I have heard a female friend of Madame Bonaparte explain, in part, the

cause of this alteration. Just before he set out for Italy, the

agreeable news of the success of the first Rochefort squadron in the West

Indies, and the escape of our Toulon fleet from the vigilance of your

Lord Nelson, highly elevated his spirits, as it was the first naval

enterprise of any consequence since his reign. I am certain that one

grand naval victory would flatter his vanity and ambition more than all

the glory of one of his most brilliant Continental campaigns. He had

also, at that time, great expectations that another negotiation with

Russia would keep the Continent submissive under his dictature, until he

should find an opportunity of crushing your power. You may be sure that

he had no small hopes of striking a blow in your country, after the

junction of our fleet with the Spanish, not by any engagement between our

Brest fleet and your Channel fleet, but under a supposition that you

would detach squadrons to the East and West Indies in search of the

combined fleet, which, by an unexpected return, according to orders,

would have then left us masters of the Channel, and, if joined with the

Batavian fleet, perhaps even of the North Sea. By the incomprehensible

activity of Lord Nelson, and by the defeat (or as we call it here, the

negative victory) of Villeneuve and Gravina, all this first prospect had

vanished. Our vengeance against a nation of shopkeepers we were not only

under the necessity of postponing, but, from the unpolite threats and

treaties of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg with those of Vienna and St.

James, we were on the eve of a Continental war, and our gunboats, instead

of being useful in carrying an army to the destruction of the tyrants of

the seas, were burdensome, as an army was necessary to guard them, and to

prevent these tyrants from capturing or destroying them. Such changes,

in so short a period of time as three months, might irritate a temper

less patient than that of Napoleon the First.

At his grand audience here, even after the army, of England had moved

towards Germany, when the die was cast, and his mind should, therefore,

have been made up, he was almost insupportable. The low bows, and the

still humbler expressions of the Prussian Ambassador, the Marquis da

Lucchesini, were hardly noticed; and the Saxon Ambassador, Count von

Buneau, was addressed in a language that no well-bred master ever uses in

speaking to a menial servant. He did not cast a look, or utter a word,

that was not an insult to the audience and a disgrace to his rank. I

never before saw him vent his rage and disappointment so

indiscriminately. We were, indeed (if I may use the term), humbled and

trampled upon en masse. Some he put out of countenance by staring

angrily at them; others he shocked by his hoarse voice and harsh words;

and all--all of us--were afraid, in our turn, of experiencing something

worse than our neighbours. I observed more than one Minister, and more

than one general, change colour, and even perspire, at His Majesty's

approach.

I believe the members of the foreign diplomatic corps here will all agree

with me that, at a future congress, the restoration of the ancient and

becoming etiquette of the Kings of France would be as desirable a point

to demand from the Emperor of the French as the restoration of the

balance of power.

Before his army of England quitted its old quarters on the coast, the

officers and men often felt the effects of his ungovernable temper. When

several regiments of grenadiers, of the division of Oudinot, were

defiling before him on the 25th of last month, he frequently and

severely, though without cause, reprobated their manner of marching, and

once rode up to Captain Fournois, pushed him forwards with the point of a

small cane, calling out, "Sacre Dieu! Advance; you walk like a turkey."

In the first moment of indignation, the captain, striking at the cane

with his sword, made a push, or a gesture, as if threatening the person

of Bonaparte, who called out to his aide-de-camp, Savary:

"Disarm the villain, and arrest him!"

"It is unnecessary," the captain replied, "I have served a tyrant, and

merit my fate!" So saying, he passed his sword through his heart.

His whole company stopped instantly, as at a word of command, and a

general murmur was heard.

"Lay down your arms, and march out of the file instantly," commanded

Bonaparte, "or you shall be cut down for your mutiny by my guides."

They hesitated for a moment, but the guides advancing to surround them,

they obeyed, and were disarmed. On the following afternoon, by a special

military commission, each tenth man was condemned to be shot; but

Bonaparte pardoned them upon condition of serving for life in the

colonies; and the whole company was ordered to the colonial depots. The

widow and five children of Captain Fournois the next morning threw

themselves at the Emperor's feet, presenting a petition, in which they

stated that the pay of the captain had been their only support.

"Well," replied Bonaparte to the kneeling petitioners, "Fournois was both

a fool and a traitor; but, nevertheless, I will take care of you."

Indeed, they have been so well taken care of that nobody knows what has

become of them.

I am almost certain that I am not telling you what you did not know

beforehand in informing you that the spirit of our troops is greatly

different from that of the Germans, and even from that of your own

country. Every, one of our soldiers would prefer being shot to being

beaten or caned. Flogging, with us, is out of the question. It may,

perhaps, be national vanity, but I am doubtful whether any other army is,

or can be, governed, with regard to discipline, in a less violent and

more delicate manner, and, nevertheless, be kept in subordination, and

perform the most brilliant exploits. Remember, I speak of our spirit of

subordination and discipline, and not of our character as citizens, as

patriots, or as subjects. I have often hinted it, but I believe I have

not explained myself so fully before; but my firm opinion and persuasion

is that, with regard to our loyalty, our duty, and our moral and

political principles, another equally inconsistent and despicable people

does not exist in the universe.

The condition of the slave is certainly in itself that of vileness; but

is that slave a vile being who, for a blow, pierces his bosom because he

is unable to avenge it? And what epithet can be given him who braves

voluntarily a death seemingly certain, not from the love of his country,

but from a principle of honour, almost incompatible with the dishonour of

bondage?

During the siege of Yorktown, in America, we had, during one night,

erected a battery, with intent to blow up a place which, according to the

report of our spies, was your magazine of ammunition, etc. We had not

time to finish it before daylight; but one loaded twenty-four pounder was

mounted, and our cannoneer, the moment he was about to fire it, was

killed. Six more of our men, in the same attempt, experienced the same

fate. My regiment constituted the advanced guard nearest to the spot,

and La Fayette brought me the order from the commander-in-chief to engage

some of my men upon that desperate undertaking. I spoke to them, and two

advanced, but were both instantly shot by your sharpshooters. I then

looked at my grenadiers, without uttering anything, when, to my sorrow,

one of my best and most orderly men advanced, saying, "My colonel, permit

me to try my fortune!" I assented, and he went coldly amidst hundreds of

bullets whistling around his ears, set fire to the cannon, which blew up

a depot of powder, as was expected, and in the confusion returned unhurt.

La Fayette then presented him with his purse. "No, monsieur," replied

he, "money did not make me venture upon such a perilous undertaking." I

understood my man, promoted him to a sergeant, and recommended him to

Rochambeau, who, in some months, procured him the commission of a

sub-lieutenant. He is now one of Bonaparte's Field-marshals, and the

only one of that rank who has no crimes to reproach himself with. This

man was the soldier of a despot; but was not his action that of a man of

honour, which a stanch republican of ancient Rome would have been proud

of? Who can explain this contradiction?

This anecdote about Fournois I heard General Savary relate at Madame

Duchatel's, as a proof of Bonaparte's generosity and clemency, which, he

affirmed, excited the admiration of the whole camp at Boulogne. I do not

suppose this officer to be above thirty years of age, of which he has

passed the first twenty-five in orphan-houses or in watch-houses; but no

tyrant ever had a more cringing slave, or a more abject courtier. His

affectation to extol everything that Bonaparte does, right or wrong, is

at last become so habitual that it is naturalized, and you may mistake

for sincerity that which is nothing but imposture or flattery. This son

of a Swiss porter is now one of Bonaparte's adjutants-general, a colonel

of the Gendarmes d'Elite, a general of brigade in the army, and a

commander of the Legion of Honour; all these places he owes, not to

valour or merit, but to abjectness, immorality, and servility. When an

aide-de-camp with Bonaparte in Egypt, he served him as a spy on his

comrades and on the officers of the staff, and was so much detested that,

near Aboukir, several shots were fired at him in his tent by his own

countrymen. He is supposed still to continue the same espionage; and as

a colonel of the Gendarmes d'Elite, he is charged with the secret

execution of all proscribed persons or State prisoners, who have been

secretly condemned,--a commission that a despot gives to a man he trusts,

but dares not offer to a man he esteems. He is so well known that the

instant he enters a society silence follows, and he has the whole

conversation to himself. This he is stupid enough to take for a

compliment, or for a mark of respect, or an acknowledgment of his

superior parts and intelligence, when, in fact, it is a direct reproach

with which prudence arms itself against suspected or known dishonesty.

Besides his wife, he has to support six other women whom he has seduced

and ruined; and, notwithstanding the numerous opportunities his master

has procured him of pillaging and enriching himself, he is still much in

debt; but woe to his creditors were they indiscreet enough to ask for

their payments! The Secret Tribunal would soon seize them and transport

them, or deliver them over to the hands of their debtor, to be shot as

traitors or conspirators.

LETTER II.

PARIS, September, 1805.

My LORD:--I am told that it was the want of pecuniary resources that made

Bonaparte so ill-tempered on his last levee day. He would not have come

here at all, but preceded his army to Strasburg, had his Minister of

Finances, Gaudin, and his Minister of the Public Treasury, Marbois, been

able to procure forty-four millions of livres--to pay a part of the

arrears of the troops; and for the speedy conveyance of ammunition and

artillery towards the Rhine.

Immediately after his arrival here, Bonaparte sent for the directors of

the Bank of France, informing them that within twenty-four hours they

must advance him thirty-six millions of livres--upon the revenue of the

last quarter of 1808. The president of the bank, Senator Garrat,

demanded two hours to lay before the Emperor the situation of the bank,

that His Majesty might judge what sum it was possible to spare without

ruining the credit of an establishment hitherto so useful to the commerce

of the Empire. To this Bonaparte replied that he was not ignorant of the

resources, or of the credit of the bank, any more than of its public

utility; but that the affairs of State suffered from every hour's delay,

and that, therefore, he insisted upon having the sum demanded even within

two hours, partly in paper and partly in cash; and were they to show any

more opposition, he would order the bank and all its effects to be seized

that moment. The directors bowed and returned to the bank; whither they

were followed by four waggons escorted by hussars, and belonging to the

financial department of the army of England. In these were placed eight

millions of livres in cash; and twenty-eight millions in bank-notes were

delivered to M. Lefevre, the Secretary-General of Marbois, who presented,

in exchange, Bonaparte's bond and security for the amount, bearing an

interest of five per cent. yearly.

When this money transaction was known to the public, the alarm became

general, and long before the hour the bank usually opens the adjoining

streets were crowded with persons desiring to exchange their notes for

cash. During the night the directors had taken care to pay themselves

for the banknotes in their own possession with silver or gold, and, as

they expected a run, they ordered all persons to be paid in copper coin,

as long as any money of this metal remained. It required a long time to

count those halfpennies and centimes (five of which make a sou, or

halfpenny), but the people were not tired with waiting until towards

three o'clock in the afternoon, when the bank is shut up. They then

became so clamorous that a company of gendarmes was placed for protection

at the entrance of the bank; but, as the tumult increased, the street was

surrounded by the police guards, and above six hundred individuals, many

of them women, were carried, under an escort, to different police

commissaries, and to the prefecture of the police. There most of them,

after being examined, were reprimanded and released. The same night, the

police spies reported in the coffee-houses of the Palais Royal, and on

the Boulevards, that this run on the bank was encouraged, and paid for,

by English emissaries, some of whom were already taken, and would be

executed on the next day. In the morning, however, the streets adjoining

the bank were still more crowded, and the crowd still more tumultuous,

because payment was refused for all notes but those of five hundred

livres. The activity of the police agents, supported by the gendarmes

and police soldiers, again restored order, after several hundred persons

had been again taken up for their mutinous conduct. Of these many were,

on the same evening, loaded with chains, and, placed in carts under

military escort, paraded about near the bank and the Palais Royal; the

police having, as a measure of safety, under suspicion that they were

influenced by British gold, condemned them to be transported to Cayenne;

and the carts set out on the same night for Rochefort, the place of their

embarkation.

On the following day, not an individual approached the bank, but all

trade and all payments were at a stand; nobody would sell but for ready

money, and nobody who had bank-notes would part with cash. Some Jews and

money-brokers in the Palais Royal offered cash for these bills, at a

discount of from ten to twenty per cent. But these usurers were, in

their turn, taken up and transported, as agents of Pitt. An interview

was then demanded by the directors and principal bankers with the

Ministers of Finance and of the Public Treasury. In this conference it

was settled that, as soon as the two millions of dollars on their way

from Spain had arrived at Paris, the bank should reassume its payments.

These dollars Government would lend the bank for three months, and take

in return its notes, but the bank was, nevertheless, to pay an interest

of six per cent. during that period. All the bankers agreed not to press

unnecessarily for any exchange of bills into cash, and to keep up the

credit of the bank even by the individual credit of their own houses.

You know, I suppose, that the Bank of France has never issued but two

sorts of notes; those of one thousand livres--and those of five hundred

livres. At the day of its stoppage, sixty millions of livres--of the

former, and fifteen millions of livres--of the latter, were in

circulation; and I have heard a banker assert that the bank had not then

six millions of livres--in money and bullion, to satisfy the claims of

its creditors, or to honour its bills.

The shock given to the credit of the bank by this last requisition of

Bonaparte will be felt for a long time, and will with difficulty ever be

repaired under his despotic government. Even now, when the bank pays in

cash, our merchants make a difference from five to ten per cent. between

purchasing for specie or paying in bank-notes; and this mistrust will not

be lessened hereafter. You may, perhaps, object that, as long as the

bank pays, it is absurd for any one possessing its bills to pay dearer

than with cash, which might so easily be obtained. This objection would

stand with regard to your, or any other free country, but here, where no

payments are made in gold, but always in silver or copper, it requires a

cart to carry away forty, thirty, or twenty thousand livres, in coin of

these metals, and would immediately excite suspicion that a bearer of

these bills was an emissary of our enemies, or an enemy of our

Government. With us, unfortunately, suspicion is the same as conviction,

and chastisement follows it as its shadow.

A manufacturer of the name of Debrais, established in the Rue St. Martin,

where he had for years carried on business in the woollen line, went to

the bank two days after it had begun to pay. He demanded, and obtained,

exchange for twenty-four thousand livres--in notes, necessary for him to

pay what was due by him to his workmen. The same afternoon six of our

custom-house officers, accompanied by police agents and gendarmes, paid

him a domiciliary visit under pretence of searching for English goods.

Several bales were seized as being of that description, and Debrais was

carried a prisoner to La Force. On being examined by Fouche, he offered

to prove, by the very men who had fabricated the suspected goods, that

they were not English. The Minister silenced him by saying that

Government had not only evidence of the contrary, but was convinced that

he was employed as an English agent to hurt the credit of the bank, and

therefore, if he did not give up his accomplices or employers, had

condemned him to transportation. In vain did his wife and daughters

petition to Madame Bonaparte; Debrais is now at Rochefort, if not already

embarked for our colonies.

When he was arrested, a seal, as usual, was put on his house, from which

his wife and family were turned out, until the police should have time to

take an inventory of his effects, and had decided on his fate. When

Madame Debrais, after much trouble and many pecuniary sacrifices, at last

obtained permission to have the seals removed, and reenter her house, she

found that all her plate and more than half her goods and furniture had

been stolen and carried away. Upon her complaint of this theft she was

thrown into prison for not being able to support her complaint with

proofs, and for attempting to vilify the characters of the agents of our

Government. She is still in prison, but her daughters are by her orders

disposing of the remainder of their parents' property, and intend to join

their father as soon as their mother has recovered her liberty.

The same tyranny that supports the credit of our bank also keeps up the

price of our stocks. Any of our great stockholders who sell out to any

large amount, if they are unable to account for, or unwilling to declare

the manner in which they intend to employ, their money, are immediately

arrested, sometimes transported to the colonies, but more frequently

exiled into the country, to remain under the inspection of some police

agent, and are not allowed to return here without the previous permission

of our Government. Those of them who are upstarts, and have made their

fortune since the Revolution by plunder or as contractors, are still more

severely treated, and are often obliged to renounce part of their

ill-gotten wealth to save the remainder, or to preserve their liberty or

lives. A revisal of their former accounts, or an inspection of their

past transactions, is a certain and efficacious threat to keep them in

silent submission, as they all well understand the meaning of them.

Even foreigners, whom our numerous national bankruptcies have not yet

disheartened, are subject to these measures of rigour or vigour requisite

to preserve our public credit. In the autumn of last year a Dutchman of

the name of Van der Winkle sold out by his agent for three millions of

livres--in our stock on one day, for which he bought up bills upon

Hamburg and London. He lodged in the Hotel des Quatre Nations, Rue

Grenelle, where the landlord, who is a patriot, introduced some police

agents into his apartments during his absence. These broke open all his

trunks, drawers, and even his writing-desk, and when he entered, seized

his person, and carried him to the Temple. By his correspondence it was

discovered that all this money was to be brought over to England; a

reason more than sufficient to incur the suspicion of our Government. Van

der Winkle spoke very little French, and he continued, therefore, in

confinement three weeks before he was examined, as our secret police had

not at Paris any of its agents who spoke Dutch. Carried before Fouche,

he avowed that the money was destined for England, there to pay for some

plantations which he desired to purchase in Surinam and Barbice. His

interpreter advised him, by the orders of Fouche, to alter his mind, and,

as he was fond of colonial property, lay out his money in plantations at

Cayenne, which was in the vicinity of Surinam, and where Government would

recommend him advantageous purchases. It was hinted to him, also, that

this was a particular favour, and a proof of the generosity of our

Government, as his papers contained many matters that might easily be

construed to be of a treasonable nature. After consulting with

Schimmelpenninck, the Ambassador of his country, he wrote for his wife

and children, and was seen safe with them to Bordeaux by our police

agents, who had hired an American vessel to carry them all to Cayenne.

This certainly is a new method to populate our colonies with capitalists.

LETTER III.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Hanover has been a mine of gold to our Government, to its

generals, to its commissaries, and to its favourites. According to the

boasts of Talleyrand, and the avowal of Berthier, we have drawn from it

within two years more wealth than has been paid in contributions to the

Electors of Hanover for this century past, and more than half a century

of peace can restore to that unfortunate country. It is reported here

that each person employed in a situation to make his fortune in the

Continental States of the King of England (a name given here to Hanover

in courtesy to Bonaparte) was laid under contribution, and expected to

make certain douceurs to Madame Bonaparte; and it is said that she has

received from Mortier three hundred thousand livres, and from Bernadotte

two hundred and fifty thousand livres, besides other large sums from our

military commissaries, treasurers, and other agents in the Electorate.

General Mortier is one of the few favourite officers of Bonaparte who

have distinguished themselves under his rivals, Pichegru and Moreau,

without ever serving under him. Edward Adolph Casimer Mortier is the son

of a shopkeeper, and was born at Cambray in 1768. He was a shopman with

his father until 1791, when he obtained a commission, first as a

lieutenant of carabiniers, and afterwards as captain of the first

battalion of volunteers of the Department of the North. His first sight

of an enemy was on the 30th of April, 1792, near Quievrain, where he had

a horse killed under him. He was present in the battles of Jemappes, of

Nerwinde, and of Pellenberg. At the battle of Houdscoote he

distinguished himself so much as to be promoted to an adjutant general.

He was wounded at the battle of Fleures, and again at the passage of the

Rhine, in 1795, under General Moreau. During 1796 and 1797 he continued

to serve in Germany, but in 1798 and 1799 he headed a division in

Switzerland from which Bonaparte recalled him in 1800, to command the

troops in the capital and its environs. His address to Bonaparte,

announcing the votes of the troops under him respecting the consulate for

life and the elevation to the Imperial throne, contain such mean and

abject flattery that, for a true soldier, it must have required more

self-command and more courage to pronounce them than to brave the fire of

a hundred cannons; but these very addresses, contemptible as their

contents are, procured him the Field-marshal's staff. Mortier well knew

his man, and that his cringing in antechambers would be better rewarded

than his services in the field. I was not present when Mortier spoke so

shamefully, but I have heard from persons who witnessed this farce, that

he had his eyes fixed on the ground the whole time, as if to say, "I

grant that I speak as a despicable being, and I grant that I am so; but

what shall I do, tormented as I am by ambition to figure among the great,

and to riot among the wealthy? Have compassion on my weakness, or, if

you have not, I will console myself with the idea that my meanness is

only of the duration of half an hour, while its recompense-my rank-will

be permanent."

Mortier married, in 1799, the daughter of the landlord of the Belle

Sauvage inn at Coblentz, who was pregnant by him, or by some other guest

of her father. She is pretty, but not handsome, and she takes advantage

of her husband's complaisance to console herself both for his absence and

infidelities. When she was delivered of her last child, Mortier

positively declared that he had not slept with her for twelve months, and

the babe has, indeed, less resemblance to him than to his valet de

chambre. The child was baptised with great splendour; the Emperor and

the Empress were the sponsors, and it was christened by Cardinal Fesch.

Bonaparte presented Madame Mortier on this occasion with a diamond

necklace valued at one hundred and fifty thousand livres.

During his different campaigns, and particularly during his glorious

campaign in Hanover, he has collected property to the amount of seven

millions of livres, laid out in estates and lands. He is considered by

other generals as a brave captain, but an indifferent chief; and among

our fashionables and our courtiers he is held up as a model of connubial

fidelity--satisfying himself with keeping three mistresses only.

There was no truth in the report that his recall from Hanover was in

consequence of any disgrace; on the contrary, it was a new proof of

Bonaparte's confidence and attachment. He was recalled to take the

command of the artillery of Bonaparte's, household troops the moment

Pichegru, George, and Moreau were arrested, and when the Imperial tide

had been resolved on. More resistance against this innovation was at

that time expected than experienced.

Bernadotte, who succeeded Mortier in the command of our army in Hanover,

is a man of a different stamp. His father was a chair-man, and he was

born at Paris in 1763. In 1779 he enlisted in the regiment called La

Vieille Harine, where the Revolution found him a sergeant. This regiment

was then quartered at Toulon, and the emissaries of anarchy and

licentiousness engaged him as one of their agents. His activity soon

destroyed all discipline, and the troops, instead of attending to their

military duty, followed him to the debates and discussions of the Jacobin

clubs. Being arrested and ordered to be tried for his mutinous,

scandalous behaviour, an insurrection liberated him, and forced his

accusers to save their lives by flight. In April, 1790, he headed the

banditti who murdered the Governor of the Fort St. Jean at Marseilles,

and who afterwards occasioned the Civil War in Comtat Venaigin, where he

served under Jourdan, known by the name of Coup-tell, or cut-throat, who

made him a colonel and his aide-de-camp. In 1794, he was employed, as a

general of brigade, in the army of the Sambre and Meuse; and during the

campaigns of 1795 and 1796, he served under another Jourdan, the general,

without much distinction,--except that he was accused by him of being the

cause of all the disasters of the last campaign, by the complete rout he

suffered near Neumark on the 23d of August, 1796. His division was

ordered to Italy in 1797, where, against the laws of nations, he arrested

M. d' Antraigues, who was attached to the Russian legation. When the

Russian Ambassador tried to dissuade him from committing this injustice,

and this violation of the rights of privileged persons, he replied:

"There is no question here of any other right or justice than the right

and justice of power, and I am here the strongest. M. d'Antraigues is

our enemy; were he victorious, he would cause us all to be shot. I

repeat, I am here the strongest, 'et nous verrons'."

After the Peace of Campo Formio, Bernadotte was sent as an Ambassador to

the Court of Vienna, accompanied by a numerous escort of Jacobin

propagators. Having procured the liberty of Austrian patriots, whose

lives, forfeit to the law, the lenity of the Cabinet of Vienna had

spared, he thought that he might attempt anything; and, therefore, on the

anniversary day of the fete for the levy en masse of the inhabitants of

the capital, he insulted the feelings of the loyal, and excited the

discontented to rebellion, by placing over the door and in the windows of

his house the tri-coloured flag. This outrage the Emperor was unable to

prevent his subjects from resenting. Bernadotte's house was invaded, his

furniture broken to pieces, and he was forced to save himself at the

house of the Spanish Ambassador. As a satisfaction for this attack,

provoked by his own insolence, he demanded the immediate dismissal of the

Austrian Minister, Baron Thugut, and threatened, in case of refusal, to

leave Vienna, which he did on the next day. So disgraceful was his

conduct regarded, even by the Directory, that this event made but little

impression, and no alteration in the continuance of their intercourse

with the Austrian Government.

In 1799, he was for some weeks a Minister of the war department, from

which his incapacity caused him to be dismissed. When Bonaparte intended

to seize the reins of State, he consulted Bernadotte, who spoke as an

implacable Jacobin until a douceur of three hundred thousand

livres--calmed him a little, and convinced him that the Jacobins were not

infallible or their government the best of all possible governments. In

1801, he was made the commander-in-chief in the Western Department, where

he exercised the greatest barbarities against the inhabitants, whom he

accused of being still chouans and royalists.

With Augereau and Massena, Bernadotte is a merciless plunderer. In the

summer, 1796, he summoned the magistrates of the free and neutral city of

Nuremberg to bring him, under pain of military execution, within

twenty-four hours, two millions of livres. With much difficulty this sum

was collected. The day after he had received it, he insisted upon

another sum to the same amount within another twenty-four hours, menacing

in case of disobedience to give the city up to a general pillage by his

troops. Fortunately, a column of Austrians advanced and delivered them

from the execution of his threats. The troops under him were, both in

Italy and in Germany, the terror of the inhabitants, and when defeated

were, from their pillage and murder, hunted like wild beasts. Bernadotte

has by these means within ten years become master of a fortune of ten

millions of livres.

Many have considered Bernadotte a revolutionary fanatic, but they are in

the wrong. Money engaged him in the cause of the Revolution, where the

first crimes he had perpetrated fixed him. The many massacres under

Jourdan the cut-throat, committed by him in the Court at Venaigin, no

doubt display a most sanguinary character. A lady, however, in whose

house in La Vendee he was quartered six months, has assured me that, to

judge from his conversation, he is not naturally cruel, but that his

imagination is continually tormented with the fear of gibbets which he

knows that his crimes have merited, and that, therefore, when he stabs

others, he thinks it commanded by the necessity of preventing others from

stabbing him. Were he sure of impunity, he would, perhaps, show humanity

as well as justice. Bernadotte is not, only a grand officer of the

Legion of Honour, but a knight of the Royal Prussian Order of the Black

Eagle.

LETTER IV.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Bonaparte has taken advantage of the remark of Voltaire, in his

"Life of Louis XIV.," that this Prince owed much of his celebrity to the

well--distributed pensions among men of letters in France and in foreign

countries. According to a list shown me by Fontanes, the president of

the legislative corps and a director of literary pensions, even in your

country and in Ireland he has nine literary pensioners. Though the names

of your principal authors and men of letters are not unknown to me, I

have never read nor heard of any of those I saw in the list, except two

or three as editors of some newspapers, magazines, or trifling and

scurrilous party pamphlets. I made this observation to Fontanes, who

replied that these men, though obscure, had, during the last peace, been

very useful, and would be still more so after another pacification; and

that Bonaparte must be satisfied with these until he could gain over men

of greater talents. He granted also that men of true genius and literary

eminence were, in England, more careful of the dignity of their character

than those of Germany and Italy, and more difficult to be bought over. He

added that, as soon as the war ceased, he should cross the Channel on a

literary mission, from which he hoped to derive more success than from

that which was undertaken three years ago by Fievee.

To these men of letters, who are themselves, with their writings, devoted

to Bonaparte, he certainly is very liberal. Some he has made tribunes,

prefects, or legislators; others he has appointed his Ministers in

foreign countries, and on those to whom he has not yet been able to given

places, he bestows much greater pensions than any former Sovereign of

this country allowed to a Corneille, a Racine, a Boileau, a Voltaire, a

De Crebillon, a D' Alembert, a Marmontel, and other heroes of our

literature and honours to our nation. This liberality is often carried

too far, and thrown away upon worthless subjects, whose very flattery

displays absence of taste and genius, as well as of modesty and shame. To

a fellow of the name of Dagee, who sang the coronation of Napoleon the

First in two hundred of the most disgusting and ill-digested lines that

ever were written, containing neither metre nor sense, was assigned a

place in the administration of the forest department, worth twelve

thousand livres in the year--besides a present, in ready money, of one

hundred napoleons d'or. Another poetaster, Barre, who has served and

sung the chiefs of all former factions, received, for an ode of forty

lines on Bonaparte's birthday, an office at Milan, worth twenty thousand

livres in the year--and one hundred napoleons d'or for his travelling

expenses.

The sums of money distributed yearly by Bonaparte's agents for

dedications to him by French and foreign authors, are still greater than

those fixed for regular literary pensions. Instead of discouraging these

foolish and impertinent contributions, which genius, ingenuity,

necessity, or intrusion, lay on his vanity, he rather encourages them.

His name is, therefore, found in more dedications published within these

last five years than those of all other Sovereign Princes in Europe taken

together for the last century. In a man whose name, unfortunately for

humanity, must always live in history, it is a childish and unpardonable

weakness to pay so profusely for the short and uncertain immortality

which some dull or obscure scribbler or poetaster confers on him.

During the last Christmas holidays I dined at Madame Remisatu's, in

company with Duroc. The question turned upon literary productions and

the comparative merit of the compositions of modern French and foreign

authors. "As to the merits or the quality," said Duroc, "I will not take

upon me to judge, as I profess myself totally incompetent; but as to

their size and quantity I have tolerably good information, and it will

not, therefore, be very improper in me to deliver my opinion. I am

convinced that the German and Italian authors are more numerous than

those of my own country, for the following reasons: I suppose, from what

I have witnessed and experienced for some years past, that of every book

or publication printed in France, Italy, and Germany, each tenth is

dedicated to the Emperor. Now, since last Christmas ninety-six German

and seventy-one Italian authors have inscribed their works to His

Majesty, and been rewarded for it; while during the same period only

sixty-six Frenchmen have presented their offerings to their Sovereign."

For my part I think Duroc's conclusion tolerably just.

Among all the numerous hordes of authors who have been paid, recompensed,

or encouraged by Bonaparte, none have experienced his munificence more

than the Italian Spanicetti and the German Ritterstein. The former

presented him a genealogical table in which he proved that the Bonaparte

family, before their emigration from Tuscany to Corsica, four hundred

years ago, were allied to the most ancient Tuscany families, even to that

of the House of Medicis; and as this house has given two queens to the

Bourbons when Sovereigns of France, the Bonapartes are, therefore,

relatives of the Bourbons; and the sceptre of the French Empire is still

in the same family, though in a more worthy branch. Spanicetti received

one thousand louis--in gold, a pension of six thousand livres--for life,

and the place of a chef du bureau in the ministry of the home department

of the Kingdom of Italy, producing eighteen thousand livres yearly.

Ritterstein, a Bavarian genealogist, proved the pedigree of the

Bonapartes as far back as the first crusades, and that the name of the

friend of Richard Coeur de Lion was not Blondel, but Bonaparte; that he

exchanged the latter for the former only to marry into the Plantagenet

family, the last branch of which has since been extinguished by its

intermarriage and incorporation with the House of Stuart, and that,

therefore, Napoleon Bonaparte is not only related to most Sovereign

Princes of Europe, but has more right to the throne of Great Britain than

George the Third, being descended from the male branch of the Stuarts;

while this Prince is only descended from the female branch of the same

royal house. Ritterstein was presented with a snuff-box with Bonaparte's

portrait set with diamonds, valued at twelve thousand livres, and

received twenty-four thousand livres ready money, together with a pension

of nine thousand livres--in the year, until he could be better provided

for. He was, besides, nominated a Knight of the Legion of Honour. It

cannot be denied but that Bonaparte rewards like a real Emperor.

But artists as well as authors obtain from him the same encouragement,

and experience the same liberality. In our different museums we,

therefore, already, see and admire upwards of two hundred pictures,

representing the different actions, scenes, and achievements of

Bonaparte's public life. It is true they are not all highly finished or

well composed or delineated, but they all strike the spectators more or

less with surprise or admiration; and it is with us, as, I suppose, with

you, and everywhere else, the multitude decide: for one competent judge

or real connoisseur, hundreds pass, who stare, gape, are charmed, and

inspire thousands of their acquaintance, friends, and neighbours with

their own satisfaction. Believe me, Napoleon the First well knows the

age, his contemporaries, and, I fear, even posterity.

That statuaries and sculptors consider him also as a generous patron, the

numerous productions of their chisels in France, Italy, and Germany,

having him for their object, seem to evince. Ten sculptors have already

represented his passage over the Mount St. Bernard, eighteen his passage

over Pont de Lodi, and twenty-two that over Pont d' Arcole. At Rome,

Milan, Turin, Lyons, and Paris are statues of him representing his

natural size; and our ten thousand municipalities have each one of his

busts; without mentioning the thousands of busts all over Europe, not

excepting even your own country. When Bonaparte sees under the windows

of the Tuileries the statue of Caesar placed in the garden of that

palace, he cannot help saying to himself: "Marble lives longer than man."

Have you any doubt that his ambition and vanity extend beyond the grave?

The only artist I ever heard of who was disappointed and unrewarded for

his labour in attempting to eternize the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte,

was a German of the name of Schumacher. It is, indeed, allowed that he

was more industrious, able, and well-meaning than ingenious or

considerate. He did not consider that it would be no compliment to give

the immortal hero a hint of being a mortal man. Schumacher had employed

near three years in planning and executing in marble the prettiest model

of a sepulchral monument I have ever seen, read or heard of. He had

inscribed it: "The Future Tomb of Bonaparte the Great." Under the

patronage of Count von Beast, he arrived here; and I saw the model in the

house of this Minister of the German Elector Arch--Chancellor, where also

many French artists went to inspect it. Count von Beast asked De Segur,

the grand master of the ceremonies, to request the Emperor to grant

Schumacher the honour of showing him his performance. De Segur advised

him to address himself to Duroc, who referred him to Devon, who, after

looking at it, could not help paying a just tribute to the execution and

to the talents of the artist, though he disapproved of the subject, and

declined mentioning it to the Emperor. After three months' attendance in

this capital, and all petitions and memorials to our great folks

remaining unanswered, Schumacher obtained an audience of Fouche, in which

he asked permission to exhibit his model of Bonaparte's tomb to the

public for money, so as to be enabled to return to his country.

"Where is it now?" asked Fouche.

"At the Minister's of the Elector Arch-Chancellor," answered the artist.

"But where do you intend to show it for money?" continued Fouche.

"In the Palais Royal."

"Well, bring it there," replied Fouche.

The same evening that it was brought there, Schumacher was arrested by a

police commissary, his model packed up, and, with himself, put under the

care of two gendarmes, who carried them both to the other side of the

Rhine. Here the Elector of Baden gave him some money to return to his

home, near Aschaffenburg, where he has since exposed for money the model

of a grand tomb for a little man. I have just heard that one of your

countrymen has purchased it for one hundred and fifty louis d'or.

LETTER V.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Those who only are informed of the pageantry of our Court, of

the expenses of our courtiers, of the profusion of our Emperor, and of

the immense wealth of his family and favourites, may easily be led to

believe that France is one of the happiest and most prosperous countries

in Europe. But for those who walk in our streets, who visit our

hospitals, who count the number of beggars and of suicides, of orphans

and of criminals, of prisoners and of executioners, it is a painful

necessity to reverse the picture, and to avow that nowhere,

comparatively, can there be found so much collective misery. And it is

not here, as in other States, that these unfortunate, reduced, or guilty

are persons of the lowest classes of society; on the contrary, many, and,

I fear, the far greater part, appertain to the ci-devant privileged

classes, descended from ancestors noble, respectable, and wealthy, but

who by the Revolution have been degraded to misery or infamy, and perhaps

to both.

When you stop but for a moment in our streets to look at something

exposed for sale in a shop-window, or for any other cause of curiosity or

want, persons of both sexes, decently dressed, approach you, and whisper

to you: "Monsieur, bestow your charity on the Marquis, or Marquise--on

the Baron or Baroness, such a one, ruined by the Revolution;" and you

sometimes hear names on which history has shed so brilliant a lustre

that, while you contemplate the deplorable reverses of human greatness,

you are not a little surprised to find that it is in your power to

relieve with a trifle the wants of the grandson of an illustrious

warrior, before whom nations trembled, or of the granddaughter of that

eminent statesman who often had in his hands the destiny of Empires. Some

few solitary walks, incognito, by Bonaparte, in the streets of his

capital, would perhaps be the best preservative against unbounded

ambition and confident success that philosophy could present to unfeeling

tyranny.

Some author has written that "want is the parent of industry, and

wretchedness the mother of ingenuity." I know that you have often

approved and rewarded the ingenious productions of my emigrated

countrymen in England; but here their labours and their endeavours are

disregarded; and if they cannot or will not produce anything to flatter

the pride or appetite of the powerful or rich upstarts, they have no

other choice left but beggary or crime, meanness or suicide. How many

have I heard repent of ever returning to a country where they have no

expectation of justice in their claims, no hope of relief in their

necessities, where death by hunger, or by their own hands, is the final

prospect of all their sufferings.

Many of our ballad-singers are disguised emigrants; and I know a

ci-devant Marquis who is, incognito, a groom to a contractor, the son of

his uncle's porter. Our old pedlars complain that their trade is ruined

by the Counts, by the Barons and Chevaliers who have monopolized all

their business. Those who pretend to more dignity, but who have in fact

less honesty, are employed in our billiard and gambling-houses. I have

seen two music-grinders, one of whom was formerly a captain of infantry,

and the other a Counsellor of Parliament. Every, day you may bestow your

penny or halfpenny on two veiled girls playing on the guitar or harp--the

one the daughter of a ci-devant Duke, and the other of a ci-devant

Marquis, a general under Louis XVI. They, are usually placed, the one on

the Boulevards, and the other in the Elysian Fields; each with an old

woman by her side, holding a begging-box in her hand. I am told one of

the women has been the nurse of one of those ladies. What a

recollection, if she thinks of the past, in contemplating the present!

On the day of Bonaparte's coronation, and a little before he set out with

his Pope and other splendid retinue, an old man was walking slowly on the

Quai de Voltaire, without saying a word, but a label was pinned to his

hat with this inscription: "I had sixty thousand livres rent--I am eighty

years of age, and I request alms." Many individuals, even some of

Bonaparte's soldiers, gave him their mite; but as soon as he was observed

he was seized by the police agents, and has not since been heard of. I am

told his name is De la Roche, a ci-devant Chevalier de St. Louis, whose

property was sold in 1793 as belonging to an emigrant, though at the time

he was shut up here as a prisoner, suspected of aristocracy. He has since

for some years been a water-carrier; but his strength failing, he

supported himself lately entirely by begging. The value of the dress of

one of Bonaparte's running footmen might have been sufficient to relieve

him for the probably short remainder of his days. But it is more easy and

agreeable in this country to bury undeserved want in dungeons than to

renounce unnecessary and useless show to relieve it. In the evening the

remembrance of these sixty thousand livres of the poor Chevalier deprived

me of all pleasure in beholding the sixty thousand lamps decorating and

illuminating Bonaparte's palace of the Tuileries.

Some of the emigrants, whose strength of body age has not impaired, or

whose vigour of mind misfortunes have not depressed, are now serving as

officers or soldiers under the Emperor of the French, after having for

years fought in vain for the cause of a King of France in the brave army

of Conde. Several are even doing duty in Bonaparte's household troops,

where I know one who is a captain, and who, for distinguishing himself in

combating the republicans, received the Order of St. Louis, but is now

made a knight of Napoleon's Republican Order, the Legion of Honour, for

bowing gracefully to Her Imperial Majesty the Empress. As he is a man of

real honour, this favour is not quite in its place; but I am convinced

that should one day an opportunity present itself, he will not miss it,

but prove that he has never been misplaced. Another emigrant who, after

being a page to the Duc d'Angouleme, made four campaigns as an officer of

the Uhlans in the service of the Emperor of Germany, and was rewarded

with the Military Order of Maria Theresa, is now a knight of the Legion

of Honour, and an officer of the Mamelukes of the Emperor of the French.

Four more emigrants have engaged themselves in the same corps as common

Mamelukes, after being for seven years volunteers in the legion of

Mirabeau, under the Prince de Conde. It were to be wished that the whole

of this favourite corps were composed of returned emigrants. I am sure

they would never betray the confidence of Napoleon, but they would also

never swear allegiance to another Bonaparte.

While the humbled remnants of one sex of the ci-devant privileged classes

are thus or worse employed, many persons of the other sex have preferred

domestic servitude to courtly splendour, and are chambermaids or

governesses, when they might have been Maids of Honour or

ladies-in-waiting. Mademoiselle de R------, daughter of Marquis de

R------, was offered a place as a Maid of Honour to Princesse Murat,

which she declined, but accepted at the same time the offer of being a

companion of the rich Madame Moulin, whose husband is a ci-devant valet

of Comte de Brienne. Her father and brother suffered for this choice and

preference, which highly offended Bonaparte, who ordered them both to be

transported to Guadeloupe, under pretence that the latter had said in a

coffee-house that his sister would rather have been the housemaid of the

wife of a ci-devant valet, than the friend of the wife of a ci-devant

assassin and Septembrizer. It was only by a valuable present to Madame

Bonaparte from Madame Moulin, that Mademoiselle de B----- was not

included in the act of proscription against her father and brother.

I am sorry to say that returned emigrants have also been arrested for

frauds and debts, and even tried and convicted of crimes. But they are

proportionally few, compared with those who, without support, and perhaps

without hope, and from want of resignation and submission to the will of

Providence, have, in despair, had recourse to the pistol or dagger, or in

the River Seine buried their remembrance both of what they have been and

of what they were. The suicides of the vicious capital are reckoned upon

an average to amount to one hundred in the month; and for these last

three years, one-tenth, at least, have been emigrants of both sexes!

LETTER VI.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Nobody here, except his courtiers, denies that Bonaparte is

vain, cruel, and ambitious; but as to his private, personal, or domestic

vices, opinions are various, and even opposite. Most persons, who have

long known him, assert that women are his aversion; and many anecdotes

have been told of his unnatural and horrid propensities. On the other

hand, his seeming attachment to his wife is contradictory to these

rumours, which certainly are exaggerated. It is true, indeed, that it

was to oblige Barras, and to obtain her fortune, that he accepted of her

hand ten years ago; though insinuating, she was far from being handsome,

and had long passed the period of inspiring love by her charms. Her

husband's conduct towards her may, therefore, be construed, perhaps, into

a proof of indifference towards the whole sex as much as into an evidence

of his affection towards her. As he knew who she was when he received

her from the chaste arms of Barras, and is not unacquainted with her

subsequent intrigues particularly during his stay in Egypt--policy may

influence a behaviour which has some resemblance to esteem. He may

choose to live with her, but it is impossible he can love her.

A lady, very intimate with Princesse Louis Bonaparte, has assured me

that, had it not been for Napoleon's singular inclination for his

youthful stepdaughter, he would have divorced his wife the first year of

his consulate, and that indirect proposals on that subject had already

been made her by Talleyrand. It was then reported that Bonaparte had his

eyes fixed upon a Russian Princess, and that from the friendship which

the late Emperor Paul professed for him, no obstacles to the match were

expected to be encountered at St. Petersburg. The untimely end of this

Prince, and the supplications of his wife and daughter, have since

altered his intent, and Madame Napoleon and her children are now, if I

may use the expression, incorporated and naturalized with the Bonaparte

family.

But what has lately occurred here will better serve to show that

Bonaparte is neither averse nor indifferent to the sex. You read last

summer in the public prints of the then Minister of the Interior

(Chaptal) being made a Senator; and that he was succeeded by our

Ambassador at Vienna Champagny. This promotion was the consequence of a

disgrace, occasioned by his jealousy of his mistress, a popular actress,

Mademoiselle George, one of the handsomest women of this capital. He was

informed by his spies that this lady frequently, in the dusk of the

evening, or when she thought him employed in his office, went to the

house of a famous milliner in the Rue St. Honor, where, through a door in

an adjoining passage, a person, who carefully avoided showing his face,

always entered immediately before or after her, and remained as long as

she continued there. The house was then by his orders beset with spies,

who were to inform him the next time she went to the milliner. To be

near at hand, he had hired an apartment in the neighbourhood, where the

very next day her visit to the milliner's was announced to him. While

his secretary, with four other persons, entered the milliner's house

through the street door, Chaptal, with four of his spies, forced the door

of the passage open, which was no sooner done than the disguised gallant

was found, and threatened in the most rude manner by the Minister and his

companions. He would have been still worse used had not the unexpected

appearance of Duroc and a whisper to Chaptal put a stop to the fury of

this enraged lover. The incognito is said to have been Bonaparte

himself, who, the same evening, deprived Chaptal of his ministerial

portfolio, and would have sent him to Cayenne, instead of to the Senate,

had not Duroc dissuaded his Sovereign from giving an eclat to an affair

which it, would be best to bury in oblivion.

Chaptal has never from that day approached Mademoiselle George, and,

according to report, Napoleon has also renounced this conquest in favour

of Duroc, who is at least her nominal gallant. The quantity of jewels

with which she has recently been decorated, and displayed with so much

ostentation in the new tragedy, 'The Templars', indicate, however, a

Sovereign rather than a subject for a lover. And, indeed, she already

treats the directors of the theatre, her comrades, and even the public,

more as a real than a theatrical Princess. Without any cause whatever,

but from a mere caprice to see the camp on the coast, she set out,

without leave of absence, and without any previous notice, on the very

day she was to play; and this popular and interesting tragedy was put off

for three weeks, until she chose to return to her duty.

When complaint was made to the prefects of the palace, now the governors

of our theatres, Duroc said that the orders of the Emperor were that no

notice should be taken of this 'etourderie', which should not occur

again.

Chaptal was, before the Revolution, a bankrupt chemist at Montpellier,

having ruined himself in search after the philosopher's stone. To

persons in such circumstances, with great presumption, some talents, but

no principles, the Revolution could not, with all its anarchy, confusion,

and crime, but be a real blessing, as Chaptal called it in his first

speech at the Jacobin Club. Wishing to mimic, at Montpellier, the taking

of the Bastille at Paris, he, in May, 1790, seduced the lower classes and

the suburbs to an insurrection, and to an attack on the citadel, which

the governor, to avoid all effusion of blood, surrendered without

resistance. He was denounced by the municipality to the National

Assembly, for these and other plots and attempts, but Robespierre and

other Jacobins defended him, and he escaped even imprisonment. During

1793 and 1794, he monopolized the contract for making and providing the

armies with gunpowder; a favour for which he paid Barrere, Carnot, and

other members of the Committee of Public Safety, six millions of

livres--but by which he pocketed thirty-six millions of livres--himself.

He was, under the Directory, menaced with a prosecution for his pillage,

but bought it off by a douceur to Rewbel, Barras, and Siyes. In 1799, he

advanced Bonaparte twelve millions of livres--to bribe adherents for the

new Revolution he meditated, and was, in recompense, instead of interest,

appointed first Counsellor of State; and when Lucien Bonaparte, in

September, 1800, was sent on an embassy to Spain, Chaptal succeeded him

in the Ministry of the Interior. You may see by this short account that

the chemist Chaptal has, in the Revolution, found the true philosophical

stone. He now lives in great style, and has, besides three wives alive

(from two of whom he has been divorced), five mistresses, with each a

separate establishment. This Chaptal is regarded here as the most moral

character that has figured in our Revolution, having yet neither

committed a single murder nor headed any of our massacres.

LETTER VII.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--I have read a copy of a letter from Madrid, circulated among

the members of our foreign diplomatic corps, which draws a most

deplorable picture of the Court and Kingdom of Spain. Forced into an

unprofitable and expensive war, famine ravaging some, and disease other

provinces, experiencing from allies the treatment of tyrannical foes,

disunion in his family and among his Ministers, His Spanish Majesty

totters on a throne exposed to the combined attacks of internal

disaffection and external plots, with no other support than the advice of

a favourite, who is either a fool or a traitor, and perhaps both.

As the Spanish monarchy has been more humbled and reduced during the

twelve years' administration of the Prince of Peace than during the whole

period that it has been governed by Princes of the House of Bourbon, the

heir of the throne, the young Prince of Asturias, has, with all the

moderation consistent with duty, rank, and consanguinity, tried to remove

an upstart, universally despised for his immorality as, well as for his

incapacity; and who, should he continue some years longer to rule in the

name of Charles IV., will certainly involve his King and his country in

one common ruin. Ignorant and presumptuous, even beyond upstarts in

general, the Prince of Peace treats with insolence all persons raised

above him by birth or talents, who refuse to be his accomplices or

valets. Proud and certain of the protection of the Queen, and of the

weakness of the King, the Spanish nobility is not only humbled, provoked,

and wronged by him, but openly defied and insulted.

You know the nice principles of honour and loyalty that have always

formerly distinguished the ancient families of Spain. Believe me that,

notwithstanding what appearances indicate to the contrary, the Spanish

grandee who ordered his house to be pulled down because the rebel

constable had slept in it, has still many descendants, but loyal men

always decline to use that violence to which rebels always resort. Soon

after the marriage of the Prince of Asturias, in October, 1801, to his

cousin, the amiable Maria Theresa, Princess Royal of Naples, the ancient

Spanish families sent some deputies to Their Royal Highnesses, not for

the purpose of intriguing, but to lay before them the situation of the

kingdom, and to inform them of the real cause of all disasters. They

were received as faithful subjects and true patriots, and Their Royal

Highnesses promised every support in their power towards remedying the

evil complained of, and preventing, if possible, the growth of others.

The Princess of Asturias is a worthy granddaughter of Maria Theresa of

Austria, and seems to inherit her character as well as her virtues. She

agreed with her royal consort that, after having gained the affection of

the Queen by degrees, it would be advisable for her to insinuate some

hints of the danger that threatened their country and the discontent that

agitated the people. The Prince of Asturias was to act the same part

with his father as the Princess did with his mother. As there is no one

about the person of Their Spanish Majesties, from the highest lord to the

lowest servant, who is not placed there by the favourite, and act as his

spies, he was soon aware that he had no friend in the heir to the throne.

His conversation with Their Majesties confirmed him in this supposition,

and that some secret measures were going on to deprive him of the place

he occupied, if not of the royal favour. All visitors to the Prince and

Princess of Asturias were, therefore, watched by his emissaries; and all

the letters or memorials sent to them by the post were opened, read, and;

if contrary to his interest, destroyed, and their writers imprisoned in

Spain or banished to the colonies. These measures of injustice created

suspicion, disunion, and, perhaps, fear, among the members of the

Asturian cabal, as it was called; all farther pursuit, therefore, was

deferred until more propitious times, and the Prince of Peace remained

undisturbed and in perfect security until the rupture with your country

last autumn.

It is to be lamented that, with all their valuable qualities and feelings

of patriotism, the Prince and Princess of Asturias do not possess a

little dissimulation and more knowledge of the world. The favourite

tried by all means to gain their good opinion, but his advances met with

that repulse they morally deserved, but which, from policy, should have

been suspended or softened, with the hope of future accommodation.

Beurnonville, the Ambassador of our Court to the Court of Madrid, was

here upon leave of absence when war was declared by Spain against your

country, and his first secretary, Herman, acted as charge d'affaires.

This Herman has been brought up in Talleyrand's office, and is both abler

and more artful than Beurnonville; he possesses also the full confidence

of our Minister, who, in several secret and pecuniary transactions, has

obtained many proofs of this secretary's fidelity as well as capacity.

The views of the Cabinet of St. Cloud were, therefore, not lost sight of,

nor its interest neglected at Madrid.

I suppose you have heard that the Prince of Peace, like all other

ignorant and illiberal people, believes no one can be a good or clever

man who is not also his countryman, and that all the ability and probity

of the world is confined within the limits of Spain. On this principle

he equally detests France and England, Germany and Russia, and is,

therefore, not much liked by our Government, except for his imbecility,

which makes him its tool and dupe. His disgrace would not be much

regretted here, where we have it in our power to place or displace

Ministers in certain States, whenever and as often as we like. On this

occasion, however, we supported him, and helped to dissolve the cabal

formed against him; and that for the following reasons:

By the assurances of Beurnonville, Bonaparte and Talleyrand had been led

to believe that the Prince and Princess of Asturias were well affected to

France, and to them personally; and conceiving themselves much more

certain of this than of the good disposition of the favourite, though

they did not take a direct part against him, at the same time they did

not disclose what they knew was determined on to remove him from the helm

of affairs. During Beurnonville's absence, however, Herman had formed an

intrigue with a Neapolitan girl, in the suite of Asturias, who,

influenced by love or bribes, introduced him into the Cabinet where her

mistress kept her correspondence with her royal parents. With a

pick-lock key he opened all the drawers, and even the writing-desk, in

which he is said to have discovered written evidence that, though the

Princess was not prejudiced against France, she had but an indifferent

opinion of the morality and honesty of our present Government and of our

present governors. One of these original papers Herman appropriated to

himself, and despatched to this capital by an extraordinary courier,

whose despatches, more than the rupture with your country, forced

Beurnonville away in a hurry from the agreeable society of gamesters and

prostitutes, chiefly frequented by him in this capital.

It is not and cannot be known yet what was the exact plan of the Prince

and Princess of Asturias and their adherents; but a diplomatic gentleman,

who has just arrived from Madrid, and who can have no reason to impose

upon me, has informed me of the following particulars:

Their Royal Highnesses succeeded perfectly in their endeavours to gain

the well-merited tenderness and approbation of their Sovereigns in

everything else but when the favourite was mentioned with any slight, or

when any insinuations were thrown out concerning the mischief arising

from his tenacity of power, and incapacity of exercising it with

advantage to the State. The Queen was especially irritated when such was

the subject of conversation or of remark; and she finally prohibited it

under pain of her displeasure. A report even reached Their Royal

Highnesses, that the Prince of Peace had demanded their separation and

separate confinement. Nothing could, therefore, be effected to impede

the progress of wickedness and calamity, but by some temporary measure of

severity. In this disagreeable dilemma, it was resolved by the cabal to

send the Queen to a convent, until her favourite had been arrested and

imprisoned; to declare the Prince of Asturias Regent during the King's

illness (His Majesty then still suffered from several paralytic strokes),

and to place men of talents and patriotism in the place of the creatures

of the Prince of Peace. As soon as this revolution was organized, the

Queen would have been restored to full liberty and to that respect due to

her rank.

This plan had been communicated to our Ambassador, and approved of by our

Government; but when Herman in such an honest manner had inspected the

confidential correspondence of the Princess of Asturias, Beurnonville was

instructed by Talleyrand to, warn the favourite of the impending danger,

and to advise him to be beforehand with his enemies. Instead of telling

the truth, the Prince of Peace alarmed the King and Queen with the most

absurd fabrications; and assured Their Majesties that their son and their

daughter-in-law had determined not only to dethrone them, but to keep

them prisoners for life, after they had been forced to witness his

execution.

Indolence and weakness are often more fearful than guilt. Everything he

said was at once believed; the Prince and Princess were ordered under

arrest in their own apartments, without permission to see or correspond

with anybody; and so certain was the Prince of Peace of a complete and

satisfactory revenge for the attempt against his tyranny, that a frigate

at Cadiz was ready waiting to carry the Princess of Asturias back to

Naples. All Spaniards who had the honour of their Sovereigns and of

their country at heart lamented these rash proceedings; but no one dared

to take any measures to counteract them. At last, however, the Duke of

Montemar, grand officer to the Prince of Asturias, demanded an audience

of Their Majesties, in the presence of the favourite. He began by

begging his Sovereign to recollect that for the place he occupied he was

indebted to the Prince of Peace; and he called upon him to declare

whether he had ever had reason to suspect him either of ingratitude or

disloyalty. Being answered in the negative, he said that, though his

present situation and office near the heir to the throne was the pride

and desire of his life, he would have thrown it up the instant that he

had the least ground to suppose that this Prince ceased to be a dutiful

son and subject; but so far from this being the case, he had observed him

in his most unguarded moments--in moments of conviviality had heard him

speak of his royal parents with as much submission and respect as if he

had been in their presence. "If," continued he, "the Prince of Peace has

said otherwise, he has misled his King and his Queen, being, no doubt,

deceived himself. To overthrow a throne and to seize it cannot be done

without accomplices, without arms, without money. Who are the

conspirators hailing the Prince as their chief? I have heard no name but

that of the lovely Princess, his consort, the partaker of his sentiments

as well as of his heart. And his arms? They are in the hands of those

guards his royal parent has given to augment the necessary splendour of

his rank. And as to his money? He has none but what is received from

royal and paternal munificence and bounty. You, my Prince," said he to

the favourite (who seemed much offended at the impression the speech made

on Their Majesties), "will one day thank me, if I am happy enough to

dissuade dishonourable, impolitic, or unjust sentiments. Of the

approbation of posterity I am certain--"

"If," interrupted the favourite, "the Prince of Asturias and his consort

will give up their bad counsellors, I hope Their Majesties will forget

and forgive everything with myself."

"Whether Their Royal Highnesses," replied the Duke of Montemar, "have

done anything that deserves forgiveness, or whether they have any

counsellors, I do not know, and am incompetent to judge; but I am much

mistaken in the character of Their Royal Highnesses if they wish to

purchase favour at the expense of confidence and honour. An order from

His Majesty may immediately clear up this doubt."

The Prince of Peace was then ordered to write, in the name of the King,

to his children in the manner he proposed, and to command an answer by

the messenger. In half an hour the messenger returned with a letter

addressed to the favourite, containing only these lines:

"A King of Spain is well aware that a Prince and Princess of Asturias can

have no answer to give to such proposals or to such questions."

After six days' arrest, and after the Prince of Peace had in vain

endeavoured to discover something to inculpate Their Royal Highnesses,

they were invited to Court, and reconciled both to him and their royal

parents.

LETTER VIII.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--I will add in this letter, to the communication of the

gentlemen mentioned in my last, what I remember myself of the letter

which was circulated among our diplomatists, concerning the intrigues at

Madrid.

The Prince of Peace, before he listened to the advice of Duke of

Montemar, had consulted Beurnonville, who dissuaded all violence, and as

much as possible all noise. This accounts for the favourite's pretended

moderation on this occasion. But though he was externally reconciled,

and, as was reported at Madrid, had sworn his reconciliation even by

taking the sacrament, all the undertakings of the Prince and Princess of

Asturias were strictly observed and reported by the spies whom he had

placed round Their Royal Highnesses. Vain of his success and victory, he

even lost that respectful demeanour which a good, nay, a well-bred

subject always shows to the heir to the throne, and the Princes related

to his Sovereign. He sometimes behaved with a premeditated familiarity,

and with an insolence provoking or defying resentment. It was on the

days of great festivities, when the Court was most brilliant, and the

courtiers most numerous, that he took occasion to be most arrogant to

those whom he traitorously and audaciously dared to call his rivals. On

the 9th of last December, at the celebration of the Queen's birthday, his

conduct towards Their Royal Highnesses excited such general indignation

that the remembrance of the occasion of the fete, and the presence of

their Sovereigns, could not repress a murmur, which made the favourite

tremble. A signal from the Prince of Asturias would then have been

sufficient to have caused the insolent upstart to be seized and thrown

out of the window. I am told that some of the Spanish grandees even laid

their hands on their swords, fixing their eyes on the heir to the throne,

as if to say: "Command, and your unworthy enemy shall exist no more."

To prepare, perhaps, the royal and paternal mind for deeds which

contemporaries always condemn, and posterity will always reprobate, the

Prince of Peace procured a history to be written in his own way and

manner, of Don Carlos, the unfortunate son of the barbarous and unnatural

Philip II.; but the Queen's confessor, though, like all her other

domestics, a tool of the favourite, threw it into the fire with reproof,

saying that Spain did not remember in Philip II. the grand and powerful

Monarch, but abhorred in him the royal assassin; adding that no laws,

human or divine, no institutions, no supremacy whatever, could authorize

a parent to stain his hands in the blood of his children. These

anecdotes are sufficient both to elucidate the inveteracy of the

favourite, the abject state of the heir to the throne, and the

incomprehensible infatuation of the King and Queen.

Our Ambassador, in the meantime, dissembled always with the Prince and

Princess of Asturias; and even made them understand that he disapproved

of those occurrences so disagreeable to them; but he neither offered to

put an end to them nor to be a mediator for a perfect reconciliation with

their Sovereigns. He was guided by no other motive but to keep the

favourite in subjection and alarm by preserving a correspondence with his

rivals. That this was the case and the motive cannot be doubted from the

financial intrigue he carried on in the beginning of last month.

Foreigners have but an imperfect or erroneous idea of the amount of the

immense sums Spain has paid to our Government in loans, in contributions,

in donations, and in subsidies. Since the reign of Bonaparte, or for

these last five years, upwards of half the revenue of the Spanish

monarchy has either been brought into our National Treasury or into the

privy purse of the Bonaparte family. Without the aid of Spanish money,

neither would our gunboats have been built, our fleets equipped, nor our

armies paid. The dreadful situation of the Spanish finances is,

therefore, not surprising--it is, indeed, still more surprising that a

general bankruptcy has not already involved the Spanish nation in a

general ruin.

When, on his return from Italy, the recall of the Russian negotiator and

the preparations of Austria convinced Bonaparte of the probability of a

Continental war, our troops on the coast had not been paid for two

months, and his Imperial Ministers of Finances had no funds either to

discharge the arrears or to provide for future payments until the

beginning of the year 14, or the 22d instant. Beurnonville was,

therefore, ordered to demand peremptorily from the Cabinet of Madrid

forty millions of livres--in advance upon future subsidies. Half of that

sum had, indeed, shortly before arrived at Cadiz from America, but much

more was due by the Spanish Government to its own creditors, and promised

them in payment of old debts. The Prince of Peace, in consequence,

declared that, however much he wished to oblige the French Government, it

was utterly impossible to procure, much less to advance such sums.

Beurnonville then became more assiduous than ever about the Prince and

Princess of Asturias; and he had the impudence to assert that they had

promised, if their friends were at the head of affairs, to satisfy the

wishes and expectation of the Emperor of the French, by seizing the

treasury at Cadiz, and paying the State creditors in vales deinero; notes

hitherto payable in cash, and never at a discount. The stupid favourite

swallowed the palpable bait; four millions in dollars were sent under an

escort to this country, while the Spanish notes instantly fell to a

discount at first of four and afterwards of six per cent., and probably

will fall lower still, as no treasures are expected from America this

autumn. It was with two millions of these dollars that the credit of the

Bank of France was restored, or at least for some time enabled to resume

its payments in specie. Thus wretched Spain pays abroad for the forging

of those disgraceful fetters which oppress her at home; and supports a

foreign tyranny, which finally must produce domestic misery as well as

slavery.

When the Prince and Princess of Asturias were informed of the scandalous

and false assertion of Beurnonville, they and their adherents not only

publicly, and in all societies, contradicted it, but affirmed that,

rather than obtain authority or influence on such ruinous terms, they

would have consented to remain discarded and neglected during their

lives. They took the more care to have their sentiments known on this

subject, as our Ambassador's calumny had hurt their popularity. It was

then first that, to revenge the shame with which his duplicity had

covered him, Beurnonville permitted and persuaded the Prince of Peace to

begin the chastisement of Their Royal Highnesses in the persons of their

favourites. Duke of Montemar, the grand officer to the Prince of

Asturias; Marquis of Villa Franca, the grand equerry to the Princess of

Asturias; Count of Miranda, chamberlain to the King; and the Countess

Dowager del Monte, with six other Court ladies and four other noblemen,

were, therefore, exiled from Madrid into different provinces, and

forbidden to reside in any place within twenty leagues of the residence

of the royal family. According to the last letters and communications

from Spain, the Prince and Princess of Asturias had not appeared at Court

since the insult offered them in the disgrace of their friends, and were

resolved not to appear in any place where they might be likely to meet

with the favourite.

Among our best informed politicians here, it is expected that a

revolution and a change of dynasty will be the issue of this our

political embryo in Spain. Napoleon has more than once indirectly hinted

that the Bonaparte dynasty will never be firm and fixed in France as long

as any Bourbons reign in Spain or Italy. Should he prove victorious in

the present Continental contest, another peace, and not the most

advantageous, will again be signed with your country--a peace which, I

fear, will leave him absolute master of all Continental States. His

family arrangements are publicly avowed to be as follow: His third

brother, Louis, and his sons, are to be the heirs of the French Empire.

Joseph Bonaparte is, at the death or resignation of Napoleon, to succeed

to the Kingdom of Italy, including Naples. Lucien, though at present in

disgrace, is considered as the person destined to supplant the Bourbons

in Spain, where, during his embassy in 1800, and in 1801, he formed

certain connections which Napoleon still keeps up and preserves. Holland

will be the inheritance of Jerome should Napoleon not live long enough to

extend his power in Great Britain. Such are the modest pretensions our

Imperial courtiers bestow upon the family of our Sovereign.

As to the Prince of Peace, he is only an imbecile instrument in the hands

of our intriguers and innovators, which they make use of as long as they

find it necessary, and which, when that ceases to be the case, they break

and throw away. This idiot is made to believe that both his political

and physical existence depends entirely upon our support, and he has

infused the same ridiculous notion into his accomplices and adherents.

Guilt, ignorance, and cowardice thus misled may, directed by art,

interest, and craft, perform wonders to entangle themselves in the

destruction of their country.

Beurnonville, our present Ambassador at Madrid, is the son of a porter,

and was a porter himself when, in 1770, he enlisted as a soldier in one

of our regiments serving in the East Indies. Having there collected some

pillage, he purchased the place of a major in the militia of the Island

of Bourbon, but was, for his immorality, broken by the governor.

Returning to France, he bitterly complained of this injustice, and, after

much cringing in the antechambers of Ministers, he obtained at last the

Cross of St. Louis as a kind of indemnity. About the same time he also

bought with his Indian wealth the place of an officer in the Swiss Guard

of Monsieur, the present Louis XVIII. Being refused admittance into any

genteel societies, he resorted with Barras and other disgraced nobles to

gambling-houses, and he even kept to himself when the Revolution took

place. He had at the same time, and for a certain interest, advanced

Madame d'Estainville money to establish her famous, or rather infamous,

house in the Rue de Bonnes Enfants, near the Palais Royal,--a house that

soon became the fashionable resort of our friends of Liberty and

Equality.

In 1790, Beurnonville offered his services as aide-de-camp to our then

hero of great ambition and small capacity, La Fayette, who declined the

honour. The Jacobins were not so nice. In 1792, they appointed him a

general under Dumouriez, who baptized him his Ajax. This modern Ajax,

having obtained a separate command, attacked Treves in a most ignorant

manner, and was worsted with great loss. The official reports of our

revolutionary generals have long been admired for their modesty as well

as veracity; but Beurnonville has almost outdone them all, not excepting

our great Bonaparte. In a report to the National Convention concerning a

terrible engagement of three hours near Grewenmacker, Beurnonville

declares that, though the number of the enemy killed was immense, his

troops got out of the scrape with the loss of only the little finger of

one of his riflemen. On the 4th of February, 1793, a fortnight after the

execution of Louis XVI., he was nominated Minister of the War

Department--a place which he refused, under a pretence that he was better

able to serve his country with his sword than with his pen, having

already been in one hundred and twenty battles (where, he did not

enumerate or state). On the 14th of the following March, however, he

accepted the ministerial portfolio, which he did not keep long, being

delivered up by his Hector, Dumouriez, to the Austrians. He remained a

prisoner at Olmutz until the 22d of November, 1795, when he was included

among the persons exchanged for the daughter of Louis XVI., Her present

Royal Highness, the Duchess of Angouleme.

In the autumn of 1796 he had a temporary, command of the dispersed

remnants of Jourdan's army, and in 1797 he was sent as a French commander

to Holland. In 1799, Bonaparte appointed him an Ambassador to the Court

of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of

Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his

personal qualities make him esteemed. In France, he is laughed at as a

boaster, but not trusted as a warrior. In Spain, he is neither dreaded

nor esteemed, neither laughed at nor courted; he is there universally

despised. He studies to be thought a gentleman; but the native porter

breaks through the veil of a ridiculously affected and outre politeness.

Notwithstanding the complacent grimaces of his face, the self-sufficiency

of his looks, his systematically powdered and dressed hair, his showy

dress, his counted and short bows, and his presumptuous conversation,

teeming with ignorance, vulgarity, and obscenity, he cannot escape even

the most inattentive observer.

The Ambassador, Beurnonville, is now between fifty and sixty years of

age; is a grand officer of our Imperial Legion of Honour; has a brother

who is a turnkey, and two sisters, one married to a tailor, and another

to a merchant who cries dogs' and cats' meat in our streets.

LETTER IX.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Bonaparte did not at first intend to take his wife with him

when he set out for Strasburg; but her tears, the effect of her

tenderness and apprehension for his person, at last altered his

resolution. Madame Napoleon, to tell the truth, does not like much to be

in the power of Joseph, nor even in that of her son-in-law, Louis

Bonaparte, should any accident make her a widow.

During the Emperor's absence, the former is the President of the Senate,

and the latter the Governor of this capital, and commander of the troops

in the interior; so that the one dictates the Senatus Consultum, in case

of a vacancy of the throne, and the other supports these civil

determinations with his military forces. Even with the army in Germany,

Napoleon's brother-in-law, Murat, is as a pillar of the Bonaparte

dynasty, and to prevent the intrigues and plots of other generals from an

Imperial diadem; while, in Italy, his step-son, Eugene de Beauharnais, as

a viceroy, commands even the commander-in-chief, Massena. It must be

granted that the Emperor has so ably taken his precautions that it is

almost certain that, at first, his orders will be obeyed, even after his

death; and the will deposited by him in the Senate, without opposition,

carried into execution. These very precautions evince, however, how

uncertain and precarious he considers his existence to be, and that,

notwithstanding addresses and oaths, he apprehends that the Bonaparte

dynasty will not survive him.

Most of the generals now employed by him are either of his own creation,

or men on whom he has conferred rank and wealth, which they might

consider unsafe under any other Prince but a Bonaparte. The superior

officers, not included in the above description, are such insignificant

characters that, though he makes use of their experience and courage, he

does not fear their views or ambition. Among the inferior officers, and

even among the men, all those who have displayed, either at reviews or in

battles, capacity, activity, or valour, are all members of his Legion of

Honour; and are bound to him by the double tie of gratitude and

self-interest. They look to him alone for future advancements, and for

the preservation of the distinction they have obtained from him. His

emissaries artfully disseminate that a Bourbon would inevitably overthrow

everything a Bonaparte has erected; and that all military and civil

officers rewarded or favoured by Napoleon the First will not only be

discarded, but disgraced, and perhaps punished, by a Louis XVIII. Any

person who would be imprudent enough to attempt to prove the

impossibility, as well as the absurdity, of these impolitic and

retrospective measures, would be instantly taken up and shot as an

emissary of the Bourbons.

I have often amused myself in conversing with our new generals and new

officers; there is such a curious mixture of ignorance and information,

of credulity and disbelief, of real boasting and affected modesty, in

everything they say or do in company; their manners are far from being

elegant, but also very distant from vulgarity; they do not resemble those

of what we formerly called 'gens comme il faut', and 'la bonne societe'!

nor those of the bourgeoisie, or the lower classes. They form a new

species of fashionables, and a 'haut ton militaire', which strikes a

person accustomed to Courts at first with surprise, and perhaps with

indignation; though, after a time, those of our sex, at last, become

reconciled, if not pleased with it, because there is a kind of military

frankness interwoven with the military roughness. Our ladies, however (I

mean those who have seen other Courts, or remember our other coteries),

complain loudly of this alteration of address, and of this fashionable

innovation; and pretend that our military, under the notion of being

frank, are rude, and by the negligence of their manners and language, are

not only offensive, but inattentive and indelicate. This is so much the

more provoking to them, as our Imperial courtiers and Imperial placemen

do not think themselves fashionable without imitating our military

gentry, who take Napoleon for their exclusive model and chief in

everything, even in manners.

What I have said above applies only to those officers whose parents are

not of the lowest class, or who entered so early or so young into the

army that they may be said to have been educated there, and as they

advanced, have assumed the 'ton' of their comrades of the same rank. I

was invited, some time ago, to a wedding, by a jeweller whose sister had

been my nurse, and whose daughter was to be married to a captain of

hussars quartered here. The bridegroom had engaged several other

officers to assist at the ceremony, and to partake of the fete and ball

that followed. A general of the name of Liebeau was also of the party,

and obtained the place of honour by the side of the bride's mother. At

his entrance into the apartment I formed an opinion of him which his

subsequent conduct during the ball confirmed.

During the dinner he seemed to forget that he had a knife and a fork, and

he did not eat of a dish (and he ate of them all, numerous as they were)

without bespattering or besmearing himself or his neighbours. He broke

two glasses and one plate, and, for equality's sake, I suppose, when he

threw the wine on the lady to his right, the lady to his left was

inundated with sauces. In getting up from dinner to take coffee and

liqueurs, according to our custom, as he took the hand of the mistress of

the house, he seized at the same time a corner of the napkin, and was not

aware of his blunder till the destruction of bottles, glasses, and plate,

and the screams of the ladies, informed him of the havoc and terror his

awkward gallantry had occasioned. When the ball began, he was too vain

of his rank and precedency to suffer any one else to lead the bride down

the first dance; but she was not, I believe, much obliged to him for his

politeness; it cost her the tail of her wedding-gown and a broken nail,

and she continued lame during the remainder of the night. In making an

apology to her for his want of dexterity, and assuring her that he was

not so awkward in handling the enemies of his country in battle as in

handling friends he esteemed in a dance, he gave no quarter to an old

maid aunt, whom, in the violence of his gesticulation, he knocked down

with his elbow and laid sprawling on the ground. He was sober when these

accidents literally occurred.

Of this original I collected the following particulars: Before the

Revolution he was a soldier in the regiment of Flanders, from which he

deserted and became a corporal in another regiment; in 1793 he was a

drum-major in one of the battalions in garrison in Paris. You remember

the struggles of factions in the latter part of May and in the beginning

of June, the same year, when Brissot and his accomplices were contending

with Marat, Robespierre, and their adherents for the reins of power. On

the 1st of June the latter party could not get a drummer to beat the

alarm, though they offered money and advancement. At last Robespierre

stepped forward to Liebeau and said, "Citizen, beat the alarm march, and

to-day you shall be nominated a general." Liebeau obeyed, Robespierre

became victorious and kept his promise, and thus my present associate

gained his rank. He has since been employed under Jourdan in Germany,

and under Le Courbe in Switzerland. When, under the former, he was

ordered to retreat towards the Rhine, he pointed out the march route to

his division according to his geographical knowledge, but mistook upon

the map the River Main for a turnpike road, and commanded the retreat

accordingly. Ever since, our troops have called that river 'La chausee

de Liebeau'. He was not more fortunate in Helvetia. Being ordered to

cross one of the mountains, he marched his men into a glacier, where

twelve perished before he was aware of his mistake.

Being afterwards appointed a governor of Blois, he there became a petty,

insupportable tyrant, and laid all the inhabitants indiscriminately under

arbitrary contribution. Those who refused to pay were imprisoned as

aristocrats, and their property confiscated in the name and on the part

of the nation; that is to say, he appropriated to himself in the name of

the nation everything that struck his fancy; and if any complaints were

made, the owners were seized and sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal at

Paris to be condemned as the correspondents or adherents of the royalists

of La Vendee. After the death of Robespierre he was deprived of this

profitable place, in which, during the short space of eleven months, he

amassed five millions of livres. The Directory, then gave him a

division, first under Jourdan, and afterwards under Le Courbe.

Bonaparte, after witnessing his incapacity in Italy, in 1800, put him on

the full half-pay, and has lately made him a commander of the Legion of

Honour.

His dear spouse, Madame Liebeau, is his counterpart. When he married

her, she was crying mackerel and herrings in our streets; but she told me

in confidence, during the dinner, being seated by my side, that her

father was an officer of fortune, and a Chevalier of the Order of St.

Louis. She assured me that her husband had done greater services to his

country than Bonaparte; and that, had it not been for his patriotism in

1793, the Austrians would have taken Paris. She was very angry with

Madame Napoleon, to whom she had been presented, but who had not shown

her so much attention and civility, as was due to her husband's rank,

having never invited her to more than one supper and two tea-parties; and

when invited by her, had sent Duroc with an apology that she was unable

to come, though the same evening she went to the opera.

Another guest, in the regimentals of a colonel, seemed rather bashful

when I spoke to him. I could not comprehend the reason, and therefore

inquired of our host who he was. (You know that with us it is not the

custom to introduce persons by name, etc., as in your country, when

meeting in mixed companies.) He answered:

"Do you not remember your brother's jockey, Prial?"

"Yes," said I, "but he was established by my brother as a hairdresser."

"He is the very same person," replied the jeweller. "He has fought very

bravely, and is now a colonel of dragoons, a great favourite with

Bonaparte, and will be a general at the first promotion."

As the colonel did not seem to desire a renewal of acquaintance with me,

I did not intrude myself upon him.

During the supper the military gentlemen were encouraged by the

bridegroom, and the bottle went round very freely; and the more they

drank, the greater and more violent became their political discussions.

Liebeau vociferated in favour of republican and revolutionary measures,

and avowed his approbation of requisitions, confiscations, and the

guillotine; while Frial inclined to the regular and organized despotism

of one, to secret trial, and still more secret executions; defending

arbitrary imprisonments, exiles, and transportations. This displeased

Madame Liebeau, who exclaimed:

"Since the colonel is so fond of an Imperial Government, he can have no

objection to remain a faithful subject whenever my husband, Liebeau,

becomes, an Antoine the First, Emperor of the French."

Frial smiled with contempt.

"You seem to think it improbable," said Liebeau. "I, Antoine Liebeau, I

have more prospect of being an Emperor than Napoleon Bonaparte had ten

years ago, when he was only a colonel, and was arrested as a terrorist.

And am I not a Frenchman? And is he not a foreigner? Come, shake hands

with me; as soon as I am Emperor, depend upon it you shall be a general,

and a grand officer of the Legion of Honour."

"Ah! my jewel," interrupted Madame Liebeau, "how happy will France then

be. You are such a friend of peace. We will then have no wars, no

contributions; all the English milords may then come here and spend their

money, nobody cares about where or how. Will you not, then, my sweet

love, make all the gentlemen here your chamberlains, and permit me to

accept all the ladies of the company for my Maids of Honour or

ladies-in-waiting?"

"Softly, softly," cried Frial, who now began to be as intoxicated and as

ambitious as the general; "whenever Napoleon dies, I have more hope,

more: claim, and more right than you to the throne. I am in actual

service; and had not Bonaparte been the same, he might have still

remained upon the half-pay, obscure and despised. Were not most of the

Field-marshals and generals under him now, above him ten years ago? May

I not, ten years hence, if I am satisfied with you, General Liebeau, make

you also a Field-marshal, or my Minister of War; and you, Madame Liebeau,

a lady of my wife's wardrobe, as soon as I am married? I, too, have my

plans and my views, and perhaps one day you will recollect this

conversation, and not be sorry for my acquaintance."

"What! you a colonel, an Emperor, before me, who have so long been a

general?" howled Liebeau, who was no longer able to speak. "I would

sooner knock your brains out with this bottle than suffer such a

precedence; and my wife a lady of your wardrobe! she who has possessed

from her birth the soul of an Empress! No, sir! never will I take the

oath to you, nor suffer anybody else to take it."

"Then I will punish you as a rebel," retorted Frial; "and as sure as you

stand here you shall be shot."

Liebeau then rose up to fetch his sword, but the company interfered, and

the dispute about the priority of claim to the throne of France between

the ci-devant drummer and ci-devant jockey was left undecided. From the

words and looks of several of the captains present, I think that they

seemed, in their own opinions, to have as much prospect and expectation

to reign over the French Empire as either General Liebeau or Colonel

Frial.

As soon as I returned home I wrote down this curious conversation and

this debate about supremacy. To what a degradation is the highest rank

in my unfortunate country reduced when two such personages seriously

contend about it! I collected more subjects for meditation and

melancholy in this low company (where, by the bye, I witnessed more

vulgarity and more indecencies than I had before seen during my life)

than from all former scenes of humiliation and disgust since my return

here. When I the next day mentioned it to General de M------, whom you

have known as an emigrant officer in your service, but whom policy has

since ranged under the colours of Bonaparte, he assured me that these

discussions about the Imperial throne are very frequent among the

superior officers, and have caused many bloody scenes; and that hardly

any of our generals of any talent exist who have not the same 'arriere

pensee of some day or other. Napoleon cannot, therefore, well be

ignorant of the many other dynasties here now rivalling that of the

Bonapartes, and who wait only for his exit to tear his Senatus Consultum,

his will, and his family, as well as each other, to pieces.

LETTER X.

PARIS, September, 1805.

My LORD:--I was lately invited to a tea-party by one of our rich

upstarts, who, from a scavenger, is, by the Revolution and by Bonaparte,

transformed into a Legislator, Commander of the Legion of Honour, and

possessor of wealth amounting to eighteen millions of livres. In this

house I saw for the first time the famous Madame Chevalier, the mistress,

and the indirect cause of the untimely end, of the unfortunate Paul the

First. She is very short, fat, and coarse. I do not know whether

prejudice, from what I have heard of her vile, greedy, and immoral

character, influenced my feelings, but she appeared to me a most artful,

vain, and disagreeable woman. She looked to be about thirty-six years of

age; and though she might when younger have been well made, it is

impossible that she could ever have been handsome. The features of her

face are far from being regular. Her mouth is large, her eyes hollow,

and her nose short. Her language is that of brothels, and her manners

correspond with her expressions. She is the daughter of a workman at a

silk manufactory at Lyons; she ceased to be a maid before she had

attained the age of a woman, and lived in a brothel in her native city,

kept by a Madame Thibault, where her husband first became acquainted with

her. She then had a tolerably good voice, was young and insinuating, and

he introduced her on the same stage where he was one of the inferior

dancers. Here in a short time she improved so much, that she was engaged

as a supernumerary; her salary in France as an actress was, however,

never above twelve hundred livres in the year--which was four hundred

livres more than her husband received.

He, with several other inferior and unprincipled actors and dancers,

quitted the stage in the beginning of the Revolution for the clubs; and

instead of diverting his audience, resolved to reform and regenerate his

nation. His name is found in the annals of the crimes perpetrated at

Lyons, by the side of that of a Fouche, a Collot d'Herbois, and other

wicked offsprings of rebellion. With all other terrorists, he was

imprisoned for some time after the death of Robespierre; as soon as

restored to liberty, he set out with his wife for Hamburg, where some

amateurs had constructed a French theatre.

It was in the autumn of 1795 when Madame Chevalier was first heard of in

the North of Europe, where her arrival occasioned a kind of theatrical

war between the French, American, and Hamburg Jacobins on one side, and

the English and emigrant loyalists on the other. Having no money to

continue her pretended journey to Sweden, she asked the manager of the

French theatre at Hamburg to allow her a benefit, and permission to play

on that night. She selected, of course, a part in which she could appear

to the most advantage, and was deservedly applauded. The very next

evening the Jacobin cabal called the manager upon the stage, and insisted

that Madame Chevalier should be given a regular engagement. He replied

that no place suitable to her talents was vacant, and that it would be

ungenerous to turn away for her sake another actress with whom the public

had hitherto declared their satisfaction. The Jacobins continued

inflexible, and here, as well as everywhere else, supported injustice by

violence. As the patriotism of the husband, more than the charms of the

wife, was known to have produced this indecent fracas, which for upwards

of a week interrupted the plays, all anti-Jacobins united to restore

order. In this they would, perhaps, have finally succeeded, had not the

bayonets of the Hamburg soldiers interfered, and forced this precious

piece of revolutionary furniture upon the manager and upon the stage.

After displaying her gratitude in her own way to each individual of the

Jacobin levy en masse in her favour, she was taken into keeping by a then

rich and married Hamburg merchant, who made her a present of a richly and

elegantly furnished house, and expended besides ten thousand louis d'or

on her, before he had a mortifying conviction that some other had

partaken of those favours for which he had so dearly paid. A countryman

of yours then showed himself with more noise than honour upon the scene,

and made his debut with a phaeton and four, which he presented to his

theatrical goddess, together with his own dear portrait, set round with

large and valuable diamonds. Madame Chevalier, however, soon afterwards

hearing that her English gallant had come over to Germany for economy,

and that his credit with his banker was nearly exhausted, had his

portrait changed for that of another and richer lover, preserving,

however, the diamonds; and she exposed this inconstancy even upon the

stage, by suspending, as if in triumph, the new portrait fastened on her

bosom. The Englishman, wishing to retrieve his phaeton and horses, which

he protested only to have lent his belle, found that she had put the

whole equipage into a kind of lottery, or raffle, to which all her

numerous friends had subscribed, and that an Altona Jew had won it.

The successor of your countryman was a Russian nobleman, succeeded in his

turn by a Polish Jew, who was ruined and discarded within three months.

She then became the property of the public, and, by her active industry,

during a stay of four years at Hamburg, she was enabled to remit to

France, before her departure for Russia, one million two hundred thousand

livres. Her popularity was, however, at that period, very much on the

decline, as she had stooped to the most indelicate means to collect

money, and to extort it from her friends and acquaintances. She had

always lists of subscriptions in her pocket; some with proposals to play

in her lotteries for trinkets unnecessary to her; others, to procure her,

by the assistance of subscribers, some trinkets which she wanted.

I suppose it to be no secret to you that the female agents of

Talleyrand's secret diplomacy are frequently more useful than those of

the other sex. I am told that Madame Rochechouart was that friend of our

Ministers who engaged Madame Chevalier in her Russian expedition, and who

instructed her how to act her parts well at St. Petersburg. I need not

repeat what is so well known, that, after this artful emissary had ruined

the domestic happiness of the Russian Monarch, she degraded him in his

political transactions, and became the indirect cause of his untimely

end, in procuring, for a bribe of fifty thousand roubles in money and

jewels, the recall of one of the principal conspirators against the

unfortunate Paul.

The wealth she plundered in the Russian capital, within the short period

of twenty months, amounted to much above one million of roubles. For

money she procured impunity for crime, and brought upon innocence the

punishment merited by guilt. The scaffolds of Russia were bleeding, and

the roads to Siberia crowded with the victims of the avarice of this

female demon, who often promised what she was unable to perform, and, to

silence complaint, added cruelty to fraud, and, after pocketing the

bribe, resorted to the executioner to remove those whom she had duped.

The shocking anecdote of the Sardinian secretary, whom she swindled out

of nearly a hundred thousand roubles, and on whom she afterwards

persuaded her Imperial lover to inflict capital punishment, is too recent

and too public to be unknown or forgotten. A Russian nobleman has

assured me that the number of unfortunate individuals whom her and her

husband's intrigues have caused to suffer capitally during 1800 and 1801

was forty-six; and that nearly three hundred persons besides, who could

not or would not pay their extortionate demands, were exiled to Siberia

during the same period of time.

You may, perhaps, think that a low woman who could produce such great and

terrible events, must be mistress of natural charms, as well as of

acquired accomplishments. As I have already stated, she can have no

pretensions to either, but she is extremely insinuating, sings tolerably

well, has a fresh and healthy look, and possesses an unusually good share

of cunning, presumption, and duplicity. Her husband, also, everywhere

took care to make her fashionable; and the vanity of the first of their

dupes increased the number of her admirers and engaged the vanity of

others in their turn to sacrifice themselves at her shrine.

The immorality of our age, also, often procured her popularity for what

deserved, and in better times would have encountered, the severest

reprobation. In 1797, an emigrant lodged at an inn at Hamburg where

another traveller was robbed of a large sum in ready money and jewels.

The unfortunate is always suspected; and in the visit made to his room by

the magistrates was found a key that opened the door of the apartment

where the theft had been committed. In vain did he represent that had he

been the thief he should not have kept an instrument which was, or might

be, construed into an argument of guilt; he was carried to prison, and,

though none of the property was discovered in his possession, would have

been condemned, had he not produced Madame Chevalier, who avowed that the

key opened the door of her bedroom, which the smith who had made it

confirmed, and swore that he had fabricated eight keys for the same

actress and for the same purpose.

At that time this woman lived in the same house with her husband, but

cohabited there with the husband of another woman. She had also places

of assignation with other gallants at private apartments, both in Hamburg

and at Altona. All these, her scandalous intrigues, were known even to

the common porters of these cities. The first time, after the affair of

the key had become public, she acted in a play where a key was mentioned,

and the audience immediately repeated, "The key! the key!" Far from

being ashamed, she appeared every night in pieces selected by her, where

there was mention of keys, and thus tired the jokes of the public. This

impudence might have been expected from her, but it was little to be

supposed that her barefaced vices should, as really was the case, augment

the crowd of suitors, and occasion even some duels, which latter she both

encouraged and rewarded.

Two brothers, of the name of De S-----, were both in love with her, and

the eldest, as the richest, became her choice. Offended at his refusal

of too large a sum of money, she wrote to the younger De S-----, and

offered to accede to his proposals if, like a gentleman, he would avenge

the affront she had experienced from his brother. He consulted a friend,

who, to expose her infamy, advised him to send some confidential person

to inform her that he had killed his elder brother, and expected the

recompense on the same night. He went and was received with open arms,

and had just retired with her, when the elder brother, accompanied by his

friend, entered the room. Madame Chevalier, instead of upbraiding,

laughed, and the next day the public laughed with her, and applauded her

more than ever. She knew very well what she was doing. The stories of

the key and the duel produced for her more than four thousand louis d'or

by the number of new gallants they enticed. It was a kind of emulation

among all young men in the North who should be foremost to dishonour and

ruin himself with this infamous woman.

Madame Chevalier and her husband now live here in grand style, and have

their grand parties, grand teas, grand assemblies, and grand balls. Their

hotel, I am assured, is even visited by the Bonapartes and by the members

of the foreign diplomatic corps. In the house where I saw her, I

observed that Louis Bonaparte and two foreign Ambassadors spoke to her as

old acquaintances. Though rich, to the amount of ten millions of

livres--she, or rather her husband, keeps a gambling-house, and her

superannuated charms are still to be bought for money, at the disposal of

those amateurs who are fond of antiques. Both her husband and herself

are still members of our secret diplomacy, though she complains loudly

that, of the two millions of livres--promised her in 1799 by Bonaparte

and Talleyrand if she could succeed in persuading Paul I. to withdraw

from his alliance with England and Austria, only six hundred thousand

livres--has been paid her.

I cannot finish this letter without telling you that before our military

forces had reached the Rhine, our political incendiaries had already

taken the field, and were in full march towards the Austrian, Russian,

and Prussian capitals. The advanced guard of this dangerous corps

consists entirely of females, all gifted with beauty and parts as much

superior to those of Madame Chevalier as their instructions are better

digested. Bonaparte and Talleyrand have more than once regretted that

Madame Chevalier was not ordered to enter into the conspiracy against

Paul (whose inconsistency and violence they foresaw would make his reign

short), that she might have influenced the conspirators to fix upon a

successor more pliable and less scrupulous, and who would have suffered

the Cabinet of St. Cloud to dictate to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.

I dined in company several times this last spring with two ladies who,

rumour said, have been destined for your P----- of W---- and D--- of

Y---ever since the Peace of Amiens. Talleyrand is well informed what

figures and what talents are requisite to make an impression on these

Princes, and has made his choice accordingly. These ladies have lately

disappeared, and when inquired after are stated to be in the country,

though I do not consider it improbable that they have already arrived at

headquarters. They are both rather fair and lusty, above the middle

size, and about twenty-five years of age. They speak, besides French,

the English and Italian languages. They are good drawers, good

musicians, good singers, and, if necessary, even good drinkers.

LETTER XI.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Had the citizens of the United States been as submissive to the

taxation of your Government as to the vexations of our ruler, America

would, perhaps, have been less free and Europe more tranquil. After the

treaty of Amiens had Produced a general pacification, our Government was

seriously determined to reconquer from America a part of those treasures

its citizens had gained during the Revolutionary War, by a neutrality

which our policy and interest required, and which the liberality of your

Government endured. Hence the acquisition we made of New Orleans from

Spain, and hence the intrigues of our emissaries in that colony, and the

peremptory requisitions of provision for St. Domingo by our Minister and

generals. Had we been victorious in St. Domingo, most of our troops

there were destined for the American Continent, to invade, according to

circumstances, either the Spanish colonies on the terra firma or the

States of the American Commonwealth. The unforeseen rupture with your

country postponed a plan that is far from being laid aside.

You may, perhaps, think that since we sold Louisiana we have no footing

in America that can threaten the peace or independence of the United

States; but may not the same dictates that procured us at Madrid the

acquisition of New Orleans, also make us masters of Spanish Florida? And

do you believe it improbable that the present disagreement between

America and Spain is kept up by our intrigues and by our future views?

Would not a word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences

as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America? And does

it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to

provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of

their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we

insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because

we do not apprehend their resentment.

I have heard the late American Minister here assert that the American

vessels captured by our cruisers and condemned by our tribunals, only

during the last war, amounted to about five hundred; and their cargoes

(all American property) to one hundred and fifty millions of

livres--L6,000,000. Some few days ago I saw a printed list, presented by

the American consul to our Minister of the Marine Department, claiming

one hundred and twelve American ships captured in the West Indies and on

the coast of America within these last two years, the cargoes of which

have all been confiscated, and most of the crews still continue prisoners

at Martinico, Gaudeloupe, or Cayenne. Besides these, sixty-six American

ships, after being plundered in part of their cargoes at sea by our

privateers, had been released; and their claims for property thus lost,

or damage thus done, amounting to one million three hundred thousand

livres.

You must have read the proclamations of our governors in the West Indies,

and therefore remember that one dated at Guadeloupe, and another dated at

the City of San Domingo, both declare, without farther ceremony, all

American and other neutral ships and cargoes good and lawful prizes, when

coming from or destined to any port in the Island of St. Domingo, because

Bonaparte's subjects there were in a state of rebellion. What would

these philosophers who, twelve years ago, wrote so many libels against

your Ministers for their pretended system of famine, have said, had they,

instead of prohibiting the carrying of ammunition and provisions to the

ports of France, thus extended their orders without discrimination or

distinction? How would the neutral Americans, and the neutral Danes, and

their then allies, philosophers, and Jacobins of all colours and classes,

have complained and declaimed against the tyrants of the seas; against

the enemies of humanity, liberty, and equality. Have not the negroes

now, as much as our Jacobins had in 1793, a right to call upon all those

tender-hearted schemers, dupes, or impostors, to interest humanity in

their favour? But, as far as I know, no friends of liberty have yet

written a line in favour of these oppressed and injured men, whose former

slavery was never doubtful, and who, therefore, had more reason to rise

against their tyrants, and to attempt to shake off their yoke, than our

French insurgents, who, free before, have never since they revolted

against lawful authority enjoyed an hour's freedom. But the Emperor

Jacques the First has no propagators, no emissaries, no learned savans

and no secret agents to preach insurrection in other States, while

defending his own usurpation; besides, his treasury is not in the most

brilliant and flourishing situation, and the crew of our white

revolutionists are less attached to liberty than to cash.