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.