seizure of the Duc d'Enghien, he wrote a letter with his own hand to
Bonaparte, which he sent by his adjutant-general, Tawast; but this
officer arrived too late, and only in time to hear of the execution of
the Prince he intended to save, and the indecent expressions of Napoleon
when acquainted with the object of his mission. Baron Ehrensward was
then recalled, and a Court mourning was proclaimed by Gustavus IV., as
well as by Alexander the First, for the lamented victim of the violated
laws of nations and humanity. This so, enraged our ruler that General
Caulincourt (the same who commanded the expedition which crossed the
Rhine and captured the Duc d' Enghien) was engaged to head and lead fifty
other banditti, who were destined to pass in disguise into Baden, and to
bring the King of Sweden a prisoner to this capital. Fortunately, His
Majesty had some suspicion of the attempt, and removed to a greater
distance from our frontiers than Carlsruhe. So certain was our
Government of the success of this shameful enterprise, that our charge
d'affaires in Sweden was preparing to engage the discontented and
disaffected there for the convocation of a diet and the establishment of
a regency.
According to the report in our diplomatic circle. Bonaparte and
Talleyrand intended nevermore to, release their royal captive when once
in their power; but, after forcing him to resign the throne to his son,
keep him a prisoner for the remainder of his days, which they would have
taken care should not have been long. The Duke of Sudermania was to have
been nominated a regent until the majority of the young King, not yet six
years of age. The Swedish diets were to recover that influence, or,
rather, that licentiousness, to which Gustavus III., by the revolution of
the 19th of August, 1772, put an end. All exiled regicides, or traitors,
were to be recalled, and a revolutionary focus organized in the North,
equally threatening Russia and Denmark. The dreadful consequences of
such an event are incalculable. Thanks to the prudence of His Swedish
Majesty, all these schemes evaporated in air.
Not being able to dethrone a Swedish Monarch, our Cabinet resolved to
partition the Swedish territory, to which effect I am assured that
proposals were last summer made to the Cabinets of St. Petersburg,
Berlin, and Copenhagen. Swedish Finland was stated to have been offered
to Russia, Swedish Pomerania to Prussia, and Scania and Blekinge to
Denmark; but the overture was rejected.
The King of Sweden possesses both talents and information superior to
most of his contemporaries, and he has surrounded himself with
counsellors who, with their experience, make wisdom more firm, more
useful, and more valuable. His chancellor, D'Ehrenheim, unites modesty
with sagacity; he is a most able statesman, an accomplished gentleman,
and the most agreeable of men. He knows the languages, as well as the
constitutions, of every country in Europe, with equal perfection as his
native tongue and national code. Had his Sovereign the same ascendency
over the European politics as Christina had during the negotiation of the
Treaty of Munster, other States would admire, and Sweden be proud of,
another Axel Oxenstiern.
Count Fersen, who also has, and is worthy of, the confidence of his
Prince, is a nobleman, the honour and pride of his rank. A colonel
before the Revolution of the regiment Royal Suedois, in the service of my
country, his principles were so well appreciated that he was entrusted by
Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, when so many were so justly suspected,
and served royalty in distress, at the risk of his own existence. This
was so much the more generous in him as he was a foreigner, of one of the
most ancient families, and one of the richest noblemen in his own
country. To him Louis XVIII. is indebted for his life; and he brought
consolation to the deserted Marie Antoinette even in the dungeon of the
Conciergerie, when a discovery would have been a sentence of death. In
1797, he was appointed by his King plenipotentiary to the Congress of
Rastadt, and arrived there just at the time when Bonaparte, after the
destruction of happiness in Italy, had resolved on the ruin of liberty in
Switzerland, and came there proud of past exploits and big with future
schemes of mischief. His reception from the conquerer of Italy was such
as might have been expected by distinguished loyalty from successful
rebellion. He was told that the Congress of Rastadt was not his place!
and this was true; for what can be common between honour and infamy,
between virtue and vice? On his return to Sweden, Count Fersen was
rewarded with the dignity of a Grand Officer of State.
Of another faithful and trusty counsellor of His Swedish Majesty, Baron
d'Armfeldt, a panegyric would be pronounced in saying that he was the
friend of Gustavus III. From a page to that chevalier of royalty he was
advanced to the rank of general; and during the war with Russia, in 1789
and 1790, he fought and bled by the side of his Prince and benefactor. It
was to him that his King said, when wounded mortally, by the hand of a
regicide, at a masquerade in March, 1792, "Don't be alarmed, my friend.
You know as well as myself that all wounds are not dangerous."
Unfortunately, his were not of that description.
In the will of this great Monarch, Baron d'Armfeldt was nominated one of
the guardians of his present Sovereign, and a governor of the capital;
but the Duke Regent, who was a weak Prince, guided by philosophical
adventurers, by Illuminati and Freemasons, most of whom had imbibed the
French revolutionary maxims, sent him, in a kind of honourable exile, as
an Ambassador to Italy. Shortly afterwards, under pretence of having
discovered a conspiracy, in which the Baron was implicated, he was
outlawed. He then took refuge in Russia, where he was made a general,
and as such distinguished him self under Suwarow during the campaign of
1799. He was then recalled to his country, and restored to all his
former places and dignities, and has never since ceased to merit and
obtain the favour, friendship, and approbation of his King. He is said
to be one of the Swedish general officers intended to serve in union with
the Russian troops expected in Pomerania. Wherever he is employed, I am
convinced that he will fight, vanquish, or perish like a hero. Last
spring he was offered the place of a lieutenant-general in the Austrian
service, which, with regard to salary and emoluments, is greatly superior
to what he enjoys in Sweden; he declined it, however, because, with a
warrior of his stamp, interest is the last consideration.
LETTER XV.
PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--Believe me, Bonaparte dreads more the liberty of the Press than
all other engines, military or political, used by his rivals or foes for
his destruction. He is aware of the fatal consequences all former
factions suffered from the public exposure of their past crimes and
future views; of the reality of their guilt, and of the fallacy of their
boasts and promises. He does not doubt but that a faithful account of
all the actions and intrigues of his Government, its imposition, fraud,
duplicity, and tyranny, would make a sensible alteration in the public
opinion; and that even those who, from motives of patriotism, from being
tired of our revolutionary convulsions, or wishing for tranquillity, have
been his adherents, might alter their sentiments when they read of
enormities which must indicate insecurity, and prove to every one that he
who waded through rivers of blood to seize power will never hesitate
about the means of preserving it.
There is not a printing-office, from the banks of the Elbe to the Gulf of
Naples, which is not under the direct or indirect inspection of our
police agents; and not a bookseller in Germany, France, Italy, Spain,
Portugal, Holland, or Switzerland, publishes a work which, if contrary to
our policy or our fears, is not either confiscated, or purchased on the
day it, makes its appearance. Besides our regular emissaries, we have
persons travelling from the beginning to the end of the year, to pick up
information of what literary productions are printing; of what authors
are popular; of their political opinions and private circumstances. This
branch of our haute police extends even to your country.
Before the Revolution, we had in this capital only two daily papers, but
from 1789 to 1799 never less than thirty, and frequently sixty journals
were daily printed. After Bonaparte had assumed the consular authority,
they were reduced to ten. But though these were under a very strict
inspection of our Minister of Police, they were regarded still as too
numerous, and have lately been diminished to eight, by the incorporation
of 'Le Clef du Cabinet' and 'Le Bulletin de l'Europe' with the 'Gazette
de France', a paper of which the infamously famous Barrere is the editor.
According to a proposal of Bonaparte, it was lately debated in the
Council of State whether it would not be politic to suppress all daily
prints, with the sole exception of the Moniteur. Fouche and Talleyrand
spoke much in favour of this measure of security. Real, however, is said
to have suggested another plan, which was adopted; and our Government,
instead of prohibiting the appearance of our daily papers, has resolved
by degrees to purchase them all, and to entrust them entirely to the
direction of Barrere, who now is consulted in everything concerning books
or newspapers.
All circulation of foreign papers is prohibited, until they have
previously obtained the stamp of approbation from the grand literary
censor, Barrere. Any person offending against this law is most severely
punished. An American gentlemen, of the name of Campbell, was last
spring sent to the Temple for lending one of your old daily papers to a
person who lodged in the same hotel with him. After an imprisonment of
ten weeks he made some pecuniary sacrifices to obtain his liberty, but
was carried to Havre, under an escort of gendarmes, put on board a
neutral vessel, and forbidden, under pain of death, ever to set his foot
on French ground again. An American vessel was, about the same time,
confiscated at Bordeaux, and the captain and crew imprisoned, because
some English books were found on board, in which Bonaparte, Talleyrand,
Fouche, and some of our great men were rather ill-treated. The crew have
since been liberated, but the captain has been brought here, and is still
in the Temple. The vessel and the cargo have been sold as lawful
captures, though the captain has proved from the names written in the
books that they belonged to a passenger. A young German student in
surgery, who came here to improve himself, has been nine months in the
same state prison, for having with him a book, printed in Germany during
Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, wherein the chief and the undertaking
are ridiculed. His mother, the widow of a clergyman, hearing of the
misfortune of her son, came here, and has presented to the Emperor and
Empress half a dozen petitions, without any effect whatever, and has
almost ruined herself and her other children by the expenses of the
journey. During a stay of four months she has not yet been able to gain
admittance into the Temple, to visit or see her son, who perhaps expired
in tortures, or died brokenhearted before she came here.
A dozen copies of a funeral sermon on the Duc d'Enghien had found their
way here, and were secretly circulated for some time; but at last the
police heard of it, and every person who was suspected of having read
them was arrested. The number of these unfortunate persons, according to
some, amounted to one hundred and thirty, while others say that they were
only eighty-four, of whom twelve died suddenly in the Temple, and the
remainder were transported to Cayenne; upwards of half of them were
women, some of the ci-devant highest rank among subjects.
A Prussian, of the name of Bulow, was shot as a spy in the camp of
Boulogne, because in his trunk was an English book, with the lives of
Bonaparte and of some of his generals. Every day such and other examples
of the severity of our Government are related; and foreigners who visit
us continue, nevertheless, to be off their guard. They would be less
punished had they with them forged bills than, printed books or
newspapers, in which our Imperial Family and public functionaries are not
treated with due respect. Bonaparte is convinced that in every book
where he is not spoken of with praise, the intent is to blame him; and
such intents or negative guilt never escape with impunity.
As, notwithstanding the endeavours of our Government, we are more fond of
foreign prints, and have more confidence in them than in our own,
official presses have lately been established at Antwerp, at Cologne, and
at Mentz, where the 'Gazette de Leyden', 'Hamburg Correspondenten', and
'Journal de Frankfort' are reprinted; some articles left out, and others
inserted in their room. It was intended to reprint also the 'Courier de
Londres', but our types, and particularly, our paper, would detect the
fraud. I have read one of our own Journal de Frankfort, in which were
extracts from this French paper, printed in your country, which I
strongly suspect are of our own manufacture. I am told that several new
books, written by foreigners, in praise of our present brilliant
Government, are now in the presses of those our frontier towns, and will
soon be laid before the public as foreign productions.
A clerk of a banking-house had lately the imprudence to mention, during
his dinner at the restaurateur's of 'Cadran Vert', on the Boulevards,
some doubt of the veracity of an official article in the 'Moniteur'. As
he left the house he was arrested, carried before Fouche, accused of
being an English agent, and before supper-time he was on the road to
Rochefort on his way to Cayenne. As soon as the banker Tournon was
informed of this expeditious justice, as it is called here, he waited on
Fouche, who threatened even to transport him if he dared to interfere
with the transactions of the police. This banker was himself seized in
the spring of last year by a police agent and some gendarmes, and carried
into exile forty leagues from this capital, where he remained six.
months, until a pecuniary douceur procured him a recall. His crime was
having inquired after General Moreau when in the Temple, and of having
left his card there.
LETTER XVI.
PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--The Prince Borghese has lately been appointed a captain of the
Imperial Guard of his Imperial brother-in-law, Napoleon the First, and is
now in Germany, making his first campaign. A descendant of a wealthy and
ancient Roman family, but born with a weak understanding, he was easily
deluded into the ranks of the revolutionists of his own country, by a
Parisian Abbe, his instructor and governor, and gallant of the Princesse
Borghese, his mother. He was the first secretary of the first Jacobin
club established at Rome, in the spring of 1798; and in December of the
same year, when the Neapolitan troops invaded the Ecclesiastical States,
he, with his present brother-in-law, another hopeful Roman Prince, Santa
Cruce, headed the Roman sans-culottes in their retreat. To show his love
of equality, he had previously served as a common man in a company of
which the captain was a fellow that sold cats' meat and tripe in the
streets of Rome, and the lieutenant a scullion of his mother's kitchen.
Since Imperial aristocracy is now become the order of the day, he is as
insupportable for his pride and vanity as he, some years ago, was
contemptible for his meanness. He married, in 1803, Madame Leclerc, who,
between the death of a first and a wedding with a second husband--a space
of twelve months--had twice been in a fair way to become a mother. Her
portion was estimated at eighteen millions of livres--a sum sufficient to
palliate many 'faux pas' in the eyes of a husband more sensible and more
delicate than her present Serene Idiot, as she styles the Prince
Borghese.
The lady is the favourite sister of Napoleon, the ablest, but also the
most wicked of the female Bonapartes. She had, almost from her infancy,
passed through all the filth of prostitution, debauchery, and profligacy
before she attained her present elevation; rank, however, has not altered
her morals, but only procured her the means of indulging in new excesses.
Ever since the wedding night the Prince Borghese has been excluded from
her bed; for she declared frankly to him, as well as to her brother, that
she would never endure the approach of a man with a bad breath; though
many who, from the opportunities they have had of judging, certainly
ought to know, pretend that her own breath is not the sweetest in the
world. When her husband had marched towards the Rhine, she asked her
brother, as a favour, to procure the Prince Borghese, after a useless
life, a glorious death. This curious demand of a wife was, made in
Madame Bonaparte's drawing-room, in the presence of fifty persons. "You
are always 'etourdie'," replied Napoleon, smiling.
If Bonaparte, however, overlooks the intrigues of his sisters, he is not
so easily pacified when any reports reach him inculpating the virtues of
his sisters-in-law. Some gallants of Madame Joseph Bonaparte have
already disappeared to return no more, or are wandering in the wilds of
Cayenne; but the Emperor is particularly attentive to everything
concerning the morality of Madame Louis, whose descendants are destined
to continue the Bonaparte dynasty. Two officers, after being cashiered,
were, with two of Madame Louis's maids, shut up last month in the Temple,
and have not since been heard of, upon suspicion that the Princess
preferred their society to that of her husband.
Louis Bonaparte, whose constitution has been much impaired by his
debaucheries, was, last July, advised by his physicians to use the baths
at St. Amand. After his wife had accompanied him as far as Lille, she
went to visit one of her friends, Madame Ney, the wife of General Ney,
who commanded the camp near Montreuil. This lady resided in a castle
called Leek, in the vicinity, where dinners, concerts, balls, and other
festivities celebrated the arrival of the Princess; and to these the
principal officers of the camp were invited. One morning, about an hour
after the company had retired to bed, the whole castle was disturbed and
alarmed by an uproar in the anteroom of Princesse Louis's bedchamber. On
coming to the scene of riot, two officers were found there fighting, and
the Princesse Louis, more than half undressed, came out and called the
sentries on duty to separate the combatants, who were both wounded. This
affair occasioned great scandal; and General Ney, after having put the
officers under arrest, sent a courier to Napoleon at Boulogne, relating
the particulars and demanding His Majesty's orders. It was related and
believed as a fact that the quarrel originated about two of the maids of
the Princess (whose virtue was never suspected), with whom the officers
were intriguing. The Emperor ordered the culprits to be broken and
delivered up to his Minister of Police, who knew how to proceed. The
Princesse Louis also received an invitation to join her sister-in-law,
Madame Murat, then in the camp at Boulogne, and to remain under her care
until her husband's return from St. Amand.
General Murat was then at Paris, and his lady was merely on a visit to
her Imperial brother, who made her responsible for Madame Louis, whom he
severely reprimanded for the misconduct of her maids. The bedrooms of
the two sisters were on the same floor. One night, Princesse Louis
thought she heard the footsteps of a person on the staircase, not like
those of a female, and afterwards the door of Madame Murat's room opened
softly. This occurrence deprived her of all desire to sleep; and
curiosity, or perhaps revenge, excited her to remove her doubts
concerning the virtue of her guardian. In about an hour afterwards, she
stole into Madame Murat's bedroom, by the way of their sitting-room, the
door in the passage being bolted. Passing her hand over the pillow, she
almost pricked herself with the strong beard of a man, and, screaming
out, awoke her sister, who inquired what she could want at such an
unusual hour.
"I believe," replied the Princess, "my room is haunted. I have not shut
my eyes, and intended to ask for a place by your side, but I find it is
already engaged:
"My maid always sleeps with me when my husband is absent," said Madame
Murat.
"It is very rude of your maid to go to bed with her mistress without
first shaving herself," said the Princess, and left the room.
The next morning an explanation took place; the ladies understood each
other, and each, during the remaining part of her husband's absence, had
for consolation a maid for a bedfellow. Madame Murat also convinced the
Emperor that his suspicions with regard to the Princesse Louis were
totally unfounded; and he with some precious presents, indemnified her
for his harsh treatment.
It is reported that the two maids of the Princesse Louis, when before
Fouche, first denied all acquaintance with the officers; but, being
threatened with tortures, they signed a 'proces verbal', acknowledging
their guilt. This valuable and authentic document the Minister sent by
an extra courier to the Emperor, who showed it to his stepdaughter. Her
generosity is proverbial here, and therefore nobody is surprised that she
has given a handsome sum of money to the parents of her maids, who had in
vain applied to see their children; Fouche having told them that affairs
of State still required their confinement. One of them, Mariothe, has
been in the service of the Princess ever since her marriage, and is known
to possess all her confidence; though during that period of four years
she has twice been in a state of pregnancy, through the condescending
attention of her princely master.
LETTER XVII.
PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--When preparations were made for the departure of our army of
England for Germany, it excited both laughter and murmuring among the
troops. Those who had always regarded the conquest of England as
impracticable in present circumstances, laughed, and those who had in
their imagination shared the wealth of your country, showed themselves
vexed at their disappointment. To keep them in good spirits, the company
of the theatre of the Vaudevilles was ordered from hence to Boulogne, and
several plays, composed for the occasion, were performed, in which the
Germans were represented as defeated, and the English begging for peace
on their knees, which the Emperor of the French grants upon condition
that one hundred guineas ready money should be paid to each of his
soldiers and sailors. Every corps in its turn was admitted gratis to
witness this exhibition of the end of all their labours; and you can form
no idea what effect it produced, though you are not a stranger to our
fickle and inconsiderate character. Ballads, with the same predictions
and the same promises, were written and distributed among the soldiers,
and sung by women sent by Fouche to the coast. As all productions of
this sort were, as usual, liberally rewarded by the Emperor, they poured
in from all parts of his Empire.
Three poets and authors of the theatre of the Vaudevilles, Barrel, Radet,
and Desfontaines, each received two hundred napoleons d'or for their
common production of a ballad, called "Des Adieux d'un Grenadier au Camp
de Boulogne." From this I have extracted the following sample, by which
you may judge of the remainder:
THE GRENADIER'S ADIEU
TO THE CAMP AT BOULOGNE
The drum is beating, we must march, We're summon'd to another field, A
field that to our conq'ring swords Shall soon a laurel harvest yield. If
English folly light the torch Of war in Germany again The loss is
theirs--the gain is ours March! march! commence the bright campaign.
There, only by their glorious deeds Our chiefs and gallant bands are
known; There, often have they met their foes, And victory was all their
own: There, hostile ranks, at our approach, Prostrate beneath our feet
shall bow; There, smiling conquest waits to twine A laurel wreath round
every brow.
Adieu, my pretty turf-built hut * Adieu, my little garden, too! I made, I
deck'd you all myself, And I am loth to part with you: But since my arms
I must resume, And leave your comforts all behind, Upon the hostile
frontier soon My tent shall flutter in the wind.
My pretty fowls and doves, adieu! Adieu, my playful cat, to thee! Who
every morning round me came, And were my little family. But thee, my dog,
I shall not leave No, thou shalt ever follow me, Shalt share my toils,
shaft share my fame For thou art called VICTORY.
But no farewell I bid to you, Ye prams and boats, which, o'er the wave,
Were doom'd to waft to England's shore Our hero chiefs, our soldiers
brave. To you, good gentlemen of Thames, Soon, soon our visit shall be
paid, Soon, soon your merriment be o'er 'T is but a few short hours
delay'd.
* During the long continuance of the French encampment at Boulogne the
troops had formed, as it were, a romantic town of huts. Every but had a
garden surrounding it, kept in neat order and stocked with vegetables and
flowers. They had, besides, fowls, pigeons, and rabbits; and these, with
a cat and a dog, generally formed the little household of every soldier.
As I am writing on the subject of poetical agents, I will also say some
words of our poetical flatterers, though the same persons frequently
occupy both the one office and the other. A man of the name of Richaud,
who has sung previously the glory of Marat and Robespierre, offered to
Bonaparte, on the evening preceding his departure for Strasburg, the
following lines; and was in return presented with a purse full of gold,
and an order to the Minister of the Interior, Champagny, to be employed
in his offices, until better provided for.
STANZAS
ON THE RUMOUR OF A WAR WITH AUSTRIA
Kings who, so often vanquish'd, vainly dare
Menace the victor that has laid you low--
Look now at France--and view your own despair
In the majestic splendour of your foe.
What miserable pride, ye foolish kings,
Still your deluded reason thus misleads?
Provoke the storm--the bolt with lightning wings
Shall fall--but fall on your devoted heads.
And thou, Napoleon, if thy mighty sword
Shall for thy people conquer new renown;
Go--Europe shall attest, thy heart preferr'd
The modest olive to the laurel crown.
But thee, lov'd chief, to new achievements bold
The aroused spirit of the soldier calls;
Speak!--and Vienna cowering shall behold
Our banners waving o'er her prostrate walls.
I received, four days afterwards, at the circle of Madame Joseph
Bonaparte, with all other visitors, a copy of these stanzas. Most of the
foreign Ambassadors were of the party, and had also a share of this
patriotic donation. Count von Cobenzl had prudently absented himself;
otherwise, this delenda of the Austrian Carthage would have been
officially announced to him.
Another poetaster, of the name of Brouet, in a long, dull, disgusting
poem, after comparing Bonaparte with all great men of antiquity, and
proving that he surpasses them all, tells his countrymen that their
Emperor is the deputy Divinity upon earth--the mirror of wisdom, a
demi-god to whom future ages will erect statues, build temples, burn
incense, fall down and adore. A proportionate share of abuse is, of
course, bestowed on your nation. He says:
A Londres on vit briller d'un eclat ephemere Le front tout radieux d'un
ministre influent; Mais pour faire palir l'etoile d'Angleterre, Un SOLEIL
tout nouveau parut au firmament, Et ce soleil du peuple franc Admire de
l'Europe entiere Sur la terre est nomme BONAPARTE LE GRAND.
For this delicate compliment Brouet was made deputy postmaster-general in
Italy, and a Knight of the Legion of Honour. It must be granted that, if
Bonaparte is fond of flattery, he does not receive it gratis, but pays
for it like a real Emperor.
It has lately become the etiquette, not only in our Court circle and
official assemblies, but even in fashionable societies of persons who
are, or wish to become, Bonaparte's public functionaries, to distribute
and have read and applauded these disinterested effusions of our poetical
geniuses. This fashion occasioned lately a curious blunder at a
tea-party in the hotel of Madame de Talleyrand. The same printer who had
been engaged by this lady had also been employed by Chenier, or some
other poet, to print a short satire against several of our literary
ladies, in which Madame de Genlis and Madame de Stael (who has just
arrived here from her exile) were, with others, very severely handled. By
mistake, a bundle of this production was given to the porter of Madame de
Talleyrand, and a copy was handed to each visitor, even to Madame de
Genlis and Madame de Stael, who took them without noticing their
contents. Picard, after reading an act of a new play, was asked by the
lady of the house to read this poetic worship of the Emperor of the
French. After the first two lines he stopped short, looking round him
confused, suspecting a trick had been played upon him. This induced the
audience to read what had been given them, and Madame de Talleyrand with
the rest; who, instead of permitting Picard to continue with another.
scene of his play, as he had adroitly begun, made the most awkward
apology in the world, and by it exposed the ladies still more who were
the objects of the satire; which, an hour afterwards, was exchanged for
the verses intended for the homage of the Emperor, and the cause of the
error was cleared up.
I have read somewhere of a tyrant of antiquity who forced all his
subjects to furnish one room of their houses in the best possible manner,
according to their circumstances, and to have it consecrated for the
reception of his bust, before which, under pain of death, they were
commanded to prostrate themselves, morning, noon, and night. They were
to enter this room, bareheaded and barefooted, to remain there only on
their knees, and to leave it without turning their back towards the
sacred representative of their Prince. All laughing, sneezing, coughing,
speaking, or even whispering, were capitally prohibited; but crying was
not only permitted, but commanded, when His Majesty was offended, angry,
or unwell. Should our system of cringing continue progressively to
increase as it has done these last three years, we, too, shall very soon
have rooms consecrated, and an idol to adore.
LETTER XVIII.
PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--Portugal has suffered more from the degraded state of Spain,
under the administration of the Prince of Peace, than we have yet gained
by it in France. Engaged by her, in 1793, in a war against its
inclination and interest, it was not only deserted afterwards, but
sacrificed. But for the dictates of the Court of Madrid, supported,
perhaps, by some secret influence of the Court of St. James, the Court of
Lisbon would have preserved its neutrality, and, though not a well-wisher
of the French Republic, never have been counted among her avowed enemies.
In the peace of 1795, and in the subsequent treaty of 1796, which
transformed the family compact of the French and Spanish Bourbons into a
national alliance between France and Spain, there was no question about
Portugal. In 1797, indeed, our Government condescended to receive a
Portuguese plenipotentiary, but merely for the purpose of plundering his
country of some millions of money, and to insult it by shutting up its
representative as a State prisoner in the Temple. Of this violation of
the laws of civilized nations, Spain never complained, nor had Portugal
any means to avenge it. After four years of negotiation, and an
expenditure of thirty millions, the imbecile Spanish premier supported
demands made by our Government, which, if assented to, would have left
Her Most Faithful Majesty without any territory in Europe, and without
any place of refuge in America. Circumstances not permitting your
country to send any but pecuniary succours, Portugal would have become an
easy prey to the united Spanish and French forces, had the marauders
agreed about the partition of the spoil. Their disunion, the consequence
of their avidity, saved it from ruin, but not from pillage. A province
was ceded to Spain, the banks and the navigation of a river to France,
and fifty millions to the private purse of the Bonaparte family.
It might have been supposed that such renunciations, and such offerings,
would have satiated ambition, as well as cupidity; but, though the
Cabinet of Lisbon was in peace with the Cabinet of St. Cloud, the
pretensions and encroachments of the latter left the former no rest.
While pocketing tributes it required commercial monopolies, and when its
commerce was favoured, it demanded seaports to ensure the security of its
trade. Its pretensions rose in proportion to the condescensions of the
State it, oppressed. With the money and the value of the diamonds which
Portugal has paid in loans, in contributions, in requisitions, in
donations, in tributes, and in presents, it might have supported, during
ten years, an army of one hundred thousand men; and could it then have
been worse situated than it has been since, and is still at this moment?
But the manner of extorting, and the individuals employed to extort, were
more humiliating to its dignity and independence than the extortions
themselves were injurious to its resources. The first revolutionary
Ambassador Bonaparte sent thither evinced both his ingratitude and his
contempt.
Few of our many upstart generals have more illiberal sentiments, and more
vulgar and insolent manners, than General Lasnes. The son of a publican
and a smuggler, he was a smuggler himself in his youth, and afterwards a
postilion, a dragoon, a deserter, a coiner, a Jacobin, and a terrorist;
and he has, with all the meanness and brutality of these different
trades, a kind of native impertinence and audacity which shocks and
disgusts. He seems to say, "I am a villain. I know that I am so, and I
am proud of being so. To obtain the rank I possess I have respected no
human laws, and I bid defiance to all Divine vengeance. I might be
murdered or hanged, but it is impossible to degrade me. On a gibbet or
in the palace of a Prince, seized by the executioner or dining with
Sovereigns, I am, I will, and I must, always remain the same. Infamy
cannot debase me, nor is it in the power of grandeur to exalt me."
General, Ambassador, Field-marshal, First Consul, or Emperor, Lasnes will
always be the same polluted, but daring individual; a stranger to remorse
and repentance, as well as to honour and virtue. Where Bonaparte sends a
banditto of such a stamp, he has resolved on destruction.
A kind of temporary disgrace was said to have occasioned Lasnes's first
mission to Portugal. When commander of the consular guard, in 1802, he
had appropriated to himself a sum of money from the regimental chest,
and, as a punishment, was exiled as an Ambassador, as he said himself.
His resentment against Bonaparte he took care to pour out on the Regent
of Portugal. Without inquiring or caring about the etiquette of the
Court of Lisbon, he brought the sans-culotte etiquette of the Court of
the Tuileries with him, and determined to fraternize with a foreign and
legitimate Sovereign, as he had done with his own sans-culotte friend and
First Consul; and, what is the more surprising, he carried his point. The
Prince Regent not only admitted him to the royal table, but stood sponsor
to his child by a wife who had been two years his mistress before he was
divorced from his first spouse, and with whom the Prince's consort, a
Bourbon Princess and a daughter of a King, was also obliged to associate.
Avaricious as well as unprincipled, he pursued, as an Ambassador, his
former business of a smuggler, and, instead of being ashamed of a
discovery, proclaimed it publicly, deserted his post, was not reprimanded
in France, but was, without apology, received back again in Portugal. His
conduct afterwards could not be surprising. He only insisted that some
faithful and able Ministers should be removed, and others appointed in
their place, more complaisant and less honest.
New plans of Bonaparte, however, delivered Portugal from this plague; but
what did it obtain in return?--another grenadier Ambassador, less brutal
but more cunning, as abandoned but more dissimulating.
Gendral Junot is the son of a corn-chandler near the corn-market of this
capital, and was a shopman to his father in 1789. Having committed some
pilfering, he was turned out of the parental dwelling, and therefore
lodged himself as an inmate of the Jacobin Club. In 1792, he entered, as
a soldier, in a regiment of the army marching against the county of Nice;
and, in 1793, he served before Toulon, where he became acquainted with
Bonaparte, whom he, in January, 1794, assisted in despatching the
unfortunate Toulonese; and with whom, also, in the autumn of the same
year, he, therefore, was arrested as a terrorist.
In 1796, when commander-in-chief, Bonaparte made Junot his aide-de-camp;
and in that capacity he accompanied him, in 1798, to Egypt. There, as
well as in Italy, he fought bravely, but had no particular opportunity of
distinguishing himself. He was not one of those select few whom Napoleon
brought with him to Europe in 1799, but returned first to France in 1801,
when he was nominated a general of division and commander of this
capital, a place he resigned last year to General Murat.
His despotic and cruel behaviour while commander of Paris made him not
much regretted. Fouche lost in him, indeed, an able support, but none of
us here ever experienced from him justice, much less protection. As with
all other of our modern public functionaries, without money nothing was
obtained from him. It required as much for not doing any harm as if, in
renouncing his usual vexatious oppressions, he had conferred benefits. He
was much suspected of being, with Fouche, the patron of a gang of street
robbers and housebreakers, who, in the winter of 1803, infested this
capital, and who, when finally discovered, were screened from justice and
suffered to escape punishment.
I will tell you what I personally have seen of him. Happening one
evening to enter the rooms at Frascati, where the gambling-tables are
kept, I observed him, undressed, out of regimentals, in company with at
young man, who afterwards avowed himself an aide-de-camp of this general,
and who was playing with rouleaux of louis d'or, supposed to contain
fifty each, at Rouge et Noir. As long as he lost, which he did several
times, he took up the rouleau on the table, and gave another from his
pocket. At last he won, when he asked the bankers to look at their loss,
and count the money in his rouleau before they paid him. On opening it,
they found it contained one hundred bank-notes of one thousand livres
each--folded in a manner to resemble the form and size of louis d'or. The
bankers refused to pay, and applied to the company whether they were not
in the right to do so, after so many rouleaux had been changed by the
person who now required such an unusual sum in such an unusual manner.
Before any answer could be given, Junot interfered, asking the bankers
whether they knew who he was. Upon their answering in the negative, he
said: "I am General Junot, the commander of Paris, and this officer who
has won the money is my aide-de-camp; and I insist upon your paying him
this instant, if you do not wish to have your bank confiscated and your
persons arrested." They refused to part with money which they protested
was not their own, and most of the individuals present joined them in
their resistance. "You are altogether a set of scoundrels and sharpers,"
interrupted Junot; "your business shall soon be done."
So saying, he seized all the money on the table, and a kind of
boxing-match ensued between him and the bankers, in which he, being a
tall and strong man, got the better of them. The tumult, however,
brought in the guard, whom he ordered, as their chief, to carry to prison
sixteen persons he pointed out. Fortunately, I was not of the number--I
say fortunately, for I have heard that most of them remained in prison
six months before this delicate affair was cleared up and settled. In
the meantime, Junot not only pocketed all the money he pretended was due
to his aide-de-camp, but the whole sum contained in the bank, which was
double that amount. It was believed by every one present that this was
an affair arranged between him and his aide-de-camp beforehand to pillage
the bank. What a commander, what a general, and what an Ambassador!
Fitte, the secretary of our Embassy to Portugal, was formerly an Abbe,
and must be well remembered in your country, where he passed some years
as an emigrant, but was, in fact, a spy of Talleyrand. I am told that,
by his intrigues, he even succeeded in swindling your Ministers out of a
sum of money by some plausible schemes he proposed to them. He is, as
well as all other apostate priests, a very dangerous man, and an immoral
and unprincipled wretch. During the time of Robespierre he is said to
have caused the murder of his elder brother and younger sister; the
former he denounced to appropriate to himself his wealth, and the latter
he accused of fanaticism, because she refused to cohabit with him. He
daily boasts of the great protection and great friendship of Talleyrand.
'Qualis rex, talis grex'.
LETTER XIX.
PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--In some of the ancient Republics, all citizens who, in time of
danger and trouble, remained neutral, were punished as traitors or
treated as enemies. When, by our Revolution, civilized society and the
European Commonwealth were menaced with a total overthrow, had each
member of it been considered in the same light, and subjected to the same
laws, some individual States might, perhaps, have been less wealthy, but
the whole community would have been more happy and more tranquil, which
would have been much better. It was a great error in the powerful league
of 1793 to admit any neutrality at all; every Government that did not
combat rebellion should have been considered and treated as its ally. The
man who continues neutral, though only a passenger, when hands are wanted
to preserve the vessel from sinking, deserves to be thrown overboard, to
be swallowed up by the waves and to perish the first. Had all other
nations been united and unanimous, during 1793 and 1794, against the
monster, Jacobinism, we should not have heard of either Jacobin
directors, Jacobin consuls, or a Jacobin Emperor. But then, from a petty
regard to a temporary profit, they entered into a truce with a
revolutionary volcano, which, sooner or later, will consume them all; for
I am afraid it is now too late for all human power, with all human means,
to preserve any State, any Government, or any people, from suffering by
the threatening conflagration. Switzerland, Venice, Geneva, Genoa, and
Tuscany have already gathered the poisoned fruits of their neutrality.
Let but Bonaparte establish himself undisturbed in Hanover some years
longer, and you will see the neutral Hanse Towns, neutral Prussia, and
neutral Denmark visited with all the evils of invasion, pillage, and
destruction, and the independence of the nations in the North will be
buried in the rubbish of the liberties of the people of the South of
Europe.
These ideas have frequently occurred to me, on hearing our agents
pronounce, and their dupes repeat: "Oh! the wise Government of Denmark!
Oh, what a wise statesman the Danish Minister, Count von Bernstorff!" I
do not deny that the late Count von Bernstorff was a great politician;
but I assert, also, that his was a greatness more calculated for regular
times than for periods of unusual political convulsion. Like your Pitt,
the Russian Woronzow, and the Austrian Colloredo, he was too honest to
judge soundly and to act rightly, according to the present situation of
affairs. He adhered too much to the old routine, and did not perceive
the immense difference between the Government of a revolutionary ruler
and the Government of a Louis XIII. or a Louis XIV. I am certain, had he
still been alive, he would have repented of his errors, and tried to have
repaired them.
His son, the present Danish Minister, follows his father's plans, and
adheres, in 1805, to a system laid down by him in 1795; while the
alterations that have occurred within these ten years have more affected
the real and relative power and weakness of States than all the
revolutions which have been produced by the insurrections, wars, and
pacifications of the two preceding centuries. He has even gone farther,
in some parts of his administration, than his father ever intended.
Without remembering the political TRUTH, that a weak State which courts
the alliance of a powerful neighbour always becomes a vassal, while
desiring to become an ally, he has attempted to exchange the connections
of Denmark and Russia for new ones with Prussia; and forgotten the
obligations of the Cabinet of Copenhagen to the Cabinet of St.
Petersburg, and the interested policy of the House of Brandenburgh. That,
on the contrary, Russia has always been a generous ally of Denmark, the
flourishing state of the Danish dominions since the beginning of the last
century evinces. Its distance and geographical position prevent all
encroachments from being feared or attempted; while at the same time it
affords protection equally against the rivalry of Sweden and ambition of
Prussia.
The Prince Royal of Denmark is patriotic as well as enlightened, and
would rule with more true policy and lustre were he to follow seldomer
the advice of his counsellors, and oftener the dictates of his own mind.
Count von Schimmelmann, Count von Reventlow, and Count von Bernstorff,
are all good and moral characters; but I fear that their united capacity
taken together will not fill up the vacancy left in the Danish Cabinet by
the death of its late Prime Minister. I have been personally acquainted
with them all three, but I draw my conclusions from the acts of their
administration, not from my own knowledge. Had the late Count von
Bernstorff held the ministerial helm in 1803, a paragraph in the Moniteur
would never have disbanded a Danish army in Holstein; nor would, in 1805,
intriguers have been endured who preached neutrality, after witnessing
repeated violation of the law of nations, not on the remote banks of the
Rhine, but on the Danish frontiers, on the Danish territory, on the banks
of the Elbe.
It certainly was no compliment to His Danish Majesty when our Government
sent Grouvelle as a representative to Copenhagen, a man who owed his
education and information to the Conde branch of the Bourbons, and who
afterwards audaciously and sacrilegiously read the sentence of death on
the chief of that family, on his good and legitimate King, Louis XVI. It
can neither be called dignity nor prudence in the Cabinet of Denmark to
suffer this regicide to serve as a point of rally to sedition and
innovation; to be the official propagator of revolutionary doctrines, and
an official protector of all proselytes and sectaries of this anti-social
faith.
Before the Revolution a secretary to the Prince of Conde, Grouvelle was
trusted and rewarded by His Serene Highness, and in return betrayed his
confidence, and repaid benefactions and generosity with calumny and
persecution, when his patron was obliged to seek safety in emigration
against the assassins of successful rebellion. When the national seals
were put on the estates of the Prince, he appropriated to himself not
only the whole of His Highness's library, but a part of his plate. Even
the wardrobe and the cellar were laid under contributions by this
domestic marauder.
With natural genius and acquired experience, Grouvelle unites impudence
and immorality; and those on whom he fixes for his prey are, therefore,
easily duped, and irremediably undone. He has furnished disciples to all
factions, and to all sects, assassins to the revolutionary tribunals, as
well as victims for the revolutionary guillotine; sans-culottes to
Robespierre, Septembrizers to Marat, republicans to the Directory, spies
to Talleyrand, and slaves to Bonaparte, who, in 1800, nominated him a
tribune, but in 1804 disgraced him, because he wished that the Duc d'
Enghien had rather been secretly poisoned in Baden than publicly
condemned and privately executed in France.
Our present Minister at the Court of Copenhagen, D' Aguesseau, has no
virtues to boast of, but also no crimes to blush for. With inferior
capacity, he is only considered by Talleyrand as an inferior intriguer,
employed in a country ruled by an inferior policy, neither feared nor
esteemed by our Government. His secretary, Desaugiers the elder, is our
real and confidential firebrand in the North, commissioned to keep
burning those materials of combustion which Grouvelle and others of our
incendiaries have lighted and illuminated in Holstein, Denmark, Sweden,
and Norway.
LETTER XX.
PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--The insatiable avarice of all the members of the Bonaparte
family has already and frequently been mentioned; some of our
philosophers, however, pretend that ambition and vanity exclude from the
mind of Napoleon Bonaparte the passion of covetousness; that he pillages
only to get money to pay his military plunderers, and hoards treasures
only to purchase slaves, or to recompense the associates and instruments
of his authority.
Whether their assertions be just or not, I will not take upon myself to
decide; but to judge from the great number of Imperial and royal palaces,
from the great augmentation of the Imperial and royal domains; from the
immense and valuable quantity of diamonds, jewels, pictures, statues,
libraries, museums, etc., disinterestedness and self-denial are certainly
not among Napoleon's virtues.
In France, he not only disposes of all the former palaces and extensive
demesnes of our King, but has greatly increased them, by national.
property and by lands and estates bought by the Imperial Treasury, or
confiscated by Imperial decrees. In Italy, he has, by an official act,
declared to be the property of his crown, first, the royal palace at
Milan, and a royal villa, which he now calls Villa Bonaparte; second, the
palace of Monza and its dependencies; third, the palace of Mantua, the
palace of The, and the ci-devant ducal palace of Modena; fourth, a palace
situated in the vicinity of Brescia, and another palace in the vicinity
of Bologna; fifth, the ci-devant ducal palaces of Parma and Placenza;
sixth, the beautiful forest of Tesin. Ten millions were, besides,
ordered to be drawn out of the Royal Treasury at Milan to purchase lands
for the formation of a park, pleasure-grounds, etc.
To these are added all the royal palaces and domains of the former Kings
of Sardinia, of the Dukes of Brabant, of the Counts of Flanders, of the
German Electors, Princes, Dukes, Counts, Barons, etc., who, before the
last war, were Sovereigns on the right bank of the Rhine. I have seen a
list, according to which the number of palaces and chateaux appertaining
to Napoleon as Emperor and King, are stated to be seventy-nine; so that
he may change his habitations six times in the month, without occupying
during the same year the same palace, and, nevertheless, always sleep at
home.
In this number are not included the private chateaux and estates of the
Empress, or those of the Princes and Princesses Bonaparte. Madame
Napoleon has purchased, since her husband's consulate, in her own name,
or in the name of her children, nine estates with their chateaux, four
national forests, and six hotels at Paris. Joseph Bonaparte possesses
four estates and chateaux in France, three hotels at Paris and at
Brussels, three chateaux and estates in Italy, and one hotel at Milan,
and another at Turin. Lucien Bonaparte has now remaining only one hotel
at Paris, another at Bonne, and a third at Chambery. He has one estate
in Burgundy, two in Languedoc, and one in the vicinity of this capital.
At Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, and Rome, he has his own hotels, and in
the Papal States he has obtained, in exchange for property in France,
three chateaux with their dependencies. Louis Bonaparte has three hotels
at Paris, one at Cologne, one at Strasburg, and one at Lyons. He has two
estates in Flanders, three in Burgundy, one in Franche-Comte, and another
in Alsace. He has also a chateau four leagues from this city. At Genoa
he has a beautiful hotel, and upon the Genoese territory a large estate.
He has bought three plantations at Martinico, and two at Guadeloupe. To
Jerome Bonaparte has hitherto been presented only an estate in Brabant,
and a hotel in this capital. Some of the former domains of the House of
Orange, in the Batavian Republic, have been purchased by the agents of
our Government, and are said to be intended for him.
But, while Napoleon Bonaparte has thus heaped wealth on his wife and his
brothers, his mother and sisters have not been neglected or left
unprovided for. Madame Bonaparte, his mother, has one hotel at Paris,
one at Turin, one at Milan, and one at Rome. Her estates in France are
four, and in Italy two. Madame Bacciochi, Princess of Piombino and
Lucca, possesses two hotels in this capital, and one palace at Piombino
and another at Lucca. Of her estates in France, she has only retained
two, but she has three in the Kingdom of Italy, and four in her husband's
and her own dominions. The Princess Santa Cruce possesses one hotel at
Rome and four chateaux in the papal territory. At Milan she has, as well
as at Turin and at Paris, hotels given her by her Imperial brother,
together with two estates in France, one in Piedmont, and two in
Lombardy. The Princesse Murat is mistress of two hotels here, one at
Brussels, one at Tours, and one at Bordeaux, together with three estates
on this, and five on the other side of the Alps. The Princesse Borghese
has purchased three plantations at Guadeloupe, and two at Martinico, with
a part of the treasures left her by her first husband, Leclerc. With her
present husband she received two palaces at Rome, and three estates on
the Roman territory; and her Imperial brother has presented her with one
hotel at Paris, one at Cologne, one at Turin, and one at Genoa, together
with three estates in France and five in Italy. For his mother, and for
each of his sisters, Napoleon has also purchased estates, or lands to
form estates, in their native island of Corsica.
The other near or distant relatives of the Emperor and King have also
experienced his bounty. Cardinal Fesch has his hotels at Paris, Milan,
Lyons, Turin, and Rome; with estates both in France and Italy. Seventeen,
either first, second, or third cousins, by his father's or mother's side,
have all obtained estates either in the French Empire, or in the Kingdom
of Italy, as well as all brothers, sisters, or cousins of his own wife,
and the wives of his brothers, or of the husbands of his sisters. Their
exact number cannot well be known, but a gentleman who has long been
collecting materials for some future history of the House of Bonaparte,
and of the French Empire, has already shown me sixty-six names of
individuals of that description, and of both sexes, who all, thanks to
the Imperial liberality, have suddenly and unexpectedly become people of
property.
When you consider that all these immense riches have been seized and
distributed within the short period of five years, it is not hazardous to
say that, in the annals of Europe, another such revolution in property,
as well as in power, is not to be found.
The wealth of the families of all other Sovereigns taken together does
not amount to half the value of what the Bonapartes have acquired and
possess.
Your country, more than any other upon earth, has to be alarmed at this
revolution of property. Richer than any other nation, you have more to
apprehend; besides, it threatens you more, both as our frequent enemies
and as our national rivals; as a barrier against our plans of universal
dominion, and as our superiors in pecuniary resources. May we never live
to see the day when the mandates of Bonaparte or Talleyrand are honoured
at London, as at Amsterdam, Madrid, Milan, and Rome. The misery of ages
to come will then be certain, and posterity will regard as comparative
happiness, the sufferings of their forefathers. It is not probable that
those who have so successfully pillaged all surrounding States will rest
contented until you are involved in the same ruin. Union among
yourselves only can preserve you from perishing in the universal wreck;
by this you will at least gain time, and may hope to profit by probable
changes and unexpected accidents.
LETTER XXI.
PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--The Counsellor of State and intendant of the Imperial civil
list, Daru, paid for the place of a commissary-general of our army in
Germany the immense sum of six millions of livres--which was divided
between Madame Bonaparte (the mother), Madame Napoleon Bonaparte,
Princesse Louis Bonaparte, Princesse Murat and the Princesse Borghese. By
this you may conclude in what manner we intend to treat the wretched
inhabitants of the other side of the Rhine. This Daru is too good a
calculator and too fond of money to throw away his expenses; he is master
of a great fortune, made entirely by his arithmetical talents, which have
enabled him for years to break all the principal gambling-banks on the
Continent, where he has travelled for no other purpose. On his return
here, he became the terror of all our gamesters, who offered him an
annuity of one hundred thousand livres--not to play; but as this sum
would have been deducted from what is weekly paid to Fouche, this
Minister sent him an order not to approach a gambling-table, under pain
of being transported to Cayenne. He obeyed, but the bankers soon
experienced that he had deputies, and for fear that even from the other
side of the Atlantic he might forward his calculations hither, Fouche
recommended him, for a small douceur, to the office of an intendant of
Bonaparte's civil list, upon condition of never, directly or indirectly,
injuring our gambling-banks. He has kept his promise with regard to
France, but made, last spring, a gambling tour in Italy and Germany,
which, he avows, produced him nine millions of livres. He always points,
but never keeps a bank. He begins to be so well known in many parts of
the Continent, that the instant he arrives all banks are shut up, and
remain so until his departure. This was the case at Florence last April.
He travels always in style, accompanied by two mistresses and four
servants. He is a chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
He will, however, have some difficulty to make a great profit by his
calculations in Germany, as many of the generals are better acquainted
than he with the country, where their extortions and dilapidations have
been felt and lamented for these ten years past. Augereau, Bernadotte,
Ney, Van Damme, and other of our military banditti, have long been the
terror of the Germans and the reproach of France.
In a former letter I have introduced to you our Field-marshal,
Bernadotte, of whom Augereau may justly be called an elder revolutionary
brother--like him, a Parisian by birth, and, like him, serving as a
common soldier before the Revolution. But he has this merit above
Bernadotte, that he began his political career as a police spy, and
finished his first military engagement by desertion into foreign
countries, in most of which, after again enlisting and again deserting,
he was also again taken and again flogged. Italy has, indeed, since he
has been made a general, been more the scene of his devastations than
Germany. Lombardy and Venice will not soon forget the thousands he
butchered, and the millions he plundered; that with hands reeking with
blood, and stained with human gore, he seized the trinkets which devotion
had given to sanctity, to ornament the fingers of an assassin, or
decorate the bosom of a harlot. The outrages he committed during 1796
and 1797, in Italy, are too numerous to find place in any letter, even
were they not disgusting to relate, and too enormous and too improbable
to be believed. He frequently transformed the temples of the divinity
into brothels for prostitution; and virgins who had consecrated
themselves to remain unpolluted servants of a God, he bayoneted into dens
of impurity, infamy, and profligacy; and in these abominations he prided
himself. In August, 1797, on his way to Paris to take command of the
sbirri, who, on the 4th of the following September, hunted away or
imprisoned the representatives of the people of the legislative body, he
paid a prostitute, with whom he had passed the night at Pavia, with a
draft for fifty louis d'or on the municipality of that town, who dared
not dishonour it; but they kept the draft, and in 1799 handed it over to
Gendral Melas, who sent it to Vienna, where I saw the very original.
The general and grand officer of Bonaparte's Legion of Honour, Van Damme,
is another of our military heroes of the same stamp. A barber, and son
of a Flemish barber, he enlisted as a soldier, robbed, and was condemned
to be hanged. The humanity of the judge preserved him from the gallows;
but he was burnt on the shoulders, flogged by the public executioner, and
doomed to serve as a galley-slave for life. The Revolution broke his
fetters, made him a Jacobin, a patriot, and a general; but the first use
he made of his good fortune was to cause the judge, his benefactor, to be
guillotined, and to appropriate to himself the estate of the family. He
was cashiered by Pichegru, and dishonoured by Moreau, for his ferocity
and plunder in Holland and Germany; but Bonaparte restored him to rank
and confidence; and by a douceur of twelve hundred thousand
livres--properly applied and divided between some of the members of the
Bonaparte family, he procured the place of a governor at Lille, and a
commander-in-chief of the ci-devant Flanders. In landed property, in
jewels, in amount in the funds, and in ready money (he always keeps, from
prudence, six hundred thousand livres--in gold), his riches amount to
eight millions of livres. For a ci-devant sans-culotte barber and
galley-slave, you must grant this is a very modest sum.
LETTER XXII.
PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--You must often have been surprised at the immense wealth which,
from the best and often authentic information, I have informed you our
generals and public functionaries have extorted and possess; but the
catalogue of private rapine committed, without authority, by our
soldiers, officers, commissaries, and generals, is likewise immense, and
surpassing often the exactions of a legal kind that is to say, those
authorized by our Government itself, or by its civil and military
representatives. It comprehends the innumerable requisitions demanded
and enforced, whether as loans, or in provisions or merchandise, or in
money as an equivalent for both; the levies of men, of horses, oxen, and
carriages; corvees of all kinds; the emptying of magazines for the
service of our armies; in short, whatever was required for the
maintenance, a portion of the pay, and divers wants of those armies, from
the time they had posted themselves in Brabant, Holland, Italy,
Switzerland, and on either bank of the Rhine. Add to this the pillage of
public or private warehouses, granaries, and magazines, whether belonging
to individuals, to the State, to societies, to towns, to hospitals, and
even to orphan-houses.
But these and other sorts of requisitions, under the appellation of
subsistence necessary for the armies, and for what was wanted for
accoutring, quartering, or removing them, included also an infinite
consumption for the pleasures, luxuries, whims, and debaucheries of our
civil or military commanders. Most of those articles were delivered in
kind, and what were not used were set up to auction, converted into ready
money, and divided among the plunderers.
In 1797, General Ney had the command in the vicinity of the free and
Imperial city of Wetzlar. He there put in requisition all private stores
of cloths; and after disposing of them by a public sale, retook them upon
another requisition from the purchasers, and sold them a second time.
Leather and linen underwent the same operation. Volumes might be filled
with similar examples, all of public notoriety.
This Gendral Ney, who is now one of the principal commanders under
Bonaparte in Germany, was a bankrupt tobacconist at Strasburg in 1790,
and is the son of an old-clothes man of Sarre Louis, where he was born in
1765. Having entered as a common soldier in the regiment of Alsace, to
escape the pursuit of his creditors, he was there picked up by some
Jacobin emissaries, whom he assisted to seduce the men into an
insurrection, which obliged most of the officers to emigrate. From that
period he began to distinguish himself as an orator of the Jacobin clubs,
and was, therefore, by his associates, promoted by one step to an
adjutant-general. Brave and enterprising, ambitious for advancement, and
greedy after riches, he seized every opportunity to distinguish and
enrich himself; and, as fortune supported his endeavours, he was in a
short time made a general of division, and acquired a property of several
millions. This is his first campaign under Bonaparte, having previously
served only under Pichegru, Moreau, and Le Courbe.
He, with General Richepanse, was one of the first generals supposed to be
attached to their former chief, General Moreau, whom Bonaparte seduced
into his interest. In the autumn of 1802, when the Helvetic Republic
attempted to recover its lost independence, Ney was appointed
commander-in-chief of the French army in Switzerland, and Ambassador from
the First Consul to the Helvetic Government. He there conducted himself
so much to the satisfaction of Bonaparte, that, on the rupture with your
country, he was made commander of the camp near Montreuil; and last year
his wife was received as a Maid of Honour to the Empress of the French.
This Maid of Honour is the daughter of a washer-woman, and was kept by a
man-milliner at Strasburg, at the time that she eloped with Ney. With
him she had made four campaigns as a mistress before the municipality of
Coblentz made her his wife. Her conduct since has corresponded with that
of her husband. When he publicly lived with mistresses, she did not live
privately with her gallants, but the instant the Emperor of the French
told him to save appearances, if he desired a place for his wife at the
Imperial Court, he showed himself the most attentive and faithful of
husbands, and she the most tender and dutiful of wives. Her manners are
not polished, but they are pleasing; and though not handsome in her
person, she is lively; and her conversation is entertaining, and her
society agreeable. The Princesse Louis Bonaparte is particularly fond of
her, more so than Napoleon, perhaps, desires. She has a fault common
with most of our Court ladies: she cannot resist, when opportunity
presents itself, the temptation of gambling, and she is far from being
fortunate. Report says that more than once she has been reduced to
acquit her gambling debts by personal favours.
Another of our generals, and the richest of them all who are now serving
under Bonaparte, is his brother-in-law, Prince Murat. According to some,
he had been a Septembrizer, terrorist, Jacobin, robber, and assassin,
long before he obtained his first commission as an officer, which was
given him by the recommendation of Marat, whom he in return afterwards
wished to immortalize, by the exchange of one letter in his own name, and
by calling himself Marat instead of Murat. Others, however, declare that
his father was an honest cobbler, very superstitious, residing at
Bastide, near Cahors, and destined his son to be a Capuchin friar, and
that he was in his novitiate when the Revolution tempted him to exchange
the frock of the monk for the regimentals of a soldier. In what manner,
or by what achievements, he gained promotion is not certain, but in 1796
he was a chief of brigade, and an aide-de-camp of Bonaparte, with whom he
went to Egypt, and returned thence with him, and who, in 1801, married
him to his sister, Maria Annunciade, in 1803 made him a governor of
Paris, and in 1804 a Prince.
The wealth which Murat has collected, during his military service, and by
his matrimonial campaign, is rated at upwards of fifty millions of
livres. The landed property he possesses in France alone has cost him
forty--two millions--and it is whispered that the estates bought in the
name of his wife, both in France and Italy, are not worth much less. A
brother-in-law of his, who was a smith, he has made a legislator; and an
uncle, who was a tailor, he has placed in the Senate. A cousin of his,
who was a chimneysweeper, is now a tribune; and his niece, who was an
apprentice to a mantua-maker, is now married to one of the Emperor's
chamberlains. He has been very generous to all his relations, and would
not have been ashamed, even, to present his parents at the Imperial
Court, had not the mother, on the first information of his princely rank,
lost her life, and the father his senses, from surprise and joy. The
millions are not few that he has procured his relatives an opportunity to
gain. His brother-in-law, the legislator, is worth three millions of
livres.
It has been asserted before, and I repeat it again:
"It is avarice, and not the mania of innovation, or the jargon of
liberty, that has led, and ever will lead, the Revolution--its promoters,
its accomplices, and its instruments. Wherever they penetrate, plunder
follows; rapine was their first object, of which ferocity has been but
the means. The French Revolution was fostered by robbery and murder; two
nurses that will adhere to her to the last hour of her existence."
General Murat is the trusty executioner of all the Emperor's secret deeds
of vengeance, or public acts of revolutionary justice. It was under his
private responsibility that Pichegru, Moreau, and Georges were guarded;
and he saw Pichegru strangled, Georges guillotined, and Moreau on his way
to his place of exile. After the seizure and trial of the Duc d'
Enghien, some doubts existed with Napoleon whether even the soldiers of
his Italian guard would fire at this Prince. "If they hesitate," said
Murat, who commanded the expedition in the wood of Vincennes, "my pistols
are loaded, and I will blow out his brains."
His wife is the greatest coquette of the Bonaparte family. Murat was, at
first, after his marriage, rather jealous of his brother-in-law, Lucien,
whom he even fought; but Napoleon having assured him, upon his word of
honour, that his suspicions were unfounded, he is now the model of
complaisant and indulgent husbands; but his mistresses are nearly as
numerous as Madame Murat's favourites. He has a young aide-de-camp of
the name of Flahault, a son of Talleyrand, while Bishop of Autun, by the
then Countess de Flahault, whom Madame Murat would not have been sorry to
have had for a consoler at Paris, while her princely spouse was
desolating Germany.
LETTER XXIII.
PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--Since Bonaparte's departure for Germany, the vigilance of the
police has much increased: our patrols are doubled during the night, and
our spies more numerous and more insolent during the day. Many suspected
persons have also been exiled to some distance from this capital, while
others, for a measure of safety, have been shut up in the Temple, or in
the Castle of Vincennes. These 'lettres de cachet', or mandates of
arrest, are expedited during the Emperor's absence exclusively by his
brother Louis, after a report, or upon a request, of the Minister of
Police, Fouche.
I have mentioned to you before that Louis Bonaparte is both a drunkard
and a libertine. When a young and unprincipled man of such propensities
enjoys an unrestrained authority, it cannot be surprising to hear that he
has abused it. He had not been his brother's military viceroy for
twenty-four hours before one set of our Parisians were amused, while
others were shocked and scandalized, at a tragical intrigue enterprised
by His Imperial Highness.
Happening to see at the opera a very handsome young woman in the boxes,
he despatched one of his aides-de-camp to reconnoitre the ground, and to
find out who she was. All gentlemen attached to his person or household
are also his pimps, and are no novices in forming or executing plans of
seduction. Caulincourt (the officer he employed in this affair) returned
soon, but had succeeded only in one part of the business. He had not
been able to speak to the lady, but was informed that she had only been
married a fortnight to a manufacturer of Lyons, who was seated by her
side, jealous of his wife as a lover of his mistress. He gave at the
same time as his opinion that it would be necessary to employ the police
commissary to arrest the husband when he left the play, under some
pretext or other, while some of the friends of Prince Louis took
advantage of the confusion to seize the wife, and carry her to his hotel.
An order was directly signed by Louis, according to which the police
commissary, Chazot, was to arrest the manufacturer Leboure, of Lyons, and
put him into a post-chaise, under the care of two gendarmes, who were to
see him safe to Lyons, where he was to sign a promise of not returning to
Paris without the permission of Government, being suspected of
stockjobbing (agiotage). Everything succeeded according to the proposal
of Caulincourt, and Louis found Madame Leboure crying in his saloon. It
is said that she promised to surrender her virtue upon condition of only
once more seeing her husband, to be certain that he was not murdered, but
that Louis refused, and obtained by brutal force, and the assistance of
his infamous associates, that conquest over her honour which had not been
yielded to his entreaties or threats. His enjoyment, however, was but of
short continuance; he had no sooner fallen asleep than his poor injured
victim left the bed, and, flying into his anteroom, stabbed herself with
his sword. On the next morning she was found a corpse, weltering in her
blood. In the hope of burying this infamy in secrecy, her corpse was, on
the next evening, when it was dark, put into a sack, and thrown into the
river, where, being afterwards discovered, the police agents gave out
that she had fallen the victim of assassins. But when Madame Leboure was
thus seized at the opera, besides her husband, her parents and a brother
were in her company, and the latter did not lose sight of the carriage in
which his sister was placed till it had entered the hotel of Louis
Bonaparte, where, on the next day, he, with his father, in vain claimed
her. As soon as the husband was informed of the untimely end of his
wife, he wrote a letter to her murderer, and shot himself immediately
afterwards through the head, but his own head was not the place where he
should have sent the bullet; to destroy with it the cause of his
wretchedness would only have been an act of retaliation, in a country
where power forces the law to lie dormant, and where justice is invoked
in vain when the criminal is powerful.
I have said that this intrigue, as it is styled by courtesy in our
fashionable circles, amused one part of the Parisians; and I believe the
word 'amuse' is not improperly employed in this instance. At a dozen
parties where I have been since, this unfortunate adventure has always
been an object of conversation, of witticisms, but not of blame, except
at Madame Fouche's, where Madame Leboure was very much blamed indeed for
having been so overnice, and foolishly scrupulous.
Another intrigue of His Imperial Highness, which did not, indeed, end
tragically, was related last night, at the tea-party of Madame Recamier.
A man of the name of Deroux had lately been condemned by our criminal
tribunal, for forging bills of exchange, to stand in the pillory six
hours, and, after being marked with a hot iron on his shoulders, to work
in the galleys for twenty years. His daughter, a young girl under
fifteen, who lived with her grandmother (having lost her mother), went,
accompanied by the old lady, and presented a petition to Louis, in favour
of her father. Her youth and modesty, more than her beauty, inspired the
unprincipled libertine with a desire of ruining innocence, under the
colour of clemency to guilt. He ordered her to call on his chamberlain,
Darinsson, in an hour, and she should obtain an answer. There, either
seduced by paternal affection, intimidated by threats, or imposed upon by
delusive and engaging promises, she exchanged her virtue for an order of
release for her parent; and so satisfied was Louis with his bargain that
he added her to the number of his regular mistresses.
As soon as Deroux had recovered his liberty, he visited his daughter in
her new situation, where he saw an order of Louis, on the Imperial
Treasury, for twelve thousand livres--destined to pay the upholsterer who
had furnished her apartment. This gave him, no doubt, the idea of making
the Prince pay a higher value for his child, and he forged another order
for sixty thousand livres--so closely resembling it that it was without
suspicion acquitted by the Imperial Treasurer. Possessing this money, he
fabricated a pass, in the name of Louis, as a courier carrying despatches
to the Emperor in Germany, with which he set out, and arrived safe on the
other side of the Rhine. His forgeries were only discovered after he had
written a letter from Frankfort to Louis, acquitting his daughter of all
knowledge of what he had done. In the first moment of anger, her
Imperial lover ordered her to be arrested, but he has since forgiven her,
and taken her back to his favour. This trick of Deroux has pleased
Fouche, who long opposed his release, from a knowledge of his dangerous
talent and vicious character. He had once before released himself with a
forged order from the Minister of Police, whose handwriting he had only
seen for a minute upon his own mandate of imprisonment.
LETTER XXIV.
PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--Though loudly complained of by the Cabinet of St. Cloud, the
Cabinet of St. Petersburg has conducted itself in these critical times
with prudence without weakness, and with firmness without obstinacy. In
its connections with our Government it has never lost sight of its own
dignity, and, therefore, never endured without resentment those
impertinent innovations in the etiquette of our Court, and in the manner
and language of our Emperor to the representatives of legitimate
Sovereigns. Had similar becoming sentiments directed the councils of all
other Princes and the behaviour of their Ambassadors here, spirited
remonstrances might have moderated the pretensions or passions of upstart
vanity, while a forbearance and silence, equally impolitic and shameful,
have augmented insolence by flattering the pride of an insupportable and
outrageous ambition.
The Emperor of Russia would not have been so well represented here, had
he not been so wisely served and advised in his council chamber at St.
Petersburg. Ignorance and folly commonly select fools for their agents,
while genius and capacity employ men of their own mould, and of their own
cast. It is a remarkable truth that, notwithstanding the frequent
revolutions in Russia, since the death of Peter the First the ministerial
helm has always been in able hands; the progressive and uninterrupted
increase of the real and relative power of the Russian Empire evinces the
reality of this assertion.
The Russian Chancellor, Count Alexander Woronzoff, may be justly called
the chief of political veterans, whether his talents or long services are
considered. Catherine II., though a voluptuous Princess, was a great
Sovereign, and a competent judge of merit; and it was her unbiased choice
that seated Count Woronzoff, while yet young, in her councils. Though
the intrigues of favourites have sometimes removed him, he always retired
with the esteem of his Sovereign, and was recalled without caballing or
cringing to return. He is admired by all who have the honour of
approaching him, as much for his obliging condescension as for his great
information. No petty views, no petty caprices, no petty vengeances find
room in his generous bosom. He is known to have conferred benefactions,
not only on his enemies, but on those who, at the very time, were
meditating his destruction. His opinion is that a patriotic Minister
should regard no others as his enemies but those conspiring against their
country, and acknowledge no friends or favourites incapable of well
serving the State. Prince de Z-------- waited on him one day, and, after
hesitating some time, began to compliment him on his liberal sentiments,
and concluded by asking the place of a governor for his cousin, with whom
he had reason to suppose the Count much offended. "I am happy," said His
Excellency, "to oblige you, and to do my duty at the same time. Here is
a libel he wrote against me, and presented to the Empress, who graciously
has communicated it to me, in answer to my recommendation of him
yesterday to the place you ask for him to-day. Read what I have written
on the libel, and you will be convinced that it will not be my fault if
he is not to-day a governor." In two hours afterwards the nomination was
announced to Prince de Z--------, who was himself at the head of a cabal
against the Minister. In any country such an act would have been
laudable, but where despotism rules with unopposed sway, it is both
honourable and praiseworthy.
Prince Adam Czartorinsky, the assistant of Count Woronzoff, and Minister
of the foreign department, unites, with the vigour of youth, the
experience of age. He has travelled in most countries of Europe, not
solely to figure at Courts, to dance at balls, to look at pictures, or to
collect curiosities, but to study the character of the people, the laws
by which they are governed, and their moral or social influence with
regard to their comforts or misery. He therefore brought back with him a
stock of knowledge not to be acquired from books, but only found in the
world by frequenting different and opposite societies with observation,
penetration, and genius. With manners as polished as his mind is well
informed, he not only, possesses the favour, but the friendship of his
Prince, and, what is still more rare, is worthy of both. All Sovereigns
have favourites, few ever had any friends; because it is more easy to
flatter vanity, than to display a liberal disinterestedness; to bow
meanly than to instruct or to guide with delicacy and dignity; to abuse
the confidence of the Prince than to use it to his honour, and to the
advantage of his Government.
That such a Monarch as an Alexander, and such Ministers as Count
Woronzoff and Prince Czartorinsky, should appoint a Count Markof to a
high and important post, was not unexpected by any one not ignorant of
his merit.
Count Markof was, early in the reign of Catherine II., employed in the
office of the foreign department at St. Petersburg, and was, whilst
young, entrusted with several important negotiations at the Courts of
Berlin and Vienna., when Prussia had proposed the first partition of
Poland. He afterward went on his travels, from which he was recalled to
fill the place of an Ambassador to the late King of Sweden, Gustavus III.
He was succeeded, in 1784, at Stockholm, by Count Muschin Puschin, after
being appointed a Secretary of State in his own country, a post he
occupied with distinction, until the death of Catherine II., when Paul
the First revenged upon him, as well as on most others of the faithful
servants of this Princess, his discontent with his mother. He was then
exiled to his estates, where he retired with the esteem of all those who
had known him. In 1801, immediately after his accession to the throne,
Alexander invited Count Markof to his Court and Council, and the trusty
but difficult task of representing a legitimate Sovereign at the Court of
our upstart usurper was conferred on him. I imagine that I see the great
surprise of this nobleman, when, for the first time, he entered the
audience-chamber of our little great man, and saw him fretting, staring,
swearing, abusing to right and to left, for one smile conferring twenty
frowns, and for one civil word making use of fifty hard expressions,
marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and
commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that
the report of Count Markof to his Court, describing this new and rare
show, is a chef-d'oeuvre of wit, equally amusing and instructive. He is
said to have requested of his Cabinet new and particular orders how to
act--whether as the representative of an independent Sovereign, or, as
most of the other members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, like
a valet of the First Consul; and that, in the latter case, he implored as
a favour, an immediate recall; preferring, had he no other choice left,
sooner to work in the mines at Siberia than to wear, in France the
disgraceful fetters of a Bonaparte. His subsequent dignified conduct
proves the answer of his Court.
Talleyrand's craft and dissimulation could not delude the sagacity of
Count Markof, who was, therefore, soon less liked by the Minister than by
the First Consul. All kind of low, vulgar, and revolutionary chicanery
was made use of to vex or to provoke the Russian Ambassador. Sometimes
he was reproached with having emigrants in his service; another time
protection was refused to one of his secretaries, under pretence that he
was a Sardinian subject. Russian travellers were insulted, and detained
on the most frivolous pretences. Two Russian noblemen were even arrested
on our side of the Rhine, because Talleyrand had forgotten to sign his
name to their passes, which were otherwise in order. The fact was that
our Minister suspected them of carrying some papers which he wanted to
see, and, therefore, wrote his name with an ink of such a composition
that, after a certain number of days, everything written with it
disappeared. Their effects and papers were strictly searched by an agent
preceding them from this capital, but nothing was found, our Minister
being misinformed by his spies.
When Count Markof left Sweden, he carried with him an actress of the
French theatre at Stockholm, Madame Hus, an Alsatian by birth, but who
had quitted her country twelve years before the Revolution, and could,
therefore, never be included among emigrants. She had continued as a
mistress with this nobleman, is the mother of several children by him,
and an agreeable companion to him, who has never been married. As I have
often said, Talleyrand is much obliged to any foreign diplomatic agent
who allows him to be the indirect provider or procurer of his mistresses.
After in vain tempting Count Markof with new objects, he introduced to
the acquaintance of Madame Hus some of his female emissaries. Their
manoeuvres, their insinuations, and even their presents were all thrown
away. The lady remained the faithful friend, and therefore refused with
indignation to degrade herself into a spy on her lover. Our Minister
then first discovered that, not only was Madame Hus an emigrant, but had
been a great benefactress and constant companion of emigrants at St.
Petersburg, and, of course, deserved to be watched, if not punished.
Count Markof is reported to have said to Talleyrand on this grave
subject, in the presence of two other foreign Ambassadors:
"Apropos! what shall I do to prevent my poor Madame Hus from being shot
as an emigrant, and my poor children from becoming prematurely orphans?"
"Monsieur," said our diplomatic oracle, "she should have petitioned the
First Consul for a permission to return, to France before she entered it;
but out of regard for you, if she is prudent, she will not, I daresay, be
troubled by our Government."
"I should be sorry if she was not," replied the Count, with a significant
look; and here this grand affair ended, to the great entertainment of
those foreign agents who dared to smile or to laugh.
LETTER XXV.
PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--The Legion of Honour, though only proclaimed upon Bonaparte's
assumption of the Imperial rank, dates from the first year of his
consulate. To prepare the public mind for a progressive elevation of
himself, and for consequential distinctions among all classes of his
subjects, he distributed among the military, arms of honour, to which
were attached precedence and privileges granted by him, and, therefore,
liable to cease with his power or life. The number of these arms
increased in proportion to the approach of the period fixed for the
change of his title and the erection of his throne. When he judged them
numerous enough to support his changes, he made all these wearers of arms
of honour knights. Never before were so many chevaliers created en
masse; they amounted to no less than twenty-two thousand four hundred,
distributed in the different corps of different armies, but principally
in the army of England. To these were afterwards joined five thousand
nine hundred civil functionaries, men of letters, artists, etc. To
remove, however, all ideas of equality, even among the members of the
Legion of Honour, they were divided into four classes--grand officers,
commanders, officers, and simple legionaries.
Every one who has observed Bonaparte's incessant endeavours to intrude
himself among the Sovereigns of Europe, was convinced that he would
cajole, or force, as many of them as he could into his revolutionary
knighthood; but I heard men, who are not ignorant of the selfishness and
corruption of our times, deny the possibility of any independent Prince
suffering his name to be registered among criminals of every description,
from the thief who picked the pockets of his fellow citizens in the
street, down to the regicide who sat in judgment and condemned his King;
from the plunderers who have laid waste provinces, republics, and
kingdoms, down to the assassins who shot, drowned, or guillotined their
countrymen en masse. For my part, I never had but one opinion, and,
unfortunately, it has turned out a just one. I always was convinced that
those Princes who received other presents from Bonaparte could have no
plausible excuse to decline his ribands, crosses, and stars. But who
could have presumed to think that, in return for these blood-stained
baubles, they would have sacrificed those honourable and dignified
ornaments which, for ages past, have been the exclusive distinction of
what birth had exalted, virtue made eminent, talents conspicuous, honour
illustrious, or valour meritorious? Who would have dared to say that the
Prussian Eagle and the Spanish Golden Fleece should thus be prostituted,
thus polluted? I do not mean by this remark to throw any blame on the
conferring those and other orders on Napoleon Bonaparte, or even on his
brothers; I know it is usual, between legitimate Sovereigns in alliance,
sometimes to exchange their knighthoods; but to debase royal orders so
much as to present them to a Cambaceres, a Talleyrand, a Fouche, a
Bernadotte, a Fesch, and other vile and criminal wretches, I do not deny
to have excited my astonishment as well as my indignation. What
honest--I do not say what noble--subjects of Prussia, or of Spain, will
hereafter think themselves rewarded for their loyalty, industry,
patriotism, or zeal, when they remember that their Sovereigns have
nothing to give but what the rebel has obtained, the robber worn, the
murderer vilified, and the regicide debased?
The number of grand officers of the Legion of Honour does not yet amount
to more than eighty, according to a list circulated at Milan last spring,
of which I have seen a copy. Of these grand officers, three had been
shoemakers, two tailors, four bakers, four barbers, six friars, eight
abbes, six officers, three pedlers, three chandlers, seven drummers,
sixteen soldiers, and eight regicides; four were lawful Kings, and the
six others, Electors or Princes of the most ancient houses in Europe. I
have looked over our, own official list, and, as far as I know, the
calculation is exact, both with regard to the number and to the quality.
This new institution of knighthood produced a singular effect on my vain
and giddy, countrymen, who, for twelve years before, had scarcely seen a
star or a riband, except those of foreign Ambassadors, who were
frequently insulted when wearing them. It became now the fashion to be a
knight, and those who really were not so, put pinks, or rather blooms, or
flowers of a darker red, in their buttonholes, so as to resemble, and to
be taken at a distance for, the red ribands of the members of the Legion
of Honour.
A man of the name of Villeaume, an engraver by profession, took advantage
of this knightly fashion and mania, and sold for four louis d'or, not
only the stars, but pretended letters of knighthood, said to be procured
by his connection with persons of the household of the Emperor. In a
month's time, according to a register kept by him, he had made twelve
hundred and fifty knights. When his fraud was discovered, he was already
out of the way, safe with his money; and, notwithstanding the researches
of the police, has not since been taken.
A person calling himself Baron von Rinken, a subject and an agent of one
of the many Princes of Hohenlohe, according to his own assertion, arrived
here with real letters and patents of knighthood, which he offered for
sale for three hundred livres. The stars of this Order were as large as
the star of the grand officers of the Legion of Honour, and nearly
resembled it; but the ribands were of a different colour. He had already
disposed of a dozen of these stars, when he was taken up by the police
and shut up in the Temple, where he still remains. Four other agents of
inferior petty German Princes have also been arrested for offering the
Orders of their Sovereigns for sale.
A Captain Rouvais, who received six wounds in his campaign under Pichegru
in 1794, wore the star of the Legion of Honour without being nominated a
knight. He has been tried by a military commission, deprived of his
pension, and condemned to four years' imprisonment in irons. He proved
that he had presented fourteen petitions to Bonaparte for obtaining this
mark of distinction, but in vain; while hundreds of others, who had
hardly seen an enemy, or, at the most, made but one campaign, or been
once wounded, had succeeded in their demands. As soon as sentence had
been pronounced against him, he took a small pistol from his pocket, and
shot himself through the head, saying, "Some one else will soon do the
same for Bonaparte."
A cobbler, of the name of Matthieu, either in a fit of madness or from
hatred to the new order of things, decorated himself with the large
riband of the Legion of Honour, and had an old star fastened on his coat.
Thus accoutred, he went into the Palais Royal, in the middle of the day,
got upon a chair, and began to speak to his audience of the absurdity of
true republicans not being on a level, even under an Emperor, and putting
on, like him, all his ridiculous ornaments. "We are here," said he,
"either all grand officers, or there exist no grand officers at all; we
have all fought and paid for liberty, and for the Revolution, as much as
Bonaparte, and have, therefore, the same right and claim with him." Here
a police agent and some gendarmes interrupted his eloquence by taking him
into custody. When Fouche asked him what he meant by such rebellious
behaviour, he replied that it was only a trial to see whether destiny had
intended him to become an Emperor or to remain a cobbler. On the next
day he was shot as a conspirator. I saw the unfortunate man in the
Palais Royal; his eyes looked wild, and his words were often incoherent.
He was certainly a subject more deserving a place in a madhouse than in a
tomb.
Cambaceres has been severely reprimanded by the Emperor for showing too
much partiality for the Royal Prussian Black Eagle, by wearing it in
preference to the Imperial Legion of Honour. He was given to understand
that, except for four days in the year, the Imperial etiquette did not
permit any subjects to display their knighthood of the Prussian Order. In
Madame Bonaparte's last drawing-room, before His Imperial Majesty set out
for the Rhine, he was ornamented with the Spanish, Neapolitan, Prussian,
and Portuguese orders, together with those of the French Legion of Honour
and of the Italian Iron Crown. I have seen the Emperor Paul, who was
also an amateur of ribands and stars, but never with so many at once. I
have just heard that the Grand Master of Malta has presented Napoleon
with the Grand Cross of the Maltese Order. This is certainly a negative
compliment to him, who, in July, 1798, officially declared to his then
sectaries, the Turks and Mussulmans, "that the Grand Master, Commanders,
Knights, and Order of Malta existed no more."
I have heard it related for a certainty among our fashionable ladies,
that the Empress of the French also intends to institute a new order of
female knighthood, not of honour, but of confidence; of which all our
Court ladies, all the wives of our generals, public functionaries, etc.,
are to be members. The Imperial Princesses of the Bonaparte family are
to be hereditary grand officers, together with as many foreign Empresses,
Queens, Princesses, Countesses, and Baronesses as can be bayoneted into
this revolutionary sisterhood. Had the Continent remained tranquil, it
would already have been officially announced by a Senatus Consultum. I
should suppose that Madame Bonaparte, with her splendid Court and
brilliant retinue of German Princes and Electors at Strasburg, need only
say the word to find hundreds of princely recruits for her knighthood in
petto. Her mantle, as a Grand Mistress of the Order of CONFIDENCE, has
been already embroidered at Lyons, and those who have seen it assert that
it is truly superb. The diamonds of the star on the mantle are valued at
six hundred thousand livres.
LETTER XXVI.
PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--Since Bonaparte's departure for Germany, fifteen individuals
have been brought here, chained, from La Vendee and the--Western
Departments, and are imprisoned in the Temple. Their crime is not
exactly known, but private letters from those countries relate that they
were recruiting for another insurrection, and that some of them were
entrusted as Ambassadors from their discontented countrymen to Louis
XVIII. to ask for his return to France, and for the assistance of Russia,
Sweden, and England to support his claims.
These are, however, reports to which I do not affix much credit. Had the
prisoners in the Temple been guilty, or only accused of such crimes, they
would long ago have been tortured, tried, and executed, or executed
without a trial. I suppose them mere hostages arrested by our
Government, as security for the tranquillity of the Chouan Departments
during our armies' occupation elsewhere. We have, nevertheless, two
movable columns of six thousand men each in the country, or in its
vicinity, and it would be not only impolitic, but a cruelty, to engage or
allure the unfortunate people of these wretched countries into any plots,
which, situated as affairs now are, would be productive of great and
certain evil to them, without even the probability of any benefit to the
cause of royalty and of the Bourbons. I do not mean to say that there
are not those who rebel against Bonaparte's tyranny, or that the Bourbons
have no friends; on the contrary, the latter are not few, and the former
very numerous. But a kind of apathy, the effect of unavailing resistance
to usurpation and oppression, has seized on most minds, and annihilated
what little remained of our never very great public spirit. We are tired
of everything, even of our existence, and care no more whether we are
governed by a Maximilian Robespierre or by a Napoleon Bonaparte, by a
Barras or by Louis XVIII. Except, perhaps, among the military, or among
some ambitious schemers, remnants of former factions, I do not believe a
Moreau, a Macdonald, a Lucien Bonaparte, or any person exiled by the
Emperor, and formerly popular, could collect fifty trusty conspirators in
all France; at least, as long as our armies are victorious, and organized
in their present formidable manner. Should anything happen to our
present chief, an impulse may be given to the minds now sunk down, and
raise our characters from their present torpid state. But until such an
event, we shall remain as we are, indolent but submissive, sacrificing
our children and treasures for a cause we detest, and for a man we abhor.
I am sorry to say it, but it certainly does, no honour to my nation when
one million desperados of civil and military banditti are suffered to
govern, tyrannize, and pillage, at their ease and undisturbed, thirty
millions of people, to whom their past crimes are known, and who have
every reason to apprehend their future wickedness.