When, in May, 1794, our troops were advancing towards Collioure, he was

sent with a squadron to bring it succours, but he arrived too late, and

could not save that important place. He was not more successful at the

beginning of the campaign of 1795 at Rosa, where he had only time to

carry away the artillery before the enemy entered. In August, that year,

during the absence of Admiral Massaredo, he assumed ad interim the

command of the Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean; but in the December

following he was disgraced, arrested, and shut up as a State prisoner.

During the embassy of Lucien Bonaparte to the Court of Madrid, in the

autumn of 1800, Gravina was by his influence restored to favour; and

after the death of the late Spanish Ambassador to the Cabinet of St.

Cloud, Chevalier d' Azara, by the special desire of Napoleon, was

nominated both his successor and a representative of the King of Etruria.

Among the members of our diplomatic corps, he was considered somewhat of

a Spanish gasconader and a bully. He more frequently boasted of his

wounds and battles than of his negotiations or conferences, though he

pretended, indeed, to shine as much in the Cabinet as in the field.

In his suite were two Spanish women, one about forty, and the other about

twenty years of age. Nobody knew what to make of them, as they were

treated neither as wives, mistresses, nor servants; and they avowed

themselves to be no relations. After a residence here of some weeks, he

was, by superior orders, waylaid one night at the opera, by a young and

beautiful dancing girl of the name of Barrois, who engaged him to take

her into keeping. He hesitated, indeed, for some time; at last, however,

love got the better of his scruples, and he furnished for her an elegant

apartment on the new Boulevard. On the day he carried her there, he was

accompanied by the chaplain of the Spanish Legation; and told her that,

previous to any further intimacy, she must be married to him, as his

religious principles did not permit him to cohabit with a woman who was

not his wife. At the same time he laid before her an agreement to sign,

by which she bound herself never to claim him as a husband before her

turn--that is to say, until sixteen other women, to whom he had been

previously married, were dead. She made no opposition, either to the

marriage or to the conditions annexed to it. This girl had a sweetheart

of the name of Valere, an actor at one of the little theatres on the

Boulevards, to whom she communicated her adventure. He advised her to be

scrupulous in her turn, and to ask a copy of the agreement. After some

difficulty this was obtained. In it no mention was made of her

maintenance, nor in what manner her children were to be regarded, should

she have any. Valere had, therefore, another agreement drawn up, in

which all these points were arranged, according to his own interested

views. Gravina refused to subscribe to what he plainly perceived were

only extortions; and the girl, in her turn, not only declined any further

connection with him, but threatened to publish the act of polygamy.

Before they had done discussing this subject, the door was suddenly

opened and the two Spanish ladies presented themselves. After severely

upbraiding Gravina, who was struck mute by surprise, they announced to

the girl that whatever promise or contract of marriage she had obtained

from him was of no value, as, before they came with him to France, he had

bound himself, before a public notary at Madrid, not to form any more

connections, nor to marry any other woman, without their written consent.

One of these ladies declared that she had been married to Gravina

twenty-two years, and was his oldest wife but one; the other said that

she had been married to him six years. They insisted upon his following

them, which he did, after putting a purse of gold into Barrois's hand.

When Valere heard from his mistress this occurrence, he advised her to

make the most money she could of the Spaniard's curious scruples. A

letter was, therefore, written to him, demanding one hundred thousand

livres--as the price of secrecy and withholding the particulars of this

business from the knowledge of the tribunals and the police; and an

answer was required within twenty-four hours. The same night Gravina

offered one thousand Louis, which were accepted, and the papers returned;

but the next day Valere went to his hotel, Rue de Provence, where he

presented himself as a brother of Barrois. He stated that he still

possessed authenticated copies of the papers returned, and that he must

have either the full sum first asked by his sister, or an annuity of

twelve thousand livres settled upon her. Instead of an answer, Gravina

ordered him to be turned out of the house. An attorney then waited on

His Excellency, on the part of the brother and the sister, and repeated

their threats and their demands, adding that he would write a memorial

both to the Emperor of the French and to the King of Spain, were justice

refused to his principals any longer.

Gravina was well aware that this affair, though more laughable than

criminal, would hurt both his character and credit if it were known in

France; he therefore consented to pay seventy-six thousand livres more,

upon a formal renunciation by the party of all future claims. Not having

money sufficient by him, he went to borrow it from a banker, whose clerk

was one of Talleyrand's secret agents. Our Minister, therefore, ordered

every step of Gravina to be watched; but he soon discovered that, instead

of wanting this money for a political intrigue, it was necessary to

extricate him out of an amorous scrape. Hearing, however, in what a

scandalous manner the Ambassador had been duped and imposed upon, he

reported it to Bonaparte, who gave Fouche orders to have Valere, Barrois,

and the attorney immediately transported to Cayenne, and to restore

Gravina his money. The former part of this order the Minister of Police

executed the more willingly, as it was according to his plan that Barrois

had pitched upon Gravina for a lover. She had been intended by him as a

spy on His Excellency, but had deceived him by her reports--a crime for

which transportation was a usual punishment.

Notwithstanding the care of our Government to conceal and bury this

affair in oblivion, it furnished matter both for conversation in our

fashionable circles, and subjects for our caricaturists. But these

artists were soon seized by the police, who found it more easy to

chastise genius than to silence tongues. The declaration of war by Spain

against your country was a lucky opportunity for Gravina to quit with

honour a Court where he was an object of ridicule, to assume the command

of a fleet which might one day make him an object of terror. When he

took leave of Bonaparte, he was told to return to France victorious, or

never to return any more; and Talleyrand warned him as a friend,

"whenever he returned to his post in France to leave his marriage mania

behind him in Spain. Here," said he, "you may, without ridicule,

intrigue with a hundred women, but you run a great risk by marrying even

one."

I have been in company with Gravina, and after what I heard him say, so

far from judging him superstitious, I thought him really impious. But

infidelity and bigotry are frequently next-door neighbours.

LETTER XXVIII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--It cannot have escaped the observation of the most superficial

traveller of rank, that, at the Court of St. Cloud, want of morals is not

atoned for by good breeding or good manners. The hideousness of vice,

the pretensions of ambition, the vanity of rank, the pride of favour, and

the shame of venality do not wear here that delicate veil, that gloss of

virtue, which, in other Courts, lessens the deformity of corruption and

the scandal of depravity. Duplicity and hypocrisy are here very common

indeed, more so than dissimulation anywhere else; but barefaced knaves

and impostors must always make indifferent courtiers. Here the Minister

tells you, I must have such a sum for a place; and the chamberlain tells

you, Count down so much for my protection. The Princess requires a

necklace of such a value for interesting herself for your advancement;

and the lady-in-waiting demands a diamond of such worth on the day of

your promotion. This tariff of favours and of infamy descends 'ad

infinitum'. The secretary for signing, and the clerk for writing your

commission; the cashier for delivering it, and the messenger for

informing you of it, have all their fixed prices. Have you a lawsuit,

the judge announces to you that so much has been offered by your

opponent, and so much is expected from you, if you desire to win your

cause. When you are the defendant against the Crown, the attorney or

solicitor-general lets you know that such a douceur is requisite to

procure such an issue. Even in criminal proceedings, not only honour,

but life, may be saved by pecuniary sacrifices.

A man of the name of Martin, by profession a stock-jobber, killed, in

1803, his own wife; and for twelve thousand livres--he was acquitted, and

recovered his liberty. In November last year, in a quarrel with his own

brother, he stabbed him through the heart, and for another sum of twelve

thousand livres he was acquitted, and released before last Christmas.

This wretch is now in prison again, on suspicion of having poisoned his

own daughter, with whom he had an incestuous intercourse, and he boasts

publicly of soon being liberated. Another person, Louis de Saurac, the

younger son of Baron de Saurac, who together with his eldest son had

emigrated, forged a will in the name of his parent, whom he pretended to

be dead, which left him the sole heir of all the disposable property, to

the exclusion of two sisters. After the nation had shared its part as

heir of all emigrants, Louis took possession of the remainder. In 1802,

both his father and brother accepted the general amnesty, and returned to

France. To their great surprise, they heard that this Louis had, by his

ill-treatment, forced his sisters into servitude, refusing them even the

common necessaries of life. After upbraiding him for his want of duty,

the father desired, according to the law, the restitution of the unsold

part of his estates. On the day fixed for settling the accounts and

entering into his rights, Baron de Saurac was arrested as a conspirator

and imprisoned in the Temple. He had been denounced as having served in

the army of Conde, and as being a secret agent of Louis XVIII. To

disprove the first part of the charge, he produced certificates from

America, where he had passed the time of his emigration, and even upon

the rack he denied the latter. During his arrest, the eldest son

discovered that Louis had become the owner of their possessions, by means

of the will he had forged in the name of his father; and that it was he

who had been unnatural enough to denounce the author of his days. With

the wreck of their fortune in St. Domingo, he procured his father's

release; who, being acquainted with the perversity of his younger son,

addressed himself to the department to be reinstated in his property.

This was opposed by Louis, who defended his title to the estate by the

revolutionary maxim which had passed into a law, enacting that all

emigrants should be considered as politically dead. Hitherto Baron de

Saurac had, from affection, declined to mention the forged will; but

shocked by his son's obduracy, and being reduced to distress, his

counsellor produced this document, which not only went to deprive Louis

of his property, but exposed him to a criminal prosecution.

This unnatural son, who was not yet twenty-five, had imbibed all the

revolutionary morals of his contemporaries, and was well acquainted with

the moral characters of his revolutionary countrymen. He addressed

himself, therefore, to Merlin of Douai, Bonaparte's Imperial

attorney-general and commander of his Legion of Honour; who, for a bribe

of fifty thousand livres--obtained for him, after he had been defeated in

every other court, a judgment in his favour, in the tribunal of

cassation, under the sophistical conclusion that all emigrants, being,

according to law, considered as politically dead, a will in the name of

any one of them was merely a pious fraud to preserve the property in the

family.

This Merlin is the son of a labourer of Anchin, and was a servant of the

Abbey of the same name. One of the monks, observing in him some

application, charitably sent him to be educated at Douai, after having

bestowed on him some previous education. Not satisfied with this

generous act, he engaged the other monks, as well as the chapter of

Cambray, to subscribe for his expenses of admission as an attorney by the

Parliament of Douai, in which situation the Revolution found him. By his

dissimulation and assumed modesty, he continued to dupe his benefactors;

who, by their influence, obtained for him the nomination as

representative of the people to our First National Assembly. They soon,

however, had reason to repent of their generosity. He joined the Orleans

faction and became one of the most persevering, violent, and cruel

persecutors of the privileged classes, particularly of the clergy, to

whom he was indebted for everything. In 1792 he was elected a member of

the National Convention, where he voted for the death of his King. It was

he who proposed a law (justly called, by Prudhomme, the production of the

deliberate homicide Merlin) against suspected persons; which was decreed

on the 17th of September, 1793, and caused the imprisonment or

proscription of two hundred thousand families. This decree procured him

the appellation of Merlin Suspects and of Merlin Potence. In 1795 he was

appointed a Minister of Police, and soon afterwards a Minister of

Justice. After the revolution in favour of the Jacobins of the 4th of

September, 1797, he was made a director, a place which he was obliged by

the same Jacobins to resign, in June, 1799. Bonaparte expressed, at

first, the most sovereign contempt for this Merlin, but on account of one

of his sons, who was his aide-de-camp, he was appointed by him, when

First Consul, his attorney-general.

As nothing paints better the true features of a Government than the

morality or vices of its functionaries, I will finish this man's portrait

with the following characteristic touches.

Merlin de Douai has been successively the counsel of the late Duc d'

Orleans, the friend of Danton, of Chabot, and of Hebert, the admirer of

Murat, and the servant of Robespierre. An accomplice of Rewbell, Barras,

and la Reveilliere, an author of the law of suspected persons, an

advocate of the Septembrizers, and an ardent apostle of the St.

Guillotine. Cunning as a fog and ferocious as a tiger, he has outlived

all the factions with which he has been connected. It has been his

policy to keep in continual fermentation rivalships, jealousies,

inquietudes, revenge and all other odious passions; establishing, by such

means, his influence on the terror of some, the ambition of others, and

the credulity of them all. Had I, when Merlin proposed his law

concerning suspected persons, in the name of liberty and equality, been

free and his equal, I should have said to him, "Monster, this, your

atrocious law, is your sentence of death; it has brought thousands of

innocent persons to an untimely end; you shall die by my hands as a

victim, if the tribunals do not condemn you to the scaffold as an

executioner or as a criminal."

Merlin has bought national property to the amount of fifteen million of

livress--and he is supposed to possess money nearly to the same amount,

in your or our funds. For a man born a beggar, and educated by charity,

this fortune, together with the liberal salaries he enjoys, might seem

sufficient without selling justice, protecting guilt, and oppressing or

persecuting innocence.

LETTER XXIX.

Paris, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--The household troops of Napoleon the First are by thousands

more numerous than those even of Louis XIV. were. Grenadiers on foot and

on horseback, riflemen on foot and on horseback, heavy and light

artillery, dragoons and hussars, mamelukes and sailors, artificers and

pontoneers, gendarmes, gendarmes d'Alite, Velites and veterans, with

Italian grenadiers, riflemen, dragoons, etc., etc., compose all together

a not inconsiderable army.

Though it frequently happens that the pay of the other troops is in

arrears, those appertaining to Bonaparte's household are as regularly

paid as his Senators, Counsellors of State, and other public

functionaries. All the men are picked, and all the officers as much as

possible of birth, or at least of education. In the midst of this

voluptuous and seductive capital, they are kept very strict, and the

least negligence or infraction of military discipline is more severely

punished than if committed in garrison or in an encampment. They are

both better clothed, accoutred, and paid, than the troops of the line,

and have everywhere the precedency of them. All the officers, and many

of the soldiers, are members of Bonaparte's Legion of Honour, and carry

arms of honour distributed to them by Imperial favour, or for military

exploits. None of them are quartered upon the citizens; each corps has

its own spacious barracks, hospitals, drilling-ground, riding or

fencing-houses, gardens, bathing-houses, billiard-table, and even

libraries. A chapel has lately been constructed near each barrack, and

almoners are already appointed. In the meantime, they attend regularly

at Mass, either in the Imperial Chapel or in the parish churches.

Bonaparte discourages much all marriages among the military in general,

but particularly among those of his household troops. That they may not,

however, be entirely deprived of the society of women, he allows five to

each company, with the same salaries as the men, under the name of

washerwomen.

With a vain and fickle people, fond of shows and innovations, nothing in

a military despotism has a greater political utility, gives greater

satisfaction, and leaves behind a more useful terror and awe, than

Bonaparte's grand military reviews. In the beginning of his consulate,

they regularly occurred three times in the month; after his victory of

Marengo, they were reduced to once in a fortnight, and since he has been

proclaimed Emperor, to once only in the month. This ostentatious

exhibition of usurped power is always closed with a diplomatic review of

the representatives of lawful Princes, who introduce on those occasions

their fellow-subjects to another subject, who successfully has seized,

and continues to usurp, the authority of his own Sovereign. What an

example for ambition! what a lesson to treachery!

Besides the household troops, this capital and its vicinity have, for

these three years past, never contained less than from fifteen to twenty

thousand men of the regiments of the line, belonging to what is called

the first military division of the Army of the Interior. These troops

are selected from among the brigades that served under Bonaparte in Italy

and Egypt with the greatest eclat, and constitute a kind of depot for

recruiting his household troops with tried and trusty men. They are also

regularly paid, and generally better accoutred than their comrades

encamped on the coast, or quartered in Italy or Holland.

But a standing army, upon which all revolutionary rulers can depend, and

that always will continue their faithful support, unique in its sort and

composition, exists in the bosom as well as in the extremities of this

country. I mean, one hundred and twenty thousand invalids, mostly young

men under thirty, forced by conscription against their will into the

field, quartered and taken care of by our Government, and all possessed

with the absurd prejudice that, as they have been maimed in fighting the

battles of rebellion, the restoration of legitimate sovereignty would to

them be an epoch of destruction, or at least of misery and want; and this

prejudice is kept alive by emissaries employed on purpose to mislead

them. Of these, eight thousand are lodged and provided for in this city;

ten thousand at Versailles, and the remainder in Piedmont, Brabant, and

in the conquered departments on the left bank of the Abine; countries

where the inhabitants are discontented and disaffected, and require,

therefore, to be watched, and to have a better spirit infused.

Those whose wounds permit it are also employed to do garrison duty in

fortified places not exposed to an attack by enemies, and to assist in

the different arsenals and laboratories, foundries, and depots of

military or naval stores. Others are attached to the police offices, and

some as gendarmes, to arrest suspected or guilty individuals; or as

garnissaires, to enforce the payment of contributions from the unwilling

or distressed. When the period for the payment of taxes is expired, two

of these janissaires present themselves at the house of the persons in

arrears, with a billet signed by the director of the contributions and

countersigned by the police commissary. If the money is not immediately

paid, with half a crown to each of them besides, they remain quartered in

the house, where they are to be boarded and to receive half a crown a day

each until an order from those who sent them informs them that what was

due to the state has been acquitted. After their entrance into a house,

and during their stay, no furniture or effects whatever can be removed or

disposed of, nor can the master or mistress go out-of-doors without being

accompanied by one of them.

In the houses appropriated to our invalids, the inmates are very well

treated, and Government takes great care to make them satisfied with

their lot. The officers have large halls, billiards, and reading-room to

meet in; and the common men are admitted into apartments adjoining

libraries, from-which they can borrow what books they contain, and read

them at leisure. This is certainly a very good and even a humane

institution, though these libraries chiefly contain military histories or

novels.

As to the morals of these young invalids, they may be well conceived when

you remember the morality of our Revolution; and that they, without any

religious notions or restraints, were not only permitted, but encouraged

to partake of the debauchery and licentiousness which were carried to

such an extreme in our armies and encampments. In an age when the

passions are strongest, and often blind reason and silence conscience,

they have not the means nor the permission to marry; in their vicinity it

is, therefore, more difficult to discover one honest woman or a dutiful

wife, than hundreds of harlots and of adulteresses. Notwithstanding that

many of them have been accused before the tribunals of seductions, rape,

and violence against the sex, not one has been punished for what the

morality of our Government consider merely as bagatelles. Even in cases

where husbands, brothers, and lovers have been killed by them while

defending or avenging the honour of their wives, sisters, and mistresses,

our tribunals have been ordered by our grand judge, according to the

commands of the Emperor, not to proceed. As most of them have no

occupation, the vice of idleness augments the mass of their corruption;

for men of their principles, when they have nothing to do, never do

anything good.

I do not know if my countrywomen feel themselves honoured by or obliged

to Bonaparte, for leaving their virtue and honour unprotected, except by

their own prudence and strength; but of this I am certain, that all our

other troops, as well as the invalids, may live on free quarters with the

sex without fearing the consequences; provided they keep at a distance

from the females of our Imperial Family, and of those of our grand

officers of State and principal functionaries. The wives and the

daughters of the latter have, however, sometimes declined the advantage

of these exclusive privileges.

A horse grenadier of Bonaparte's Imperial Guard, of the name of Rabais,

notorious for his amours and debauchery, was accused before the Imperial

Judge Thuriot, at one and the same time by several husbands and fathers,

of having seduced the affections of their wives and of their daughters.

As usual, Thuriot refused to listen to their complaints; at the same time

insultingly advising them to retake their wives and children, and for the

future to be more careful of them. Triumphing, as it were, in his

injustice, he inconsiderately mentioned the circumstance to his own wife,

observing that he never knew so many charges of the same sort exhibited

against one man.

Madame Thuriot, who had been a servant-maid to her husband before he made

her his wife, instead of being disgusted at the recital, secretly

determined to see this Rabais. An intrigue was then begun, and carried

on for four months, if not with discretion, at least without discovery;

but the lady's own imprudence at last betrayed her, or I should say,

rather, her jealousy. But for this she might still have been admired

among our modest women, and Thuriot among fortunate husbands and happy

fathers; for the lady, for the first time since her marriage, proved, to

the great joy and pride of her husband, in the family way. Suspecting,

however, the fidelity of her paramour, she watched his motions so closely

that she discovered an intrigue between him and the chaste spouse of a

rich banker; but the consequence of this discovery was the detection of

her own crime.

On the discovery of this disgrace, Thuriot obtained an audience of

Bonaparte, in which he exposed his misfortune, and demanded punishment on

his wife's gallant. As, however, he also acknowledged that his own

indiscretion was an indirect cause of their connection, he received the

same advice which he had given to other unfortunate husbands: to retake,

and for the future guard better, his dear moiety.

Thuriot had, however, an early opportunity of wreaking his vengeance on

this gallant Rabais. It seems his prowess had reached the ears of Madame

Baciocchi, the eldest sister of Bonaparte. This lady has a children

mania, which is very troublesome to her husband, disagreeable to her

relations, and injurious to herself. She never beholds any lady,

particularly any of her family, in the way which women wish to be who

love their lords, but she is absolutely frantic. Now, Thuriot's worthy

friend Fouche had discovered, by his spies, that Rabais paid frequent and

secret visits to the hotel Baciocchi, and that Madame Baciocchi was the

object of these visits. Thuriot, on this discovery, instantly denounced

him to Bonaparte.

Had Rabais ruined all the women of this capital, he would not only have

been forgiven, but applauded by Napoleon, and his counsellors and

courtiers; but to dare to approach, or only to cast his eyes on one of

our Imperial Highnesses, was a crime nothing could extenuate or avenge,

but the most exemplary punishment. He was therefore arrested, sent to

the Temple, and has never since been heard of; so that his female friends

are still in the cruel uncertainty whether he has died on the rack, been

buried alive in the oubliettes, or is wandering an exile in the wilds of

Cayenne.

In examining his trunk, among the curious effects discovered by the

police were eighteen portraits and one hundred billets-doux, with

medallions, rings, bracelets, tresses of hair, etc., as numerous. Two of

the portraits occasioned much scandal, and more gossiping. They were

those of two of our most devout and most respectable Court ladies, Maids

of Honour to our Empress, Madame Ney and Madame Lasnes; who never miss an

opportunity of going to church, who have received the private blessing of

the Pope, and who regularly confess to some Bishop or other once in a

fortnight. Madame Napoleon cleared them, however, of all suspicion, by

declaring publicly in her drawing-room that these portraits had come into

the possession of Rabais by the infidelity of their maids; who had

confessed their faults, and, therefore, had been charitably pardoned.

Whether the opinions of Generals Ney and Lasnes coincide with Madame

Napoleon's assertion is uncertain; but Lasnes has been often heard to say

that, from the instant his wife began to confess, he was convinced she

was inclined to dishonour him; so that nothing surprised him.

One of the medallions in Rabais's collection contained on one side the

portrait of Thuriot, and on the other that of his wife; both set with

diamonds, and presented to her by him on their last wedding day. For the

supposed theft of this medallion, two of Thuriot's servants were in

prison, when the arrest of Rabais explained the manner in which it had

been lost. This so enraged him that he beat and kicked his wife so

heartily that for some time even her life was in danger, and Thuriot lost

all hopes of being a father.

Before the Revolution, Thuriot had been, for fraud and forgery, struck

off the roll as an advocate, and therefore joined it as a patriot. In

1791, he was chosen a deputy to the National Assembly, and in 1792 to the

National Convention. He always showed himself one of the most ungenerous

enemies of the clergy, of monarchy, and of his King, for whose death he

voted. On the 25th of May, 1792, in declaiming against Christianity and

priesthood, he wished them both, for the welfare of mankind, at the

bottom of the sea; and on the 18th of December the same year, he declared

in the Jacobin Club that, if the National Convention evinced any signs of

clemency towards Louis XVI., he would go himself to the Temple and blow

out the brains of this unfortunate King. He defended in the tribune the

massacres of the prisoners, affirming that the tree of liberty could

never flourish without being inundated with the blood of aristocrats and

other enemies of the Revolution. He has been convicted by rival factions

of the most shameful robberies, and his infamy and depravity were so

notorious that neither Murat, Brissot, Robespierre, nor the Directory

would or could employ him. After the Revolution of the 9th of November,

1799, Bonaparte gave him the office of judge of the criminal tribunal,

and in 1804 made him a Commander of his Legion of Honour. He is now one

of our Emperor's most faithful subjects and most sincere Christians. Such

is now his tender conscientiousness, that he was among those who were the

first to be married again by some Cardinal to their present wives, to

whom they had formerly been united only by the municipality. This new

marriage, however, took place before Madame Thuriot had introduced

herself to the acquaintance of the Imperial Grenadier Rabais.

LETTER XXX.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Regarding me as a connoisseur, though I have no pretensions but

that of being an amateur, Lucien Bonaparte, shortly before his disgrace,

invited me to pass some days with him in the country, and to assist him

in arranging his very valuable collection of pictures--next our public

ones, the most curious and most valuable in Europe, and, of course, in

the world. I found here, as at Joseph Bonaparte's, the same splendour,

the same etiquette, and the same liberty, which latter was much enhanced

by the really engaging and unassuming manners and conversation of the

host. At Joseph's, even in the midst of abundance and of liberty, in

seeing the person or meditating on the character of the host, you feel

both your inferiority of fortune and the humiliation of dependence, and

that you visit a master instead of a friend, who indirectly tells you,

"Eat, drink, and rejoice as long and as much as you like; but remember

that if you are happy, it is to my generosity you are indebted, and if

unhappy, that I do not care a pin about you." With Lucien it is the very

reverse. His conduct seems to indicate that by your company you confer

an obligation on him, and he is studious to remove, on all occasions,

that distance which fortune has placed between him and his guests; and as

he cannot compliment them upon being wealthier than himself, he seizes

with delicacy every opportunity to chew that he acknowledges their

superiority in talents and in genius as more than an equivalent for the

absence of riches.

He is, nevertheless, himself a young man of uncommon parts, and, as far

as I could judge from my short intercourse with the reserved Joseph and

with the haughty Napoleon, he is abler and better informed than either,

and much more open and sincere. His manners are also more elegant, and

his language more polished, which is the more creditable to him when it

is remembered how much his education has been neglected, how vitiated the

Revolution made him, and that but lately his principal associates were,

like himself, from among the vilest and most vulgar of the rabble. It is

not necessary to be a keen observer to remark in Napoleon the upstart

soldier, and in Joseph the former low member of the law; but I defy the

most refined courtier to see in Lucien anything indicating a ci-devant

sans-culotte. He has, besides, other qualities (and those more

estimable) which will place him much above his elder brothers in the

opinion of posterity. He is extremely compassionate and liberal to the

truly distressed, serviceable to those whom he knows are not his friends,

and forgiving and obliging even to those who have proved and avowed

themselves his enemies. These are virtues commonly very scarce, and

hitherto never displayed by any other member of the Bonaparte family.

An acquaintance of yours, and--a friend of mine, Count de T-----, at his

return here from emigration, found, of his whole former fortune,

producing once eighty thousand livres--in the year, only four farms

unsold, and these were advertised for sale. A man who had once been his

servant, but was then a groom to Lucien, offered to present a memorial

for him to his master, to prevent the disposal of the only support which

remained to subsist himself, with a wife and four children. Lucien asked

Napoleon to prohibit the sale, and to restore the Count the farms, and

obtained his consent; but Fouche, whose cousin wanted them, having

purchased other national property in the neighbourhood, prevailed upon

Napoleon to forget his promise, and the farms were sold. As soon as

Lucien heard of it he sent for the Count, delivered into his hands an

annuity of six thousand livres--for the life of himself, his wife, and

his children, as an indemnity for the inefficacy of his endeavours to

serve him, as he expressed himself. Had the Count recovered the farms,

they would not have given him a clear profit of half the amount, all

taxes paid.

A young author of the name of Gauvan, irritated by the loss of parents

and fortune by the Revolution, attacked, during 1799, in the public

prints, as well as in pamphlets, every Revolutionist who had obtained

notoriety or popularity. He was particularly vehement against Lucien,

and laid before the public all his crimes and all his errors, and

asserted, as facts, atrocities which were either calumnies or merely

rumours. When, after Napoleon's assumption of the Consulate, Lucien was

appointed a Minister of the Interior, he sent for Gauvan, and said to

him, "Great misfortunes have early made you wretched and unjust, and you

have frequently revenged yourself on those who could not prevent them,

among whom I am one. You do not want capacity, nor, I believe, probity.

Here is a commission which makes you a Director of Contributions in the

Departments of the Rhine and Moselle, an office with a salary of twelve

thousand livres but producing double that sum. If you meet with any

difficulties, write to me; I am your friend. Take those one hundred

louis d'or for the expenses of your journey. Adieu!" This anecdote I

have read in Gauvan's own handwriting, in a letter to his sister. He

died in 1802; but Mademoiselle Gauvan, who is not yet fifteen, has a

pension of three thousand livres a year--from Lucien, who, has never seen

her.

Lucien Bonaparte has another good quality: he is consistent in his

political principles. Either from conviction or delusion he is still a

Republican, and does not conceal that, had he suspected Napoleon of any

intent to reestablish monarchy, much less tyranny, he would have joined

those deputies who, on the 9th of November, 1799, in the sitting at St.

Cloud, demanded a decree of outlawry against him. If the present quarrel

between these two brothers were sifted to the bottom, perhaps it would be

found to originate more from Lucien's Republicanism than from his

marriage.

I know, with all France and Europe, that Lucien's youth has been very

culpable; that he has committed many indiscretions, much injustice, many

imprudences, many errors, and, I fear, even some crimes. I know that he

has been the most profligate among the profligate, the most debauched

among libertines, the most merciless among the plunderers, and the most

perverse among rebels. I know that he is accused of being a

Septembrizer; of having murdered one wife and poisoned another; of having

been a spy, a denouncer, a persecutor of innocent persons in the Reign of

Terror. I know that he is accused of having fought his brothers-in-law;

of having ill-used his mother, and of an incestuous commerce with his own

sisters.

I have read and heard of these and other enormous accusations, and far be

it from me to defend, extenuate, or even deny them. But suppose all this

infamy to be real, to be proved, to be authenticated, which it never has

been, and, to its whole extent, I am persuaded, never can be--what are

the cruel and depraved acts of which Lucien has been accused to the

enormities and barbarities of which Napoleon is convicted? Is the

poisoning a wife more criminal than the poisoning a whole hospital of

wounded soldiers; or the assisting to kill some confined persons,

suspected of being enemies, more atrocious than the massacre in cold

blood of thousands of disarmed prisoners? Is incest with a sister more

shocking to humanity than the well-known unnatural pathic but I will not

continue the disgusting comparison. As long as Napoleon is unable to

acquit himself of such barbarities and monstrous crimes, he has no right

to pronounce Lucien unworthy to be called his brother; nor have

Frenchmen, as long as they obey the former as a Sovereign, or the

Continent, as long as it salutes him as such, any reason to despise the

latter for crimes which lose their enormity when compared to the horrid

perpetrations of his Imperial brother.

An elderly lady, a relation of Lucien's wife, and a person in whose

veracity and morality I have the greatest confidence, and for whom he

always had evinced more regard than even for his own mother, has repeated

to me many of their conversations. She assures me that Lucien deplores

frequently the want of a good and religious education, and the tempting

examples of perversity he met with almost at his entrance upon the

revolutionary scene. He says that he determined to get rich 'per fas aut

nefas', because he observed that money was everything, and that most

persons plotted and laboured for power merely to be enabled to gather

treasure, though, after they had obtained both, much above their desert

and expectation, instead of being satiated or even satisfied, they

bustled and intrigued for more, until success made them unguarded and

prosperity indiscreet, and they became with their wealth the easy prey of

rival factions. Such was the case of Danton, of Fabre d'Eglantine, of

Chabot, of Chaumette, of Stebert, and other contemptible wretches,

butchered by Robespierre and his partisans--victims in their turn to men

as unjust and sanguinary as themselves. He had, therefore, laid out a

different plan of conduct for himself. He had fixed upon fifty millions

of livres--as the maximum he should wish for, and when that sum was in

his possession, he resolved to resign all pretensions to rank and

employment, and to enjoy 'otium cum dignitate'. He had kept to his

determination, and so regulated his income that; with the expenses, pomp,

and retinue of a Prince, he is enabled to make more persons happy and

comfortable than his extortions have ruined or even embarrassed. He now

lives like a philosopher, and endeavours to forget the past, to delight

in the present, and to be indifferent about futurity. He chose,

therefore, for a wife, a lady whom he loved and esteemed, in preference

to one whose birth would have been a continual reproach to the meanness

of his own origin.

You must, with me, admire the modesty of a citizen sans-culotte, who,

without a shilling in the world, fixes upon fifty millions as a reward

for his revolutionary achievements, and with which he would be satisfied

to sit down and begin his singular course of singular philosophy. But

his success is more extraordinary that his pretensions were extravagant.

This immense sum was amassed by him in the short period of four years,

chiefly by bribes from foreign Courts, and by selling his protections in

France.

But most of the other Bonapartes have made as great and as rapid fortunes

as Lucien, and yet, instead of being generous, contented, or even

philosophers, they are still profiting by every occasion to increase

their ill-gotten treasures, and no distress was ever relieved, no talents

encouraged, or virtues recompensed by them. The mind of their garrets

lodges with them in their palaces, while Lucien seems to ascend as near

as possible to a level with his circumstances. I have myself found him

beneficent without ostentation.

Among his numerous pictures, I observed four that had formerly belonged

to my father's, and afterwards to my own cabinet. I inquired how much he

had paid for them, without giving the least hint that they had been my

property, and were plundered from me by the nation. He had, indeed, paid

their full value. In a fortnight after I had quitted him, these, with

six other pictures, were deposited in my room, with a very polite note,

begging my acceptance of them, and assuring me that he had but the day

before heard from his picture dealer that they had belonged to me. He

added that he would never retake them, unless he received an assurance

from me that I parted with them without reluctance, and at the same time

affixed their price. I returned them, as I knew they were desired by him

for his collection, but he continued obstinate. I told him, therefore,

that, as I was acquainted with his inclination to perform a generous

action, I would, instead of payment for the pictures, indicate a person

deserving his assistance. I mentioned the old Duchesse de ------, who is

seventy-four years of age and blind; and, after possessing in her youth

an income of eight hundred thousand livres--is now, in her old age,

almost destitute. He did for this worthy lady more than I expected; but

happening, in his visits to relieve my friend, to cast his eye on the

daughter of the landlady where she lodged, he found means to prevail on

the simplicity of the poor girl, and seduced her. So much do I know

personally of Lucien Bonaparte, who certainly is a composition of good

and bad qualities, but which of them predominate I will not take upon me

to decide. This I can affirm--Lucien is not the worst member of the

Bonaparte family.

LETTER XXXI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--As long as Austria ranks among independent nations, Bonaparte

will take care not to offend or alarm the ambition and interest of

Prussia by incorporating the Batavian Republic with the other provinces

of his Empire. Until that period, the Dutch must continue (as they have

been these last ten years) under the appellation of allies, oppressed

like subjects and plundered like foes. Their mock sovereignty will

continue to weigh heavier on them than real servitude does on their

Belgic and Flemish neighbours, because Frederick the Great pointed out to

his successors the Elbe and the Tegel as the natural borders of the

Prussian monarchy, whenever the right bank of the Rhine should form the

natural frontiers of the kingdom of France.

That during the present summer a project for a partition treaty of

Holland has by the Cabinet of St. Cloud been laid before the Cabinet of

Berlin is a fact, though disseminated only as a rumour by the secret

agents of Talleyrand. Their object was on this, as on all previous

occasions when any names, rights, or liberties of people were intended to

be erased from among the annals of independence, to sound the ground, and

to prepare by such rumours the mind of the public for another outrage and

another overthrow. But Prussia, as well as France, knows the value of a

military and commercial navy, and that to obtain it good harbours and

navigable rivers are necessary, and therefore, as well as from principles

of justice, perhaps, declined the acceptance of a plunder, which, though

tempting, was contrary to the policy of the House of Brandenburgh.

According to a copy circulated among the members of our diplomatic corps,

this partition treaty excluded Prussia from all the Batavian seaports

except Delfzig, and those of the river Ems, but gave her extensive

territories on the side of Guelderland, and a rich country in Friesland.

Had it been acceded to by the Court of Berlin, with the annexed condition

of a defensive and offensive alliance with the Court of St. Cloud, the

Prussian monarchy would, within half a century, have been swallowed up in

the same gulf with the Batavian Commonwealth and the Republic of Poland;

and by some future scheme of some future Bonaparte or Talleyrand, be

divided in its turn, and serve as a pledge of reconciliation or

inducement of connection between some future rulers of the French and

Russian Empires.

Talleyrand must, indeed, have a very mean opinion of the capacity of the

Prussian Ministers, or a high notion of his own influence over them, if

he was serious in this overture. For my part, I am rather inclined to

think that it was merely thrown out to discover whether Frederick William

III. had entered into any engagement contrary to the interest of

Napoleon the First; or to allure His Prussian Majesty into a negotiation

which would suspend, or at least interfere with, those supposed to be

then on the carpet with Austria, Russia, or perhaps even with England.

The late Batavian Government had, ever since the beginning of the present

war with England, incurred the displeasure of Bonaparte. When it

apprehended a rupture from the turn which the discussion respecting the

occupation of Malta assumed, the Dutch Ambassadors at St. Petersburg and

Berlin were ordered to demand the interference of these two Cabinets for

the preservation of the neutrality of Holland, which your country had

promised to acknowledge, if respected by France. No sooner was Bonaparte

informed of this step, than he marched troops into the heart of the

Batavian Republic, and occupied its principal forts, ports, and arsenals.

When, some time afterwards, Count Markof received instructions from his

Court, according to the desire of the Batavian Directory, and demanded,

in consequence, an audience from Bonaparte, a map was laid before him,

indicating the position of the French troops in Holland, and plans of the

intended encampment of our army of England on the coast of Flanders and

France; and he was asked whether he thought it probable that our

Government would assent to a neutrality so injurious to its offensive

operations against Great Britain.

"But," said the Russian Ambassador, "the independence of Holland has been

admitted by you in formal treaties."

"So has the cession of Malta by England," interrupted Bonaparte, with

impatience.

"True," replied Markof, "but you are now at war with England for this

point; while Holland, against which you have no complaint, has not only

been invaded by your troops, but, contrary both to its inclination and

interest, involved in a war with you, by which it has much to lose and

nothing to gain."

"I have no account to render to anybody for my transactions, and I desire

to hear nothing more on this subject," said Bonaparte, retiring furious,

and leaving Markof to meditate on our Sovereign's singular principles of

political justice and of 'jus pentium'.

From that period Bonaparte resolved on another change of the executive

power of the Batavian Republic. But it was more easy to displace one set

of men for another than to find proper ones to occupy a situation in

which, if they do their duty as patriots, they must offend France; and if

they are our tools, instead of the independent governors of their

country, they must excite a discontent among their fellow citizens,

disgracing themselves as individuals, and exposing themselves as chief

magistrates to the fate of the De Witts, should ever fortune forsake our

arms or desert Bonaparte.

No country has of late been less productive of great men than Holland.

The Van Tromps, the Russel, and the William III. all died without

leaving any posterity behind them; and the race of Batavian heroes seems

to have expired with them, as that of patriots with the De, Witts and

Barneveldt. Since the beginning of the last century we read, indeed, of

some able statesmen, as most, if not all, the former grand pensionaries

have been; but the name of no warrior of any great eminence is recorded.

This scarcity, of native genius and valour has not a little contributed

to the present humbled, disgraced, and oppressed state of wretched

Batavia.

Admiral de Winter certainly neither wants courage nor genius, but his

private character has a great resemblance to that of General Moreau.

Nature has destined him to obey, and not to govern. He may direct as

ably and as valiantly the manoeuvres of a fleet as Moreau does those of

an army, but neither the one nor the other at the head of his nation

would render himself respected, his country flourishing, or his

countrymen happy and tranquil.

Destined from his youth for the navy, Admiral de Winter entered into the

naval service of his country before he was fourteen, and was a second

lieutenant when the Batavian patriots, in rebellion against the

Stadtholder, were, in 1787, reduced to submission by the Duke of

Brunswick, the commander of the Prussian army that invaded Holland. His

parents and family being of the anti-Orange party, he emigrated to

France, where he was made an officer in the legion of Batavian refugees.

During the campaign of 1793 and 1794, he so much distinguished himself

under that competent judge of merit, Pichegru, that this commander

obtained for him the commission of a general of brigade in the service of

the French; which, after the conquest of Holland in January, 1795, was

exchanged for the rank of a vice-admiral of the Batavian Republic. His

exploits as commander of the Dutch fleet, during the battle of the 11th

of October, 1797, with your fleet, under Lord Duncan, I have heard

applauded even in your presence, when in your country. Too honest to be

seduced, and too brave to be intimidated, he is said to have incurred

Bonaparte's hatred by resisting both his offers and his threats, and

declining to sell his own liberty as well as to betray the liberty of his

fellow subjects. When, in 1800, Bonaparte proposed to him the presidency

and consulate of the United States, for life, on condition that he should

sign a treaty, which made him a vassal of France, he refused, with

dignity and with firmness, and preferred retirement to a supremacy so

dishonestly acquired, and so dishonourably occupied.

General Daendels, another Batavian revolutionist of some notoriety, from

an attorney became a lieutenant-colonel, and served as a spy under

Dumouriez in the winter of 1792 and in the spring of 1793. Under

Pichegru he was made a general, and exhibited those talents in the field

which are said to have before been displayed in the forum. In June,

1795, he was made a lieutenant-general of the Batavian Republic, and he

was the commander-in-chief of the Dutch troops combating in 1799 your

army under the Duke of York. In this place he did not much distinguish

himself, and the issue of the contest was entirely owing to our troops

and to our generals.

After the Peace of Amiens, observing that Bonaparte intended to

annihilate instead of establishing universal liberty, Daendels gave in

his resignation and retired to obscurity, not wishing to be an instrument

of tyranny, after having so long fought for freedom. Had he possessed

the patriotism of a Brutus or a Cato, he would have bled or died for his

cause and country sooner than have deserted them both; or had the

ambition and love of glory of a Caesar held a place in his bosom, he

would have attempted to be the chief of his country, and by generosity

and clemency atone, if possible, for the loss of liberty. Upon the line

of baseness,--the deserter is placed next to the traitor.

Dumonceau, another Batavian general of some publicity, is not by birth a

citizen of the United States, but was born at Brussels in 1758, and was

by profession a stonemason when, in 1789, he joined, as a volunteer, the

Belgian insurgents. After their dispersion in 1790 he took refuge and

served in France, and was made an officer in the corps of Belgians,

formed after the declaration of war against Austria in 1792. Here he

frequently distinguished himself, and was, therefore, advanced to the

rank of a general; but the Dutch general officers being better paid than

those of the French Republic, he was, with the permission of our

Directory, received, in 1795, as a lieutenant-general of the Batavian

Republic. He has often evinced bravery, but seldom great capacity. His

natural talents are considered as but indifferent, and his education is

worse.

These are the only three military characters who might, with any prospect

of success, have tried to play the part of a Napoleon Bonaparte in

Holland.

LETTER XXXII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Not to give umbrage to the Cabinet of Berlin, Bonaparte

communicated to it the necessity he was under of altering the form of

Government in Holland, and, if report be true, even condescended to ask

advice concerning a chief magistrate for that country. The young Prince

of Orange, brother-in-law of His Prussian Majesty, naturally presented

himself; but, after some time, Talleyrand's agents discovered that great

pecuniary sacrifices could not be expected from that quarter, and perhaps

less submission to France experienced than from the former governors. An

eye was then cast on the Elector of Bavaria, whose past patriotism, as

well as that of his Ministers, was a full guarantee for future obedience.

Had he consented to such an arrangement, Austria might have aggrandized

herself on the Inn, Prussia in Franconia, and France in Italy; and the

present bone of contest would have been chiefly removed.

This intrigue, for it was nothing else, was carried on by the Cabinet of

St. Cloud in March, 1804, about the time that Germany was invaded and the

Duc d'Enghien seized. This explains to you the reason why the Russian

note, delivered to the Diet of Ratisbon on the 8th of the following May,

was left without any support, except the ineffectual one from the King of

Sweden. How any Cabinet could be dupe enough to think Bonaparte serious,

or the Elector of Bavaria so weak as to enter into his schemes, is

difficult to be conceived, had not Europe witnessed still greater

credulity on one side, and still greater effrontery on the other.

In the meantime Bonaparte grew every day more discontented with the

Batavian Directory, and more irritated against the members who composed

it. Against his regulations for excluding the commerce and productions

of your country, they resented with spirit instead of obeying them

without murmur as was required. He is said to have discovered, after his

own soldiers had forced the custom-house officers to obey his orders,

that, while in their proclamations the directors publicly prohibited the

introduction of British goods, some of them were secret insurers of this

forbidden merchandise, introduced by fraud and by smuggling; and that

while they officially wished for the success of the French arms and

destruction of England, they withdrew by stealth what property they had

in the French funds, to place it in the English. This refractory and, as

Bonaparte called it, mercantile spirit, so enraged him, that he had

already signed an order for arresting and transferring en masse his high

allies, the Batavian directors, to his Temple, when the representations

of Talleyrand moderated his fury, and caused the order to be recalled,

which Fouche was ready to execute.

Had Jerome Bonaparte not offended his brother by his transatlantic

marriage, he would long ago have been the Prince Stadtholder of Holland;

but his disobedience was so far useful to the Cabinet of St. Cloud as it

gave it an opportunity of intriguing with, or deluding, other Cabinets

that might have any pretensions to interfere in the regulation of the

Batavian Government. By the choice finally made, you may judge how

difficult it was to find a suitable subject to represent it, and that

this representation is intended only to be temporary.

Schimmelpenninck, the present grand pensionary of the Batavian Republic,

was destined by his education for the bar, but by his natural parts to

await in quiet obscurity the end of a dull existence. With some

property, little information, and a tolerably good share of common sense,

he might have lived and died respected, and even regretted, without any

pretension, or perhaps even ambition, to shine. The anti-Orange faction,

to which his parents and family appertained, pushed him forward, and

elected him, in 1795, a member of the First Batavian National Convention,

where, according to the spirit of the times, his speeches were rather

those of a demagogue than those of a Republican. Liberty, Equality, and

Fraternity were the constant themes of his political declamations,

infidelity his religious profession, and the examples of immorality, his

social lessons; so rapid and dangerous are the strides with which

seduction frequently advances on weak minds.

In 1800 he was appointed an Ambassador to Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles

Maurice Talleyrand. The latter used him as a stockbroker, and the former

for anything he thought proper; and he was the humble and submissive

valet of both. More ignorant than malicious, and a greater fool than a

rogue, he was more laughed at and despised than trusted or abused.

His patience being equal to his phlegm, nothing either moved or

confounded him; and he was, as Talleyrand remarked, "a model of an

Ambassador, according to which he and Bonaparte wished that all other

independent Princes and States would choose their representatives to the

French Government."

When our Minister and his Sovereign were discussing the difficulty of

properly filling up the vacancy, of the Dutch Government, judged

necessary by both, the former mentioned Schimmelpenninck with a smile;

and serious as Bonaparte commonly is, he could not help laughing. "I

should have been less astonished," said he, "had you proposed my

Mameluke, Rostan."

This rebuke did not deter Talleyrand (who had settled his terms with

Schimmelpenninck) from continuing to point out the advantage which France

would derive from this nomination. "Because no man could easier be

directed when in office, and no man easier turned out of office when

disagreeable or unnecessary. Both as a Batavian plenipotentiary at

Amiens, and as Batavian Ambassador in England, he had proved himself as

obedient and submissive to France as when in the same capacity at Paris."

By returning often to the charge, with these and other remarks,

Talleyrand at last accustomed Bonaparte to the idea, which had once

appeared so humiliating, of writing to a man so much inferior in

everything, "Great and dear Friend!" and therefore said to the Minister:

"Well! let us then make him a grand pensionary and a locum tenens for

five years; or until Jerome, when he repents, returns to his duty, and is

pardoned."

"Is he, then, not to be a grand pensionary for life?" asked Talleyrand;

"whether for one month or for life, he would be equally obedient to

resign when, commanded; but the latter would be more popular in Holland,

where they were tired of so many changes."

"Let them complain, if they dare," replied Bonaparte. "Schimmelpenninck

is their chief magistrate only for five years, if so long; but you may

add that they may reelect him."

It was not before Talleyrand had compared the pecuniary proposal made to

his agents by foreign Princes with those of Schimmelpenninck to himself,

that the latter obtained the preference. The exact amount of the

purchase-money for the supreme magistracy in Holland is not well known to

any but the contracting parties. Some pretended that the whole was paid

down beforehand, being advanced by a society of merchants at Amsterdam,

the friends or relatives of the grand pensionary; others, that it is to

be paid by annual instalments of two millions of livres--for a certain

number of years. Certain it is, that this high office was sold and

bought; and that, had it been given for life, its value would have been

proportionately enhanced; which was the reason that Talleyrand

endeavoured to have it thus established.

Talleyrand well knew the precarious state of Schimmelpenninck's grandeur;

that it not only depended upon the whim of Napoleon, but had long been

intended as an hereditary sovereignty for Jerome. Another Dutchman asked

him not to ruin his friend and his family for what he was well aware

could never be called a sinecure place, and was so precarious in its

tenure. "Foolish vanity," answered the Minister, "can never pay enough

for the gratification of its desires. All the Schimmelpennincks in the

world do not possess property enough to recompense me for the sovereign

honours which I have procured for one of their name and family, were he

deposed within twenty-four hours. What treasures can indemnify me for

connecting such a name and such a personage with the great name of the

First Emperor of the French?"

I have only twice in my life been in Schimmelpenninck's company, and I

thought him both timid and reserved; but from what little he said, I

could not possibly judge of his character and capacity. His portrait and

its accompaniments have been presented to me; such as delivered to you by

one of his countrymen, a Mr. M---- (formerly an Ambassador also), who was

both his schoolfellow and his comrade at the university. I shall add the

following traits, in his own words as near as possible:

"More vain than ambitious, Schimmelpenninck from his youth, and,

particularly, from his entrance into public life, tried every means to

make a noise, but found none to make a reputation. He caressed in

succession all the systems of the French Revolution, without adopting one

for himself. All the Kings of faction received in their turns his homage

and felicitations. It was impossible to mention to him a man of any

notoriety, of whom he did not become immediately a partisan. The virtues

or the vices, the merit or defects, of the individual were of no

consideration; according to his judgment it was sufficient to be famous.

Yet with all the extravagances of a head filled with paradoxes, and of a

heart spoiled by modern philosophy, added to a habit of licentiousness,

he had no idea of becoming an instrument for the destruction of liberty

in his own country, much less of becoming its tyrant, in submitting to be

the slave of France. It was but lately that he took the fancy, after so

long admiring all other great men of our age, to be at any rate one of

their number, and of being admired as a great man in his turn. On this

account many accuse him of hypocrisy, but no one deserves that

appellation less, his vanity and exaltation never permitting him to

dissimulate; and no presumption, therefore, was less disguised than his,

to those who studied the man. Without acquired ability, without natural

genius, or political capacity, destitute of discretion and address, as

confident and obstinate as ignorant, he is only elevated to fall and to

rise no more."

Madame Schimmelpenninck, I was informed, is as amiable and accomplished

as her husband is awkward and deficient; though well acquainted with his

infidelities and profligacy, she is too virtuous to listen to revenge,

and too generous not to forgive. She is, besides, said to be a lady of

uncommon abilities, and of greater information than she chooses to

display. She has never been the worshipper of Bonaparte, or the friend

of Talleyrand; she loved her country, and detested its tyrants. Had she

been created a grand pensionary, she would certainly have swayed with

more glory than her husband; and been hailed by contemporaries, as well

as posterity, if not a heroine, at least a patriot,--a title which in our

times, though often prostituted, so few have any claim to, and which,

therefore, is so much the more valuable.

When it was known at Paris that Schimmelpenninck had set out for his new

sovereignty, no less than sixteen girls of the Palais Royal demanded

passes for Holland. Being questioned by Fouche as to their business in

that country, they answered that they intended to visit their friend, the

grand pensionary, in his new dominions. Fouche communicated to

Talleyrand both their demands and their business, and asked his advice.

He replied:

"Send two, and those of whose vigilance and intelligence you are sure.

Refuse, by all means, the other fourteen. Schimmelpenninck's time is

precious, and were they at the Hague, he would neglect everything for

them. If they are fond of travelling, and are handsome and adroit,

advise them to set out for London or for St. Petersburg; and if they

consent, order them to my office, and they shall be supplied, if approved

of, both with instructions, and with their travelling expenses."

Fouche answered his colleague that "they were in every respect the very

reverse of his description; they seemed to have passed their lives in the

lowest stage of infamy, and they could neither read nor write." You have

therefore, no reason to fear that these belles will be sent to

disseminate corruption in your happy island.

LETTER XXXIII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--The Italian subjects of Napoleon the First were far from

displaying the same zeal and the same gratitude for his paternal care and

kindness in taking upon himself the trouble of governing them, as we good

Parisians have done. Notwithstanding that a brigade of our police agents

and spies, drilled for years to applaud and to excite enthusiasm,

proceeded as his advanced guard to raise the public spirit, the reception

at Milan was cold and everything else but cordial and pleasing. The

absence of duty did not escape his observation and resentment. Convinced,

in his own mind, of the great blessing, prosperity, and liberty his

victories and sovereignty have conferred on the inhabitants of the other

side of the Alps, he ascribed their present passive or mutinous behaviour

to the effect of foreign emissaries from Courts envious of his glory and

jealous of his authority.

He suspected particularly England and Russia of having selected this

occasion of a solemnity that would complete his grandeur to humble his

just pride. He also had some idea within himself that even Austria might

indirectly have dared to influence the sentiments and conduct of her

ci-devant subjects of Lombardy; but his own high opinion of the awe which

his very name inspired at Vienna dispersed these thoughts, and his wrath

fell entirely on the audacity of Pitt and Markof. Strict orders were

therefore issued to the prefects and commissaries of police to watch

vigilantly all foreigners and strangers, who might have arrived, or who

should arrive, to witness the ceremony of the coronation, and to arrest

instantly any one who should give the least reason to suppose that he was

an enemy instead of an admirer of His Imperial and Royal Majesty. He

also commanded the prefects of his palace not to permit any persons to

approach his sacred person, of whose morality and politics they had not

previously obtained a good account.

These great measures of security were not entirely unnecessary.

Individual vengeance and individual patriotism sharpened their daggers,

and, to use Senator Roederer's language, "were near transforming the most

glorious day of rejoicing into a day of universal mourning."

All our writers on the Revolution agree that in France, within the first

twelve years after we had reconquered our lost liberty, more conspiracies

have been denounced than during the six centuries of the most brilliant

epoch of ancient and free Rome. These facts and avowals are speaking

evidences of the eternal tranquillity of our unfortunate country, of our

affection to our rulers, and of the unanimity with which all the changes

of Government have been, notwithstanding our printed votes, received and

approved.

The frequency of conspiracies not only shows the discontent of the

governed, but the insecurity and instability of the governors. This

truth has not escaped Napoleon, who has, therefore, ordered an

expeditious and secret justice to despatch instantly the conspirators,

and to bury the conspiracy in oblivion, except when any grand coup d'etat

is to be struck; or, to excite the passions of hatred, any proofs can be

found, or must be fabricated, involving an inimical or rival foreign

Government in an odious plot. Since the farce which Mehee de la Touche

exhibited, you have, therefore, not read in the Moniteur either of the

danger our Emperor has incurred several times since from the machinations

of implacable or fanatical foes, or of the alarm these have caused his

partisans. They have, indeed, been hinted at in some speeches of our

public functionaries, and in some paragraphs of our public prints, but

their particulars will remain concealed from historians, unless some one

of those composing our Court, our fashionable, or our political circles,

has taken the trouble of noting them down; but even to these they are but

imperfectly or incorrectly known.

Could the veracity of a Fouche, a Real, a Talleyrand, or a Duroc (the

only members of this new secret and invisible tribunal for expediting

conspirators) be depended upon, they would be the most authentic

annalists of these and other interesting secret occurrences.

What I intend relating to you on this subject are circumstances such as

they have been reported in our best informed societies by our most

inquisitive companions. Truth is certainly the foundation of these

anecdotes; but their parts may be extenuated, diminished, altered, or

exaggerated. Defective or incomplete as they are, I hope you will not

judge them unworthy of a page in a letter, considering the grand

personage they concern, and the mystery with which he and his Government

encompass themselves, or in which they wrap up everything not agreeable

concerning them.

A woman is said to have been at the head of the first plot against

Napoleon since his proclamation as an Emperor of the French. She called

herself Charlotte Encore; but her real name is not known. In 1803 she

lived and had furnished a house at Abbeville, where she passed for a

young widow of property, subsisting on her rents. About the same time

several other strangers settled there; but though she visited the

principal inhabitants, she never publicly had any connection with the

newcomers.

In the summer of 1803, a girl at Amiens--some say a real enthusiast of

Bonaparte's, but, according to others, engaged by Madame Bonaparte to

perform the part she did demanded, upon her knees, in a kind of paroxysm

of joy, the happiness of embracing him, in doing which she fainted, or

pretended to faint away, and a pension of three thousand livres--was

settled on her for her affection.

Madame Encore, at Abbeville, to judge of her discourse and conversation,

was also an ardent friend and well-wisher of the Emperor; and when, in

July, 1804, he passed through Abbeville, on his journey to the coast,

she, also, threw herself at his feet, and declared that she would die

content if allowed the honour of embracing him. To this he was going to

assent, when Duroc stepped between them, seized her by the arm, and

dragged her to an adjoining room, whither Bonaparte, near fainting from

the sudden alarm his friend's interference had occasioned, followed him,

trembling. In the right sleeve of Madame Encore's gown was found a

stiletto, the point of which was poisoned. She was the same day

transported to this capital, under the inspection of Duroc, and

imprisoned in the Temple. In her examination she denied having

accomplices, and she expired on the rack without telling even her name.

The sub-prefect at Abbeville, the once famous Andre Dumont, was ordered

to disseminate a report that she was shut up as insane in a madhouse.

In the strict search made by the police in the house occupied by her, no

papers or any, other indications were discovered that involved other

persons, or disclosed who she was, or what induced her to attempt such a

rash action. Before the secret tribunal she is reported to have said,

"that being convinced of Bonaparte's being one of the greatest criminals

that ever breathed upon the earth, she took upon herself the office of a

volunteer executioner; having, with every other good or loyal person, a

right to punish him whom the law could not, or dared not, reach." When,

however, some repairs were made in the house at Abbeville by a new

tenant, a bundle of papers was found, which proved that a M.

Franquonville, and about thirty, other individuals (many, of whom were

the late newcomers there), had for six months been watching an

opportunity to seize Bonaparte in his journeys between Abbeville and

Montreuil, and to carry him to some part of the coast, where a vessel was

ready to sail for England with him. Had he, however, made resistance, he

would have been shot in France, and his assassins have saved themselves

in the vessel.

The numerous escort that always, since he was an Emperor, accompanied

him, and particularly his concealment of the days of his journeys,

prevented the execution of this plot; and Madame Encore, therefore, took

upon her to sacrifice herself for what she thought the welfare of her

country. How Duroc suspected or discovered her intent is not known; some

say that an anonymous letter informed him of it, while others assert

that, in throwing herself at Bonaparte's feet, this prefect observed the

steel through the sleeve of her muslin gown. Most of her associates were

secretly executed; some, however, were carried to Boulogne and shot at

the head of the army of England as English spies.

LETTER XXXIV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--After the discovery of Charlotte Encore's attempt, Bonaparte,

who hitherto had flattered himself that he possessed the good wishes, if

not the affection, of his female subjects, made a regulation according to

which no women who had not previously given in their names to the

prefects of his palaces, and obtained previous permission, can approach

his person or throw themselves at his feet, without incurring his

displeasure, and even arrest. Of this Imperial decree, ladies, both of

the capital and of the provinces, when he travels, are officially

informed. Notwithstanding this precaution, he was a second time last

spring, at Lyons, near falling the victim of the vengeance or malice of a

woman.

In his journey to be crowned King of Italy, he occupied his uncle's

episcopal palace at Lyons during the forty-eight hours he remained there.

Most of the persons of both sexes composing the household of Cardinal

Fesch were from his own country, Corsica; among these was one of the name

of Pauline Riotti, who inspected the economy of the kitchens. It is

Bonaparte's custom to take a dish of chocolate in the forenoon, which

she, on the morning of his departure, against her custom, but under

pretence of knowing the taste of the family, desired to prepare. One of

the cooks observed that she mixed it with something from her pocket, but,

without saying a word to her that indicated suspicion, he warned

Bonaparte, in a note, delivered to a page, to be upon his guard. When

the chamberlain carried in the chocolate, Napoleon ordered the person who

had prepared it to be brought before him. This being told Pauline, she

fainted away, after having first drunk the remaining contents of the

chocolate pot. Her convulsions soon indicated that she was poisoned,

and, notwithstanding the endeavours of Bonaparte's physician, Corvisart,

she expired within an hour; protesting that her crime was an act of

revenge against Napoleon, who had seduced her, when young, under a

promise of marriage; but who, since his elevation, had not only neglected

her, but reduced her to despair by refusing an honest support for herself

and her child, sufficient to preserve her from the degradation of

servitude. Cardinal Fesch received a severe reprimand for admitting

among his domestics individuals with whose former lives he was not better

acquainted, and the same day he dismissed every Corsican in his service.

The cook was, with the reward of a pension, made a member of the Legion

of Honour, and it was given out by Corvisart that Pauline died insane.

Within three weeks after this occurrence, Bonaparte was, at Milan, again

exposed to an imminent danger. According to his commands, the vigilance

of the police had been very strict, and even severe. All strangers who

could not give the most satisfactory account of themselves, had either

been sent out of the country, or were imprisoned. He never went out

unless strongly attended, and during his audiences the most trusty

officers always surrounded him; these precautions increased in proportion

as the day of his coronation approached. On the morning of that day,

about nine o'clock, when full dressed in his Imperial and royal robes,

and all the grand officers of State by his side, a paper was delivered to

him by his chamberlain, Talleyrand, a nephew of the Minister. The

instant he had read it, he flew into the arms of Berthier, exclaiming:

"My friend, I am betrayed; are you among the number of conspirators?

Jourdan, Lasnes, Mortier, Bessieres, St. Cyr, are you also forsaking your

friend and benefactor?" They all instantly encompassed him, begging that

he would calm himself; that they all were what they always had been,

dutiful and faithful subjects. "But read this paper from my prefect,

Salmatoris; he says that if I move a step I may cease to live, as the

assassins are near me, as well as before me."

The commander of his guard then entered with fifty grenadiers, their

bayonets fixed, carrying with them a prisoner, who pointed out four

individuals not far from Bonaparte's person, two of whom were Italian

officers of the Royal Italian Guard, and two were dressed in Swiss

uniforms. They were all immediately seized, and at their feet were found

three daggers. One of those in Swiss regimentals exclaimed, before he

was taken: "Tremble, tyrant of my country! Thousands of the descendants

of William Tell have, with me, sworn your destruction. You, escape this

day, but the just vengeance of outraged humanity follows you like your

shade. Depend upon it an untimely end is irremediably reserved you." So

saying, he pierced his heart and fell a corpse into the arms of the

grenadiers who came to arrest him.

This incident suspended the procession to the cathedral for an hour, when

Berthier announced that the conspirators were punished. Bonaparte

evinced on this occasion the same absence of mind and of courage as on

the 9th of November, 1799, when Arena and other deputies drew their

daggers against him at St. Cloud. As this scene did not redound much to

the honour of the Emperor and King, all mention of the conspiracy was

severely prohibited, and the deputations ready to congratulate him on his

escape were dispersed to attend their other duties.

The conspirators are stated to have been four young men, who had lost

their parents and fortunes by the Revolutions effected by Bonaparte in

Italy and Switzerland, and who had sworn fidelity to each other, and to

avenge their individual wrongs with the injuries of their countries at

the same time. They were all prepared and resigned to die, expecting to

be cut to pieces the moment Bonaparte fell by their hands; but one of the

Italians, rather superstitious, had, before he went to the drawing-room,

confessed and received absolution from a priest, whom he knew to be an

enemy of Bonaparte; but the priest, in hope of reward, disclosed the

conspiracy to the master of ceremonies, Salmatoris. The three surviving

conspirators are said to have been literally torn to pieces by the

engines of torture, and the priest was shot for having given absolution

to an assassin, and for having concealed his knowledge of the plot an

hour after he was acquainted with it. Even Salmatoris had some

difficulty to avoid being disgraced for having written a terrifying note,

which had exposed the Emperor's weakness, and shown that his life was

dearer to him at the head of Empires than when only at the head of

armies.

My narrative of this event I have from an officer present, whose veracity

I can guarantee. He also informed me that, in consequence of it, all the

officers of the Swiss brigades in the French service that were quartered

or encamped in Italy were, to the number of near fifty, dismissed at

once. Of the Italian guards, every officer who was known to have

suffered any losses by the new order of things in his country, was

ordered to resign, if he would not enter into the regiments of the line.

Whatever the police agents did to prevent it, and in spite of some unjust

and cruel chastisement, Bonaparte continued, during his stay in Italy, an

object of ridicule in conversation, as well as in pamphlets and

caricatures. One of these represented him in the ragged garb of a

sans-culotte, pale and trembling on his knees, with bewildered looks and

his hair standing upright on his head like pointed horns, tearing the map

of the world to pieces, and, to save his life, offering each of his

generals a slice, who in return regarded him with looks of contempt mixed

with pity.

I have just heard of a new plot, or rather a league against Bonaparte's

ambition. At its head the Generals Jourdan, Macdonald, Le Courbe, and

Dessolles are placed, though many less victorious generals and officers,

civil as well as military, are reported to be its members. Their object

is not to remove or displace Bonaparte as an Emperor of the French; on

the contrary, they offer their lives to strengthen his authority and to

resist his enemies; but they ask and advise him to renounce, for himself,

for his relations, and for France, all possessions on the Italian side of

the Alps, as the only means to establish a permanent peace, and to avoid

a war with other States, whose safety is endangered by our great

encroachments. A mutinous kind of address to this effect has been sent

to the camp of Boulogne and to all other encampments of our troops, that

those generals and other military persons there, who chose, might both

see the object and the intent of the associates. It is reported that

Bonaparte ordered it to be burnt by the hands of the common executioner

at Boulogne; that sixteen officers there who had subscribed their names

in appropriation of the address were broken, and dismissed with disgrace;

that Jourdan is deprived of his command in Italy, and ordered to render

an account of his conduct to the Emperor. Dessolles is also said to be

dismissed, and with Macdonald, Le Courbe, and eighty-four others of His

Majesty's subjects, whose names appeared under the remonstrance (or

petition, as some call it), exiled to different departments of this

country, where they are to expect their Sovereign's further

determination, and, in the meantime, remain under the inspection and

responsibility of his constituted authorities and commissaries of police.

As it is as dangerous to inquire as to converse on this and other

subjects, which the mysterious policy of our Government condemns to

silence or oblivion, I have not yet been able to gather any more or

better information concerning this league, or unconstitutional opposition

to the executive power; but as I am intimate with one of the actors,

should he have an opportunity, he will certainly write to me at full

length, and be very explicit.

LETTER XXXV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--I believe I have before remarked that, under the Government of

Bonaparte, causes relatively the most insignificant have frequently

produced effects of the greatest consequence. A capricious or whimsical

character, swaying with unlimited power, is certainly the most dangerous

guardian of the prerogatives of sovereignty, as well as of the rights and

liberties of the people. That Bonaparte is as vain and fickle as a

coquette, as obstinate as a mule, and equally audacious and unrelenting,

every one who has witnessed his actions or meditated on his transactions

must be convinced. The least opposition irritates his pride, and he

determines and commands, in a moment of impatience or vivacity, what may

cause the misery of millions for ages, and, perhaps, his own repentance

for years.

When Bonaparte was officially informed by his Ambassador at Vienna, the

young La Rochefoucauld, that the Emperor of Germany had declined being

one of his grand officers of the Legion of Honour, he flew into a rage,

and used against this Prince the most gross, vulgar, and unbecoming

language. I have heard it said that he went so far as to say, "Well,

Francis II. is tired of reigning. I hope to have strength enough to

carry a third crown. He who dares refuse to be and continue my equal,

shall soon, as a vassal, think himself honoured with the regard which, as

a master, I may condescend, from compassion, to bestow on him." Though

forty-eight hours had elapsed after this furious sally before he met with

the Austrian Ambassador, Count Von Cobenzl, his passion was still so

furious, that, observing his grossness and violence, all the members of

the diplomatic corps trembled, both for this their respected member, and

for the honour of our nation thus represented.

When the diplomatic audience was over, he said to Talleyrand, in a

commanding and harsh tone of voice, in the presence of all his

aides-de-camp and generals:

"Write this afternoon, by an extraordinary courier, to my Minister at

Genoa, Salicetti, to prepare the Doge and the people for the immediate

incorporation of the Ligurian Republic with my Empire. Should Austria

dare to murmur, I shall, within three months, also incorporate the

ci-devant Republic of Venice with my Kingdom of Italy!"

"But--but--Sire!" uttered the Minister, trembling.

"There exists no 'but,' and I will listen to no 'but,'" interrupted His

Majesty. "Obey my orders without further discussions. Should Austria

dare to arm, I shall, before next Christmas, make Vienna the headquarters

of a fiftieth military division. In an hour I expect you with the

despatches ready for Salicetti."

This Salicetti is a Corsican of a respectable family, born at Bastia, in

1758, and it was he who, during the siege of Toulon in 1793, introduced

his countryman, Napoleon Bonaparte, his present Sovereign, to the

acquaintance of Barras, an occurrence which has since produced

consequences so terribly notorious.

Before the Revolution an advocate of the superior council of Corsica, he

was elected a member to the First National Assembly, where, on the 30th

of November, 1789, he pressed the decree which declared the Island of

Corsica an integral part of the French monarchy. In 1792, he was sent by

his fellow citizens as a deputy to the National Convention, where he

joined the terrorist faction, and voted for the death of his King. In

May, 1793, he was in Corsica, and violently opposed the partisans of

General Paoli. Obliged to make his escape in August from that island, to

save himself, he joined the army of General Carteaux, then marching

against the Marseilles insurgents, whence he was sent by the National

Convention with Barras, Gasparin, Robespierre the younger, and Ricrod, as

a representative of the people, to the army before Toulon, where, as well

as at Marseilles, he shared in all the atrocities committed by his

colleagues and by Bonaparte; for which, after the death of the

Robespierres, he was arrested with him as a terrorist.

He had not known Bonaparte much in Corsica, but, finding him and his

family in great distress, with all other Corsican refugees, and observing

his adroitness as a captain of artillery, he recommended him to Barras,

and upon their representation to the Committee of Public Safety, he was

promoted to a chef de brigade, or colonel. In 1796, when Barras gave

Bonaparte the command of the army of Italy, Salicetti was appointed a

Commissary of Government to the same army, and in that capacity behaved

with the greatest insolence towards all the Princes of Italy, and most so

towards the Duke of Modena, with whom he and Bonaparte signed a treaty of

neutrality, for which they received a large sum in ready money; but

shortly afterwards the duchy was again invaded, and an attempt made to

surprise and seize the Duke. In 1797 he was chosen a member of the

Council of Five Hundred, where he always continued a supporter of violent

measures.

When, in 1799, his former protege, Bonaparte, was proclaimed a First

Consul, Salicetti desired to be placed in the Conservative Senate; but

his familiarity displeased Napoleon, who made him first a commercial

agent, and afterwards a Minister to the Ligurian Republic, so as to keep

him at a distance. During his several missions, he has amassed a

fortune, calculated, at the lowest, of six millions of livres.

The order Salicetti received to prepare the incorporation of Genoa with

France, would not, without the presence of our troops, have been very

easy to execute, particularly as he, six months before, had prevailed on

the Doge and the Senate to resign all sovereignty to Lucien Bonaparte,

under the title of a Grand Duke of Genoa.

The cause of Napoleon's change of opinion with regard to his brother

Lucien, was that the latter would not separate from a wife he loved, but

preferred domestic happiness to external splendour frequently accompanied

with internal misery. So that this act of incorporation of the Ligurian

Republic, in fact, originated, notwithstanding the great and deep

calculations of our profound politicians and political schemers, in

nothing else but in the keeping of a wife, and in the refusal of a

riband.

That corruption, seduction, and menaces seconded the intrigues and

bayonets which convinced the Ligurian Government of the honour and

advantage of becoming subjects of Bonaparte, I have not the least doubt;

but that the Doge, Girolamo Durazzo, and the senators Morchio, Maglione,

Travega, Maghella, Roggieri, Taddei, Balby, and Langlade sold the

independence of their country for ten millions of livres--though it has

been positively asserted, I can hardly believe; and, indeed, money was as

little necessary as resistance would have been unavailing, all the forts

and strong positions being in the occupation of our troops. A general

officer present when the Doge of Genoa, at the head of the Ligurian

deputation, offered Bonaparte their homage at Milan, and exchanged

liberty for bondage, assured me that this ci-devant chief magistrate

spoke with a faltering voice and with tears in his eyes, and that

indignation was read on the countenance of every member of the deputation

thus forced to prostitute their rights as citizens, and to vilify their

sentiments as patriots.

When Salicetti, with his secretary, Milhaud, had arranged this honourable

affair, they set out from Genoa to announce to Bonaparte, at Milan, their

success. Not above a league from the former city their carriage was

stopped, their persons stripped, and their papers and effects seized by a

gang, called in the country the gang of PATRIOTIC ROBBERS, commanded by

Mulieno. This chief is a descendant of a good Genoese family, proscribed

by France, and the men under him are all above the common class of

people. They never commit any murders, nor do they rob any but

Frenchmen, or Italians known to be adherents of the French party. Their

spoils they distribute among those of their countrymen who, like

themselves, have suffered from the revolutions in Italy within these last

nine years. They usually send the amount destined to relieve these

persons to the curates of the several parishes, signifying in what manner

it is to be employed. Their conduct has procured them many friends among

the low and the poor, and, though frequently pursued by our gendarmes,

they have hitherto always escaped. The papers captured by them on this

occasion from Salicetti are said to be of a most curious nature, and

throw great light on Bonaparte's future views of Italy. The original act

of consent of the Ligurian Government to the incorporation with France

was also in this number. It is reported that they were deposited with

the Austrian Minister at Genoa, who found means to forward them to his

Court; and it is supposed that their contents did not a little to hasten

the present movements of the Emperor of Germany.

Another gang, known under the appellation of the PATRIOTIC AVENGERS, also

desolates the Ligurian Republic. They never rob, but always murder those

whom they consider as enemies of their country. Many of our officers,

and even our sentries on duty, have been wounded or killed by them; and,

after dark, therefore, no Frenchman dares walk out unattended. Their

chief is supposed to be a ci-devant Abbe, Sagati, considered a political

as well as a religious fanatic. In consequence of the deeds of these

patriotic avengers, Bonaparte's first act, as a Sovereign of Liguria, was

the establishment of special military commissions, and a law prohibiting,

under pain of death, every person from carrying arms who could not show a

written permission of our commissary of police. Robbers and assassins

are, unfortunately, common to all nations, and all people of all ages;

but those of the above description are only the production and progeny of

revolutionary and troublesome times. They pride themselves, instead of

violating the laws, on supplying their inefficacy and counteracting their

partiality.

LETTER XXXVI.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Bonaparte is now the knight of more Royal Orders than any other

Sovereign in Europe, and were he to put them on all at once, their

ribands would form stuff enough for a light summer coat of as many

different colours as the rainbow. The Kings of Spain, of Naples, of

Prussia, of Portugal, and of Etruria have admitted him a

knight-companion, as well as the Electors of Bavaria, Hesse, and Baden,

and the Pope of Rome. In return he has appointed these Princes his grand

officers of HIS Legion of Honour, the highest rank of his newly

instituted Imperial Order. It is even said that some of these Sovereigns

have been honoured by him with the grand star and broad riband of the

Order of His Iron Crown of the Kingdom of Italy.

Before Napoleon's departure for Milan last spring, Talleyrand intimated

to the members of the foreign diplomatic corps here, that their presence

would be agreeable to the Emperor of the French at his coronation at

Milan as a King of Italy. In the preceding summer a similar hint, or

order, had been given by him for a diplomatic trip to Aix-la-Chapelle,

and all Their Excellencies set a-packing instantly; but some legitimate

Sovereigns, having since discovered that it was indecent for their

representatives to be crowding the suite of an insolently and proudly

travelling usurper, under different pretences declined the honour of an

invitation and journey to Italy. It would, besides, have been pleasant

enough to have witnessed the Ambassadors of Austria and Prussia, whose

Sovereigns had not acknowledged Bonaparte's right to his assumed title of

King of Italy, indirectly approving it by figuring at the solemnity which

inaugurated him as such. Of this inconsistency and impropriety

Talleyrand was well aware; but audacity on one side, and endurance and

submission on the other, had so often disregarded these considerations

before, that he saw no indelicacy or impertinence in the proposal. His

master had, however, the gratification to see at his levee, and in his

wife's drawing-room, the Ambassadors of Spain, Naples, Portugal, and

Bavaria, who laid at the Imperial and royal feet the Order decorations of

their own Princes, to the nor little entertainment of His Imperial and

Royal Majesty, and to the great edification of his dutiful subjects on

the other side of the Alps.

The expenses of Bonaparte's journey to Milan, and his coronation there

(including also those of his attendants from France), amounted to no less

a sum than fifteen millions of livres--of which one hundred and fifty

thousand livres--was laid out in fireworks, double that sum in

decorations of the Royal Palace and the cathedral, and three millions of

livres--in presents to different generals, grand officers, deputations,

etc. The poor also shared his bounty; medals to the value of fifty

thousand livres--were thrown out among them on the day of the ceremony,

besides an equal sum given by Madame Napoleon to the hospitals and

orphan-houses. These last have a kind of hereditary or family claim on

the purse of our Sovereign; their parents were the victims of the

Emperor's first step towards glory and grandeur.

Another three millions of livres was expended for the march of troops

from France to form pleasure camps in Italy, and four millions more was

requisite for the forming and support of these encampments during two

months, and the Emperor distributed among the officers and men composing

them two million livres' worth of rings, watches, snuff-boxes, portraits

set with diamonds, stars, and other trinkets, as evidences of His

Majesty's satisfaction with their behaviour, presence, and performances.

These troops were under the command of Bonaparte's Field-marshal,

Jourdan, a general often mentioned in the military annals of our

revolutionary war. During the latter part of the American war, he served

under General Rochambeau as a common soldier, and obtained in 1783, after

the peace, his discharge. He then turned a pedlar, in which situation

the Revolution found him. He had also married, for her fortune, a lame

daughter of a tailor, who brought him a fortune of two thousand

livres--from whom he has since been divorced, leaving her to shift for

herself as she can, in a small milliner's shop at Limoges, where her

husband was born in 1763.

Jourdan was among the first members and pillars of the Jacobin Club

organized in his native town, which procured him rapid promotion in the

National Guards, of whom, in 1792, he was already a colonel. His known

love of liberty and equality induced the Committee of Public Safety, in

1793, to appoint him to the chief command of the armies of Ardennes and

of the North, instead of Lamarche and Houchard. On the 17th of October

the same year, he gained the victory of Wattignies, which obliged the

united forces of Austria, Prussia, and Germany to raise the siege of

Maubeuge. The jealous Republican Government, in reward, deposed him and

appointed Pichegru his successor, which was the origin of that enmity and

malignity with which Jourdan pursued this unfortunate general, even to

his grave. He never forgave Pichegru the acceptance of a command which

he could not decline without risking his life; and when he should have

avenged his disgrace on the real causes of it, he chose to resent it on

him who, like himself, was merely an instrument, or a slave, in the hands

and under the whip of a tyrannical power.

After the imprisonment of General Hoche, in March, 1794, Jourdan

succeeded him as chief of the army of the Moselle. In June he joined,

with thirty thousand men, the right wing of the army of the North,

forming a new one, under the name of the army of the Sambre and Meuse. On

the 16th of the same month he gained a complete victory over the Prince

of Coburg, who tried to raise the siege of Charleroy. This battle, which

was fought near Trasegnies, is, nevertheless, commonly called the battle

of Fleurus. After Charleroy had surrendered on the 25th, Jourdan and his

army were ordered to act under the direction of General Pichegru, who had

drawn the plan of that brilliant campaign. Always envious of this

general, Jourdan did everything to retard his progress, and at last

intrigued so well that the army of the Sambre and the Meuse was separated

from that of the North.

With the former of these armies Jourdan pursued the retreating

confederates, and, after driving them from different stands and

positions, he repulsed them to the banks of the Rhine, which river they

were obliged to pass. Here ended his successes this year, successes that

were not obtained without great loss on our side.

Jourdan began the campaigns of 1795 and 1796 with equal brilliancy, and

ended them with equal disgrace. After penetrating into Germany with

troops as numerous as well-disciplined, he was defeated at the end of

them by Archduke Charles, and retreated always with such precipitation,

and in such confusion, that it looked more like the flight of a

disorderly rabble than the retreat of regular troops; and had not Moreau,

in 1796, kept the enemy in awe, few of Jourdan's officers or men would

again have seen France; for the inhabitants of Franconia rose on these

marauders, and cut them to pieces, wherever they could surprise or waylay

them.