense of your own grandeur or of the loyalty of

your people. Do not treat an humble subject as an equal, nor suffer Your

Majesties, whom Providence destined to govern a high-spirited nation, to

be openly ruled by one born to obey. I am too dutiful not to lay aside

my private vanity when the happiness of my King and the tranquillity of

my fellow subjects are at stake. I am already too high. In descending a

little, I shall not only rise in the eyes of my contemporaries, but in

the opinion of posterity. Every step I am advancing undermines your

throne. In retreating a little, if I do not strengthen, I can never

injure it." But I beg your pardon for this digression, and for putting

the language of dignified reason into the mouth of a man as corrupt as he

is imbecile.

Do not suppose, because the Prince of Peace is no friend of my nation,

that I am his enemy. No! Had he shown himself a true patriot, a friend

of his own country, and of his too liberal Prince, or even of monarchy in

general, or of anybody else but himself--although I might have

disapproved of his policy, if he has any--I would never have lashed the

individual for the acts of the Minister. But you must have observed,

with me, that never before his administration was the Cabinet of Madrid

worse conducted at home or more despised abroad; the Spanish Monarch more

humbled or Spanish subjects more wretched; the Spanish power more

dishonoured or the Spanish resources worse employed. Never, before the

treaty with France of 1796, concluded by this wiseacre (which made him a

Prince of Peace, and our Government the Sovereign of Spain), was the

Spanish monarchy reduced to such a lamentable dilemma as to be forced

into an expensive war without a cause, and into a disgraceful peace, not

only unprofitable, but absolutely disadvantageous. Never before were its

treasures distributed among its oppressors to support their tyranny, nor

its military and naval forces employed to fight the battles of rebellion.

The loyal subjects of Spain have only one hope left. The delicate state

of his present Majesty's health does not promise a much longer

continuance of his reign, and the Prince of Asturia is too well informed

to endure the guidance of the most ignorant Minister that ever was

admitted into the Cabinet and confidence of a Sovereign. It is more than

probable that under a new reign the misfortunes of the Prince of Peace

will inspire as much compassion as his rapid advancement has excited

astonishment and indignation.

A Cabinet thus badly directed cannot be expected to have representatives

abroad either of abilities or patriotism. The Admiral and General

Gravina, who but lately left this capital as an Ambassador from the Court

of Spain to assume the command of a Spanish fleet, is more valiant than

wise, and more an enemy of your country than a friend of his own. He is

a profound admirer of Bonaparte's virtues and successes, and was, during

his residence, one of the most ostentatiously awkward courtiers of

Napoleon the First. It is said that he has the modesty and loyalty to

wish to become a Spanish Bonaparte, and that he promises to restore by

his genius and exploits the lost lustre of the Spanish monarchy. When

this was reported to Talleyrand, he smiled with contempt; but when it was

told to Bonaparte, he stamped with rage at the impudence of the Spaniard

in daring to associate his name of acquired and established greatness

with his own impertinent schemes of absurdities and impossibilities.

In the summer of 1793, Gravina commanded a division of the Spanish fleet

in the Mediterranean, of which Admiral Langara was the

commander-in-chief. At the capitulation of Toulon, after the combined

English and Spanish forces had taken possession of it, when Rear-Admiral

Goodall was declared governor, Gravina was made the commandant of the

troops. At the head of these he often fought bravely in different

sorties, and on the 1st of October was wounded at the re-capture of Fort

Pharon. He complains still of having suffered insults or neglect from

the English, and even of having been exposed unnecessarily to the fire

and sword of the enemy merely because he was a patriot as well as an

envied or suspected ally. His inveteracy against your country takes its

date, no doubt, from the siege of Toulon, or perhaps, from its

evacuation.