LETTER XX.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—Though all the Bonapartes were great favourites with Pius VII., Madame Letitia, their mother, had a visible preference. In her apartments he seemed most pleased to meet the family parties, as they were called, because to them, except the Bonapartes, none but a few select favourites were invited,—a distinction as much wished for and envied as any other Court honour. After the Pope had fixed the evening he would appear among them, Duroc made out a list, under the dictates of Napoleon, of the chosen few destined to partake of the blessing of His Holiness's presence; this list was merely pro form, or as a compliment, laid before him; and after his tacit approbation, the individuals were informed, from the first chamberlain's office, that they would be honoured with admittance at such an hour, to such a company, and in such an apartment. The dress in which they were to appear was also prescribed. The parties usually met at six o'clock in the evening. On the Pope's entrance all persons, of both sexes, kneeled to receive his blessing. Tea, ice, liqueurs, and confectionery were then served. In the place of honour were three elevated elbow-chairs, and His Holiness was seated between the Emperor and Empress, and seldom spoke to any one to whom Napoleon did not previously address the word. The exploits of Bonaparte, particularly his campaigns in Egypt, were the chief subjects of conversation. Before eight o'clock the Pope always retired, distributing his blessing to the kneeling audience, as on his entry. When he was gone, card-tables were brought in, and play was permitted. Duroc received his master's orders how to distribute the places at the different tables, what games were to be played, and the amount of the sums to be staked. These were usually trifling and small compared to what is daily risked in our fashionable circles.

Often, after the Pope had returned to his own rooms, Madame Letitia Bonaparte was admitted to assist at his private prayers. This lady, whose intrigues and gallantry are proverbial in Corsica, has, now that she is old (as is generally the case), turned devotee, and is surrounded by hypocrites and impostors, who, under the mask of sanctity, deceive and plunder her. Her antechambers are always full of priests; and her closet and bedroom are crowded with relics, which she collected during her journey to Italy last year. She might, if she chose, establish a Catholic museum, and furnish it with a more curious collection, in its sort, than any of our other museums contain. Of all the saints in our calendar, there is not one of any notoriety who has not supplied her with a finger, a toe, or some other part; or with a piece of a shirt, a handkerchief, a sandal, or a winding-sheet. Even a bit of a pair of breeches, said to have belonged to Saint Mathurin, whom many think was a sans-cullotte, obtains her adoration on certain occasions. As none of her children have yet arrived at the same height of faith as herself, she has, in her will, bequeathed to the Pope all her relics, together with eight hundred and seventy-nine Prayer-books, and four hundred and forty-six Bibles, either in manuscript or of different editions. Her favourite breviary, used only on great solemnities, was presented to her by Cardinal Maury at Rome, and belonged, as it is said, formerly to Saint Francois, whose commentary, written with his own hand, fills the margins; though many, who with me adore him as a saint, doubt whether he could either read or write.

Not long ago she made, as she thought, an exceedingly valuable acquisition. A priest arrived direct from the Holy City of Jerusalem, well recommended by the inhabitants of the convents there, with whom he pretended to have passed his youth. After prostrating himself before the Pope, he waited on Madame Letitia Bonaparte. He told her that he had brought with him from Syria the famous relic, the shoulder-bone of Saint John the Baptist; but that, being in want of money for his voyage, he borrowed upon it from a Grecian Bishop in Montenegro two hundred louis d'or. This sum, and one hundred louis d'or besides, was immediately given him; and within three months, for a large sum in addition to those advanced, this precious relic was in Madame Letitia's possession.

Notwithstanding this lady's care not to engage in her service any person of either sex who cannot produce, not a certificate of civism from the municipality as was formerly the case, but a certificate of Christianity, and a billet of confession signed by the curate of the parish, she had often been robbed, and the robbers had made particularly free with those relics which were set in gold or in diamonds. She accused her daughter, the Princesse Borghese, who often rallies the devotion of her mamma, and who is more an amateur of the living than of the dead, of having played her these tricks. The Princess informed Napoleon of her mother's losses, as well as of her own innocence, and asked him to apply to the police to find out the thief, who no doubt was one of the pious rogues who almost devoured their mother.

On the next day Napoleon invited Madame Letitia to dinner, and Fouche had orders to make a strict search, during her absence, among the persons composing her household. Though he, on this occasion, did not find what he was looking for, he made a discovery which very much mortified Madame Letitia.

Her first chambermaid, Rosina Gaglini, possessed both her esteem and confidence, and had been sent for purposely from Ajaccio, in Corsica, on account of her general renown for great piety, and a report that she was an exclusive favourite with the Virgin Mary, by whose interference she had even performed, it was said, some miracles; such as restoring stolen goods, runaway cattle, lost children, and procuring prizes in the lottery. Rosina was as relic-mad as her mistress; and as she had no means to procure them otherwise, she determined to partake of her lady's by cutting off a small part of each relic of Madame Letitia's principal saints. These precious 'morceaux' she placed in a box upon which she kneeled to say her prayers during the day; and which, for a mortification, served her as a pillow during the night. Upon each of the sacred bits she had affixed a label with the name of the saint it belonged to, which occasioned the disclosure. When Madame Letitia heard of this pious theft, she insisted on having the culprit immediately and severely punished; and though the Princesse Borghese, as the innocent cause of poor Rosina's misfortune, interfered, and Rosina herself promised never more to plunder saints, she was without mercy turned away, and even denied money sufficient to carry her back to Corsica. Had she made free with Madame Letitia's plate or wardrobe, there is no doubt but that she had been forgiven; but to presume to share with her those sacred supports on her way to Paradise was a more unpardonable act with a devotee than to steal from a lover the portrait of an adored mistress.

In the meantime the police were upon the alert to discover the person whom they suspected of having stolen the relics for the diamonds, and not the diamonds for the relics. Among our fashionable and new saints, surprising as you may think it, Madame de Genlis holds a distinguished place; and she, too, is an amateur and collector of relics in proportion to her means; and with her were found those missed by Madame Letitia. Being asked to give up the name of him from whom she had purchased them, she mentioned Abbe Saladin, the pretended priest from Jerusalem. He, in his turn, was questioned, and by his answers gave rise to suspicion that he himself was the thief. The person of whom he pretended to have bought them was not to be found, nor was any one of such a description remembered to have been seen anywhere. On being carried to prison, he claimed the protection of Madame Letitia, and produced a letter in which this lady had promised him a bishopric either in France or in Italy. When she was informed of his situation, she applied to her son Napoleon for his liberty, urging that a priest who from Jerusalem had brought with him to Europe such an extraordinary relic as the shoulder of Saint John, could not be culpable.

Abbe Saladin had been examined by Real, who concluded, from the accent and perfection with which he spoke the French language, that he was some French adventurer who had imposed on the credulity and superstition of Madame Letitia; and, therefore, threatened him with the rack if he did not confess the truth. He continued, however, in his story, and was going to be released upon an order from the Emperor, when a gendarme recognized him as a person who, eight years before, had, under the name of Lanoue, been condemned for theft and forgery to the galleys, whence he had made his escape. Finding himself discovered, he avowed everything. He said he had served in Egypt, in the guides of Bonaparte, but deserted to the Turks and turned Mussulman, but afterwards returned to the bosom of the Church at Jerusalem. There he persuaded the friars that he had been a priest, and obtained the certificates which introduced him to the Pope and to the Emperor's mother; from whom he had received twelve thousand livres for part of the jaw bone of a whale, which he had sold her for the shoulder-bone of a saint. As the police believe the certificates he has produced to be also forged, he is detained in prison until an answer arrives from our Consul in Syria.

Madame Letitia did not resign without tears the relic he had sold her; and there is reason to believe that many other pieces of her collections, worshipped by her as remains of saints, are equally genuine as this shoulder-bone of Saint John.



LETTER XXI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—That the population of this capital has, since the Revolution, decreased near two hundred thousand souls, is not to be lamented. This focus of corruption and profligacy is still too populous, though the inhabitants do not amount to six hundred thousand; for I am well persuaded that more crimes and excesses of every description are committed here in one year than are perpetrated in the same period of time in all other European capitals put together. From not reading in our newspapers, as we do in yours, of the robberies, murders, and frauds discovered and punished, you may, perhaps, be inclined to suppose my assertion erroneous or exaggerated; but it is the policy of our present Government to labour as much as possible in the dark; that is to say, to prevent, where it can be done, all publicity of anything directly or indirectly tending to inculpate it of oppression, tyranny, or even negligence; and to conceal the immorality of the people so nearly connected with its own immoral power. It is true that many vices and crimes here, as well as everywhere else, are unavoidable, and the natural consequences of corruption, and might be promulgated, therefore, without attaching any reproach to our rulers; but they are so accustomed to the mystery adherent to tyranny, that even the most unimportant lawsuit, uninteresting intrigue, elopement, or divorce, are never allowed to be mentioned in our journals, without a previous permission from the prefect of police, who very seldom grants it.

Most of the enormities now deplored in this country are the consequence of moral and religious licentiousness, that have succeeded to political anarchy, or rather were produced by it, and survive it. Add to this the numerous examples of the impunity of guilt, prosperity of infamy, misery of honesty, and sufferings of virtue, and you will not think it surprising that, notwithstanding half a million of spies, our roads and streets are covered with robbers and assassins, and our scaffolds with victims.

The undeniable TRUTH that this city alone is watched by one hundred thousand spies (so that, when in company with six persons, one has reason to dread the presence of one spy), proclaims at once the morality of the governors and that of the governed: were the former just, and the latter good, this mass of vileness would never be employed; or, if employed, wickedness would expire for want of fuel, and the hydra of tyranny perish by its own pestilential breath.

According to the official registers published by Manuel in 1792, the number of spies all over France during the reign of Louis XVI. was nineteen thousand three hundred (five thousand less than under Louis XV.); and of this number six thousand were distributed in Paris, and in a circle of four leagues around it, including Versailles. You will undoubtedly ask me, even allowing for our extension of territory, what can be the cause of this disproportionate increase of distrust and depravity? I will explain it as far as my abilities admit, according to the opinions of others compared with my own remarks.

When factions usurped the supremacy of the Kings, vigilance augmented with insecurity; and almost everybody who was not an opposer, who refused being an accomplice, or feared to be a victim, was obliged to serve as an informer and vilify himself by becoming a spy. The rapidity with which parties followed and destroyed each other made the criminals as numerous as the sufferings of honour and loyalty innumerable; and I am sorry to say few persons exist in my degraded country, whose firmness and constancy were proof against repeated torments and trials, and who, to preserve their lives, did not renounce their principles and probity.

Under the reign of Robespierre and of the Committee of Public Safety, every member of Government, of the clubs, of the tribunals, and of the communes, had his private spies; but no regular register was kept of their exact number. Under the Directory a Police Minister was nominated, and a police office established. According to the declaration of the Police Minister, Cochon, in 1797, the spies, who were then regularly paid, amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand; and of these, thirty thousand did duty in this capital. How many there were in 1799, when Fouche, for the first time, was appointed a chief of the department of police, is not known, but suppose them doubled within two years; their increase since is nevertheless immense, considering that France has enjoyed upwards of four years' uninterrupted Continental peace, and has not been exposed to any internal convulsions during the same period.

You may, perhaps, object that France is not rich enough to keep up as numerous an army of spies as of soldiers; because the expense of the former must be triple the amount of the latter. Were all these spies, now called police agents, or agents of the secret police, paid regular salaries, your objection would stand, but most of them have no other reward than the protection of the police; being employed in gambling—houses, in coffee—houses, in taverns, at the theatres, in the public gardens, in the hotels, in lottery offices, at pawnbrokers', in brothels, and in bathing-houses, where the proprietors or masters of these establishments pay them. They receive nothing from the police, but when they are enabled to make any great discoveries, those who have been robbed or defrauded, and to whom they have been serviceable, are, indeed, obliged to present them with some douceur, fixed by the police at the rate of the value recovered; but such occurrences are merely accidental. To these are to be added all individuals of either sex who by the law are obliged to obtain from the police licenses to exercise their trade, as pedlars, tinkers, masters of puppet-shows, wild beasts, etc. These, on receiving their passes, inscribe themselves, and take the oaths as spies; and are forced to send in their regular reports of what they hear or see. Prostitutes, who, all over this country, are under the necessity of paying for regular licenses, are obliged also to give information, from time to time, to the nearest police commissary of what they observe or what they know respecting their visitors, neighbours, etc. The number of unfortunate women of this description who had taken out licenses during the year 12, or from September, 1803, to September, 1804, is officially known to have amounted to two hundred and twenty thousand, of whom forty thousand were employed by the armies.

It is no secret that Napoleon Bonaparte has his secret spies upon his wife, his brothers, his sisters, his Ministers, Senators, and other public functionaries, and also upon his public spies. These are all under his own immediate control and that of Duroc, who does the duty of his private Police Minister, and in whom he confides more than even in the members of his own family. In imitation of their master, each of the other Bonapartes, and each of the Ministers, have their individual spies, and are watched in their turn by the spies of their secretaries, clerks, etc. This infamous custom of espionage goes ad infinitum, and appertains almost to the establishment and to the suite of each man in place, who does not think himself secure a moment if he remains in ignorance of the transactions of his rivals, as well as of those of his equals and superiors.

Fouche and Talleyrand are reported to have disagreed before Bonaparte on some subject or other, which is frequently the case. The former, offended at some doubts thrown out about his intelligence, said to the latter:

"I am so well served that I can tell you the name of every man or woman you have conversed with, both yesterday and today; where you saw them, and how long you remained with them or they with you."

"If such commonplace espionage evinces any merit," retorted Talleyrand, "I am even here your superior; because I know not only what has already passed with you and in your house, but what is to pass hereafter. I can inform you of every dish you had for your dinners this week, who provided these dinners, and who is expected to provide your meats to-morrow and the day after. I can whisper you, in confidence, who slept with Madame Fouche last night, and who has an appointment with her to-night."

Here Bonaparte interrupted them, in his usual dignified language: "Hold both your tongues; you are both great rogues, but I am at a loss to decide which is the greatest."

Without uttering a single syllable, Talleyrand made a profound reverence to Fouche. Bonaparte smiled, and advised them to live upon good terms if they were desirous of keeping their places.

A man of the name of Ducroux, who, under Robespierre, had from a barber been made a general, and afterwards broken for his ignorance, was engaged by Bonaparte as a private spy upon Fouche, who employed him in the same capacity upon Bonaparte. His reports were always written, and delivered in person into the hands both of the Emperor and of his Minister. One morning he, by mistake, gave to Bonaparte the report of him instead of that intended for him. Bonaparte began to read: "Yesterday, at nine o'clock, the Emperor acted the complete part of a madman; he swore, stamped, kicked, foamed, roared—", here poor Ducroux threw himself at Bonaparte's feet, and called for mercy for the terrible blunder he had committed.

"For whom," asked Bonaparte, "did you intend this treasonable correspondence? I suppose it is composed for some English or Russian agent, for Pitt or for Marcoff. How long have you conspired with my enemies, and where are your accomplices?"

"For God's sake, hear me, Sire," prayed Ducroux. "Your Majesty's enemies have always been mine. The report is for one of your best friends; but were I to mention his name, he will ruin me."

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

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

Bonaparte then rang the bell for Duroc, whom he ordered to see Ducroux shut up in a dungeon, and afterwards to send for Fouche. The Minister denied all knowledge of Ducroux, who, after undergoing several tortures, expiated his blunder upon the rack.



LETTER XXII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—The Pope, during his stay here, rose regularly every morning at five o'clock, and went to bed every night before ten. The first hours of the day he passed in prayers, breakfasted after the Mass was over, transacted business till one, and dined at two. Between three and four he took—his siesta, or nap; afterwards he attended the vespers, and when they were over he passed an hour with the Bonapartes, or admitted to his presence some members of the clergy. The day was concluded, as it was begun, with some hours of devotion.

Had Pius VII. possessed the character of a Pius VI., he would never have crossed the Alps; or had he been gifted with the spirit and talents of Sextus V. or Leo X., he would never have entered France to crown Bonaparte, without previously stipulating for himself that he should be put in possession of the sovereignty of Italy. You can form no idea what great stress was laid on this act of His Holiness by the Bonaparte family, and what sacrifices were destined to be made had any serious and obstinate resistance been apprehended. Threats were, indeed, employed personally against the Pope, and bribes distributed to the refractory members of the Sacred College; but it was no secret, either here or at Milan, that Cardinal Fesch had carte blanche with regard to the restoration of all provinces seized, since the war, from the Holy See, or full territorial indemnities in their place, at the expense of Naples and Tuscany; and, indeed, whatever the Roman pontiff has lost in Italy has been taken from him by Bonaparte alone, and the apparent generosity which policy and ambition required would, therefore, have merely been an act of justice. Confiding foolishly in the honour and rectitude of Napoleon, without any other security than the assertion of Fesch, Pius VII., within a fortnight's stay in France, found the great difference between the promises held out to him when residing as a Sovereign at Rome, and their accomplishment when he had so far forgotten himself and his sacred dignity as to inhabit as a guest the castle of the Tuileries.

Pius VII. mentioned, the day after his arrival at Fontainebleau, that it would be a gratification to his own subjects were he enabled to communicate to them the restoration of the former ecclesiastical domains, as a free gift of the Emperor of the French, at their first conference, as they would then be as well convinced of Napoleon's good faith as he was himself. In answer, His Holiness was informed that the Emperor was unprepared to discuss political subjects, being totally occupied with the thoughts how to entertain worthily his high visitor, and to acknowledge becomingly the great honour done and the great happiness conferred on him by such a visit. As soon as the ceremony of the coronation was over, everything, he hoped, would be arranged to the reciprocal satisfaction of both parties.

About the middle of last December, Bonaparte was again asked to fix a day when the points of negotiation between him and the Pope could be discussed and settled. Cardinal Caprara, who made this demand, was referred to Talleyrand, who denied having yet any instructions, though in daily expectation of them. Thus the time went on until February, when Bonaparte informed the Pope of his determination to assume the crown of Italy, and of some new changes necessary, in consequence on the other side of the Alps.

Either seduced by caresses, or blinded by his unaccountable partiality for Bonaparte, Pius VII., if left to himself, would not only have renounced all his former claims, but probably have made new sacrifices to this idol of his infatuation. Fortunately, his counsellors were wiser and less deluded, otherwise the remaining patrimony of Saint Peter might now have constituted a part of Napoleon's inheritance, in Italy. "Am I not, Holy Father!" exclaimed the Emperor frequently, "your son, the work of your hand? And if the pages of history assign me any glory, must it not be shared with you—or rather, do you not share it with me? Anything that impedes my successes, or makes the continuance of my power uncertain or hazardous, reflects on you and is dangerous to you. With me you will shine or be obscured, rise or fall. Could you, therefore, hesitate (were I to demonstrate to you the necessity of such a measure) to remove the Papal See to Avignon, where it formerly was and continued for centuries, and to enlarge the limits of my kingdom of Italy with the Ecclesiastical States? Can you believe my throne at Milan safe as long as it is not the sole throne of Italy? Do you expect to govern at Rome when I cease to reign at Milan? No, Holy Father! the pontiff who placed the crown on my head, should it be shaken, will fall to rise no more." If what Cardinal Caprara said can be depended upon, Bonaparte frequently used to intimidate or flatter the Pope in this manner.

The representations of Cardinal Caprara changed Napoleon's first intention of being again crowned by the Pope as a King of Italy. His crafty Eminence observed that, according to the Emperor's own declaration, it was not intended that the crowns of France and Italy should continue united. But were he to cede one supremacy confirmed by the sacred hands of a pontiff, the partisans of the Bourbons, or the factions in France, would then take advantage to diminish in the opinion of the people his right and the sacredness of His Holiness, and perhaps make even the crown of the French Empire unstable. He did not deny that Charlemagne was crowned by a pontiff in Italy, but this ceremony was performed at Rome, where that Prince was proclaimed an Emperor of the Holy Roman and German Empires, as well as a King of Lombardy and Italy. Might not circumstances turn out so favourably for Napoleon the First that he also might be inaugurated an Emperor of the Germans as well as of the French? This last compliment, or prophecy, as Bonaparte's courtiers call it (what a prophet a Caprara!), had the desired effect, as it flattered equally Napoleon's ambition and vanity. For fear, however, of Talleyrand and other anti-Catholic counsellors, who wanted him to consider the Pope merely as his first almoner, and to treat him as all other persons of his household, His Eminence sent His Holiness as soon as possible packing for Rome. Though I am neither a cardinal nor a prophet, should you and I live twenty years longer, and the other Continental Sovereigns not alter their present incomprehensible conduct, I can, without any risk, predict that we shall see Rome salute the second Charlemagne an Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, if before that time death does not put a period to his encroachments and gigantic plans.



LETTER XXIII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—No Sovereigns have, since the Revolution, displayed more grandeur of soul, and evinced more firmness of character, than the present King and Queen of Naples. Encompassed by a revolutionary volcano more dangerous than the physical one, though disturbed at home and defeated abroad, they have neither been disgraced nor dishonoured. They have, indeed, with all other Italian Princes, suffered territorial and pecuniary losses; but these were not yielded through cowardice or treachery, but enforced by an absolute necessity, the consequence of the desertion or inefficacy of allies.

But Their Sicilian Majesties have been careful, as much as they were able, to exclude from their councils both German Illuminati and Italian philosophers. Their principal Minister, Chevalier Acton, has proved himself worthy of the confidence with which his Sovereigns have honoured him, and of the hatred with which he has been honoured by all revolutionists—the natural and irreconcilable enemies of all legitimate sovereignty.

Chevalier Acton is the son of an Irish physician, who first was established at Besancon in France, and afterwards at Leghorn in Italy. He is indebted for his present elevation to his own merit and to the penetration of the Queen of Sardinia, who discovered in him, when young, those qualities which have since distinguished him as a faithful counsellor and an able Minister. As loyal as wise, he was, from 1789, an enemy to the French Revolution. He easily foresaw that the specious promise of regeneration held out by impostors or fools to delude the ignorant, the credulous and the weak, would end in that universal corruption and general overthrow which we since have witnessed, and the effects of which our grandchildren will mourn.

When our Republic, in April, 1792, declared war against Austria, and when, in the September following, the dominions of His Sardinian Majesty were invaded by our troops, the neutrality of Naples continued, and was acknowledged by our Government. On the 16th of December following, our fleet from Toulon, however, cast anchor in the Bay of Naples, and a grenadier of the name of Belleville was landed as an Ambassador of the French Republic, and threatened a bombardment in case the demands he presented in a note were not acceded to within twenty-four hours. Being attacked in time of peace, and taken by surprise, the Court of Naples was unable to make any resistance, and Chevalier Acton informed our grenadier Ambassador that this note had been laid before his Sovereign, who had ordered him to sign an agreement in consequence.

When in February, 1793, the King of Naples was obliged, for his own safety, to join the league against France, Acton concluded a treaty with your country, and informed the Sublime Porte of the machinations of our Committee of Public Safety in sending De Semonville as an Ambassador to Constantinople, which, perhaps, prevented the Divan from attacking Austria, and occasioned the capture and imprisonment of our emissary.

Whenever our Government has, by the success of our arms, been enabled to dictate to Naples, the removal of Acton has been insisted upon; but though he has ceased to transact business ostensibly as a Minister, his influence has always, and deservedly, continued unimpaired, and he still enjoys the just confidence and esteem of his Prince.

But is His Sicilian Majesty equally well represented at the Cabinet of St. Cloud as served in his own capital? I have told you before that Bonaparte is extremely particular in his acceptance of foreign diplomatic agents, and admits none near his person whom he does not believe to be well inclined to him.

Marquis de Gallo, the Ambassador of the King of the Two Sicilies to the Emperor of the French, is no novice in the diplomatic career. His Sovereign has employed him for these fifteen years in the most delicate negotiations, and nominated him in May, 1795, a Minister of the Foreign Department, and a successor of Chevalier Acton, an honour which he declined. In the summer and autumn, 1797, Marquis de Gallo assisted at the conferences at Udine, and signed, with the Austrian plenipotentiaries, the Peace of Campo Formio, on the 17th of October, 1797.

During 1798, 1799, and 1800 he resided as Neapolitan Ambassador at Vienna, and was again entrusted by his Sovereign with several important transactions with Austria and Russia. After a peace had been agreed to between France and the Two Sicilies, in March, 1801, and the Court of Naples had every reason to fear, and of course to please, the Court of St. Cloud, he obtained his present appointment, and is one of the few foreign Ambassadors here who has escaped both Bonaparte's private admonitions in the diplomatic circle and public lectures in Madame Bonaparte's drawing-room.

This escape is so much the more fortunate and singular as our Government is far from being content with the mutinous spirit (as Bonaparte calls it) of the Government of Naples, which, considering its precarious and enfeebled state, with a French army in the heart of the kingdom, has resisted our attempts and insults with a courage and dignity that demand our admiration.

It is said that the Marquis de Gallo is not entirely free from some taints of modern philosophy, and that he, therefore, does not consider the consequences of our innovations so fatal as most loyal men judge them; nor thinks a sans-culotte Emperor more dangerous to civilized society than a sans-culotte sovereign people.

It is evident from the names and rank of its partisans that the Revolution of Naples in 1799 was different in many respects from that of every other country in Europe; for, although the political convulsions seem to have originated among the middle classes of the community, the extremes of society were everywhere else made to act against each other; the rabble being the first to triumph, and the nobles to succumb. But here, on the contrary, the lazzaroni, composed of the lowest portion of the population of a luxurious capital, appear to have been the most strenuous, and, indeed, almost the only supporters of royalty; while the great families, instead of being indignant at novelties which levelled them, in point of political rights, with the meanest subject, eagerly embraced the opportunity of altering that form of Government which alone made them great. It is, however, but justice to say that, though Marquis de Gallo gained the good graces of Bonaparte and of France in 1797, he was never, directly or indirectly, inculpated in the revolutionary transactions of his countrymen in 1799, when he resided at Vienna; and indeed, after all, it is not improbable that he disguises his real sentiments the better to, serve his country, and by that means has imposed on Bonaparte and acquired his favour.

The address and manners of a courtier are allowed Marquis de Gallo by all who know him, though few admit that he possesses any talents as a statesman. He is said to have read a great deal, to possess a good memory and no bad judgment; but that, notwithstanding this, all his knowledge is superficial.



LETTER XXIV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—You have perhaps heard that Napoleon Bonaparte, with all his brothers and sisters, was last Christmas married by the Pope according to the Roman Catholic rite, being previously only united according to the municipal laws of the French Republic, which consider marriage only as a civil contract. During the last two months of His Holiness's residence here, hardly a day passed that he was not petitioned to perform the same ceremony for our conscientious grand functionaries and courtiers, which he, however, according to the Emperor's desire, declined. But his Cardinals were not under the same restrictions, and to an attentive observer who has watched the progress of the Revolution and not lost sight of its actors, nothing could appear more ridiculous, nothing could inspire more contempt of our versatility and inconsistency, than to remark among the foremost to demand the nuptial benediction, a Talleyrand, a Fouche, a Real, an Augereau, a Chaptal, a Reubel, a Lasnes, a Bessieres, a Thuriot, a Treilhard, a Merlin, with a hundred other equally notorious revolutionists, who were, twelve or fifteen years ago, not only the first to declaim against religious ceremonies as ridiculous, but against religion itself as useless, whose motives produced, and whose votes sanctioned, those decrees of the legislature which proscribed the worship, together with its priests and sectaries. But then the fashion of barefaced infidelity was as much the order of the day as that of external sanctity is at present. I leave to casuists the decision whether to the morals of the people, naked atheism, exposed with all its deformities, is more or less hurtful than concealed atheism, covered with the garb of piety; but for my part I think the noonday murderer less guilty and much less detestable than the midnight assassin who stabs in the dark.

A hundred anecdotes are daily related of our new saints and fashionable devotees. They would be laughable were they not scandalous, and contemptible did they not add duplicity to our other vices.

Bonaparte and his wife go now every morning to hear Mass, and on every Sunday or holiday they regularly attend at vespers, when, of course, all those who wish to be distinguished for their piety or rewarded for their flattery never neglect to be present. In the evening of last Christmas Day, the Imperial chapel was, as usual, early crowded in expectation of Their Majesties, when the chamberlain, Salmatoris, entered, and said to the captain of the guard, loud enough to be heard by the audience, "The Emperor and the Empress have just resolved not to come here to-night, His Majesty being engaged by some unexpected business, and the Empress not wishing to come without her consort." In ten minutes the chapel was emptied of every person but the guards, the priests, and three old women who had nowhere else to pass an hour. At the arrival of our Sovereigns, they were astonished at the unusual vacancy, and indignantly regarded each other. After vespers were over, one of Bonaparte's spies informed him of the cause, when, instead of punishing the despicable and hypocritical courtiers, or showing them any signs of his displeasure, he ordered Salmatoris under arrest, who would have experienced a complete disgrace had not his friend Duroc interfered and made his peace.

At another time, on a Sunday, Fouche entered the chapel in the midst of the service, and whispered to Bonaparte, who immediately beckoned to his lord-in-waiting and to Duroc. These both left the Imperial chapel, and returning in a few minutes at the head of five grenadiers, entered the grand gallery, generally frequented by the most scrupulous devotees, and seized every book. The cause of this domiciliary visit was an anonymous communication received by the Minister of Police, stating that libels against the Imperial family, bound in the form of Prayer-books, had been placed there. No such libels were, however, found; but of one hundred and sixty pretended breviaries, twenty-eight were volumes of novels, sixteen were poems, and eleven were indecent books. It is not necessary to add that the proprietors of these edifying works never reclaimed them. The opinions are divided here, whether this curious discovery originated in the malice of Fouche, or whether Talleyrand took this method of duping his rival, and at the same time of gratifying his own malignity. Certain it is that Fouche was severely reprimanded for the transaction, and that Bonaparte was highly offended at the disclosure.

The common people, and the middle classes, are neither so ostentatiously devout, nor so basely perverse. They go to church as to the play, to gape at others, or to be stared at themselves; to pass the time, and to admire the show; and they do not conceal that such is the object of their attendance. Their indifference about futurity equals their ignorance of religious duties. Our revolutionary charlatans have as much brutalized their understanding as corrupted their hearts. They heard the Grand Mass said by the Pope with the same feelings as they formerly heard Robespierre proclaim himself a high priest of a Supreme Being; and they looked at the Imperial processions with the same insensibility as they once saw the daily caravans of victims passing for execution.

Even in Bonaparte's own guard, and among the officers of his household troops, several examples of rigour were necessary before they would go to any place of worship, or suffer in their corps any almoners; but now, after being drilled into a belief of Christianity, they march to the Mass as to a parade or to a review. With any other people, Bonaparte would not so easily have changed in two years the customs of twelve, and forced military men to kneel before priests, whom they but the other day were encouraged to hunt and massacre like wild beasts.

On the day of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin, a company of gendarmes d'Elite, headed by their officers, received publicly, and by orders, the sacrament; when the Abbe Frelaud approached Lieutenant Ledoux, he fell into convulsions, and was carried into the sacristy. After being a little recovered, he looked round him, as if afraid that some one would injure him, and said to the Grand Vicar Clauset, who inquired the cause of his accident and terror: "Good God! that man who gave me, on the 2d of September, 1792, in the convent of the Carenes, the five wounds from which I still suffer, is now an officer, and was about to receive the sacrament from my hands." When this occurrence was reported to Bonaparte, Ledoux was dismissed; but Abbe Frelaud was transported, and the Grand Vicar Clauset sent to the Temple, for the scandal their indiscretion had caused. This act was certainly as unjust towards him who was bayoneted at the altar, as towards those who served the altar under the protection of the bayonets.



LETTER XXV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—Although the seizure of Sir George Rumbold might in your country, as well as everywhere else, inspire indignation, it could nowhere justly excite surprise. We had crossed the Rhine seven months before to seize the Duc d'Enghien; and when any prey invited, the passing of the Elbe was only a natural consequence of the former outrage, of audacity on our part, and of endurance or indifference on the part of other Continental States. Talleyrand's note at Aix-la-Chapelle had also informed Europe that we had adopted a new and military diplomacy, and, in confounding power with right, would respect no privileges at variance with our ambition, interest or, suspicions, nor any independence it was thought useful or convenient for us to invade.

It was reported here, at the time, that Bonaparte was much offended with General Frere, who commanded this political expedition, for permitting Sir George's servant to accompany his master, as Fouche and Real had already tortures prepared and racks waiting, and after forcing your agent to speak out, would have announced his sudden death, either by his own hands or by a coup-de-sang, before any Prussian note could require his release. The known morality of our Government must have removed all doubts of the veracity of this assertion; a man might, besides, from the fatigues of a long journey, or from other causes, expire suddenly; but the exit of two, in the same circumstances, would have been thought at least extraordinary, even by our friends, and suspicious by our enemies.

The official declaration of Rheinhard (our Minister to the Circle of Lower Saxony) to the Senate at Hamburg, in which he disavowed all knowledge on the subject of the capture of Sir George Rumbold, occasioned his disgrace. This man, a subject of the Elector of Wurtemberg by birth, is one of the negative accomplices of the criminals of France who, since the Revolution, have desolated Europe. He began in 1792 his diplomatic career, under Chauvelin and Talleyrand, in London, and has since been the tool of every faction in power. In 1796 he was appointed a Minister to the Hanse Towns, and, without knowing why, he was hailed as the point of rally to all the philosophers, philanthropists, Illuminati and other revolutionary amateurs, with which the North of Germany, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden then abounded.

A citizen of Hamburg—or rather, of the world—of the name of Seveking, bestowed on him the hand of a sister; and though he is not accused of avarice, some of the contributions extorted by our Government from the neutral Hanse Towns are said to have been left behind in his coffers instead of being forwarded to this capital. Either on this account, or for some other reason, he was recalled from Hamburg in January, 1797, and remained unemployed until the latter part of 1798, when he was sent as Minister to Tuscany.

When, in the summer of 1799, Talleyrand was forced by the Jacobins to resign his place as a Minister of the Foreign Department, he had the adroitness to procure Rheinhard to be nominated his successor, so that, though no longer nominally the Minister, he still continued to influence the decisions of our Government as much as if still in office, because, though not without parts, Rheinhard has neither energy of character nor consistency of conduct. He is so much accustomed, and wants so much to be governed, that in 1796, at Hamburg, even the then emigrants, Madame de Genlis and General Valence, directed him, when he was not ruled or dictated to by his wife or brother-in-law.

In 1800 Bonaparte sent him as a representative to the Helvetian Republic, and in 1802, again to Hamburg, where he was last winter superseded by Bourrienne, and ordered to an inferior station at the: Electoral Court at Dresden. Rheinhard will never become one of those daring diplomatic banditti whom revolutionary Governments always employ in preference. He has some moral principles, and, though not religious, is rather scrupulous. He would certainly sooner resign than undertake to remove by poison, or by the steel of a bravo, a rival of his own or a person obnoxious to his employers. He would never, indeed, betray the secrets of his Government if he understood they intended to rob a despatch or to atop a messenger; but no allurements whatever would induce him to head the parties perpetrating these acts of our modern diplomacy.

Our present Minister at Hamburg (Bourrienne) is far from being so nice. A revolutionist from the beginning of the Revolution, he shared, with the partisans of La Fayette, imprisonment under Robespierre, and escaped death only by emigration. Recalled afterwards by his friend, the late Director (Barras), he acted as a kind of secretary to him until 1796, when Bonaparte demanded him, having known him at the military college. During all Bonaparte's campaigns in Italy, Egypt, and Syria, he was his sole and confidential secretary—a situation which he lost in 1802, when Talleyrand denounced his corruption and cupidity because he had rivalled him in speculating in the funds and profiting by the information which his place afforded him. He was then made a Counsellor of State, but in 1803 he was involved in the fraudulent bankruptcy of one of our principal houses to the amount of a million of livres—and, from his correspondence with it, some reasons appeared for the suspicion that he frequently had committed a breach of confidence against his master, who, after erasing his name from among the Counsellors of State, had him conveyed a prisoner to the Temple, where he remained six months. A small volume, called Le Livre Rouge of the Consular Court, made its appearance about that time, and contained some articles which gave Bonaparte reason to suppose that Bourrienne was its author. On being questioned by the Grand Judge Regnier and the Minister Fouce, before whom he was carried, he avowed that he had written it, but denied that he had any intention of making it public. As to its having found its way to the press during his confinement, that could only be ascribed to the ill-will or treachery of those police agents who inspected his papers and put their seals upon them. "Tell Bonaparte," said he, "that, had I been inclined to injure him in the public opinion, I should not have stooped to such trifles as Le Livre Rouge, while I have deposited with a friend his original orders, letters, and other curious documents as materials for an edifying history of our military hospitals during the campaigns of Italy and Syria all authentic testimonies of his humanity for the wounded and dying French soldiers."

After the answers of this interrogatory had been laid before Bonaparte, his brother Joseph was sent to the Temple to negotiate with Bourrienne, who was offered his liberty and a prefecture if he would give up all the original papers that, as a private secretary, he had had opportunity to collect.

"These papers," answered Bourrienne, "are my only security against your brother's wrath and his assassins. Were I weak enough to deliver them up to-day, to-morrow, probably, I should no longer be counted among the living; but I have now taken my measures so effectually that, were I murdered to-day, these originals would be printed to-morrow. If Napoleon does not confide in my word of honour, he may trust to an assurance of discretion, with which my own interest is nearly connected. If he suspects me of having wronged him, he is convinced also of the eminent services I have rendered him, sufficient surely to outweigh his present suspicion. Let him again employ me in any post worthy of him and of me, and he shall soon see how much I will endeavour to regain his confidence."

Shortly afterwards Bourrienne was released, and a pension, equal to the salary of a Counsellor of State; was granted him until some suitable place became vacant. On Champagny's being appointed a Minister of the Home Department, the embassy at Vienna was demanded by Bourrienne, but refused, as previously promised to La Rochefoucauld, our late Minister at Dresden. When Rheinhard, in a kind of disgrace, was transferred to that relatively insignificant post, Bourrienne was ordered, with extensive instructions, to Hamburg. The Senate soon found the difference between a timid and honest Minister, and an unprincipled and crafty intriguer. New loans were immediately required from Hanover; but hardly were these acquitted, than fresh extortions were insisted on. In some secret conferences Bourrienne is, however, said to have hinted that some douceurs were expected for alleviating the rigour of his instructions. This hint has, no doubt, been taken, because he suddenly altered his conduct, and instead of hunting the purses of the Germans, pursued the persons of his emigrated countrymen; and, in a memorial, demanded the expulsion of all Frenchmen who were not registered and protected by him, under pretence that every one of them who declined the honour of being a subject of Bonaparte, must be a traitor against the French Government and his country.

Bourrienne is now stated to have connected himself with several stock-jobbers, both in Germany, Holland, and England; and already to have pocketed considerable sums by such connections. It is, however, not to be forgotten that several houses have been ruined in this capital by the profits allowed him, who always refused to share their losses, but, whatever were the consequences, enforced to its full amount the payment of that value which he chose to set on his communications.

A place in France would, no doubt, have been preferable to Bourrienne, particularly one near the person of Bonaparte. But if nothing else prevented the accomplishment of his wishes, his long familiarity with all the Bonapartes, whom he always treated as equals, and even now (with the exception of Napoleon) does not think his superiors, will long remain an insurmountable barrier.

I cannot comprehend how Bonaparte (who is certainly no bad judge of men) could so long confide in Bourrienne, who, with the usual presumption of my countrymen, is continually boasting, to a degree that borders on indiscretion, and, by an artful questioner, may easily be lead to overstep those bounds. Most of the particulars of his quarrel with Napoleon I heard him relate himself, as a proof of his great consequence, in a company of forty individuals, many of whom were unknown to him. On the first discovery which Bonaparte made of Bourrienne's infidelity, Talleyrand complimented him upon not having suffered from it. "Do you not see," answered Bonaparte, "that it is also one of the extraordinary gifts of my extraordinary good fortune?

"Even traitors are unable to betray me. Plots respect me as much as bullets." I need not tell you that Fortune is the sole divinity sincerely worshipped by Napoleon.



LETTER XXVI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—Joseph Bonaparte leads a much more retired life, and sees less company, than any of his brothers or sisters. Except the members of his own family, he but seldom invites any guests, nor has Madame Joseph those regular assemblies and circles which Madame Napoleon and Madame Louis Bonaparte have. His hospitality is, however, greater at his countryseat Morfontaine than at his hotel here. Those whom he likes, or does not mistrust (who, by the bye, are very few), may visit him without much formality in the country, and prolong their stay, according to their own inclination or discretion; but they must come without their servants, or send them away on their arrival.

As soon as an agreeable visitor presents himself, it is the etiquette of the house to consider him as an inmate; but to allow him at the same time a perfect liberty to dispose of his hours and his person as suits his convenience or caprice. In this extensive and superb mansion a suite of apartments is assigned him, with a valet-de—chambre, a lackey, a coachman, a groom, and a jockey, all under his own exclusive command. He has allotted him a chariot, a gig, and riding horses, if he prefers such an exercise. A catalogue is given him of the library of the chateau; and every morning he is informed what persons compose the company at breakfast, dinner, and supper, and of the hours of these different repasts. A bill of fare is at the same time presented to him, and he is asked to point out those dishes to which he gives the preference, and to declare whether he chooses to join the company or to be served in his own rooms.

During the summer season, players from the different theatres of Paris are paid to perform three times in the week; and each guest, according to the period of his arrival, is asked, in his turn, to command either a comedy or a tragedy, a farce or a ballet. Twice in the week concerts are executed by the first performers of the opera-bouffe; and twice in the week invitations to tea-parties are sent to some of the neighbours, or accepted from them.

Besides four billiard-tables, there are other gambling-tables for Rouge et Noir, Trente et Quarante, Faro, La Roulette, Birribi, and other games of hazard. The bankers are young men from Corsica, to whom Joseph, who advances the money, allows all the gain, while he alone suffers the loss. Those who are inclined may play from morning till night, and from night till morning, without interruption, as no one interferes. Should Joseph hear that any person has been too severely treated by Fortune, or suspects that he has not much cash remaining, some rouleaux of napoleons d'or are placed on the table of his dressing-room, which he may use or leave untouched, as he judges proper.

The hours of Joseph Bonaparte are neither so late as yours in England, nor so early as they were formerly in France. Breakfast is ready served at ten o'clock, dinner at four, and supper at nine. Before midnight he retires to bed with his family, but visitors do as they like and follow their own usual hours, and their servants are obliged to wait for them.

When any business calls Joseph away, either to preside in the Senate here, or to travel in the provinces, he notifies the visitors, telling them at the same time not to displace themselves on account of his absence, but wait till his return, as they would not observe any difference in the economy of his house, of which Madame Joseph always does the honours, or, in her absence, some lady appointed by her.

Last year, when Joseph first assumed a military rank, he passed nearly four months with the army of England on the coast or in Brabant. On his return, all his visitors were gone, except a young poet of the name of Montaigne, who does not want genius, but who is rather too fond of the bottle. Joseph is considered the best gourmet or connoisseur in liquors and wines of this capital, and Montaigne found his Champagne and burgundy so excellent that he never once went to bed that he was not heartily intoxicated. But the best of the story is that he employed his mornings in composing a poem holding out to abhorrence the disgusting vice of drunkenness, and presented it to Joseph, requesting permission to dedicate it to him when published. To those who have read it, or only seen extracts from it, the compilation appears far from being contemptible, but Joseph still keeps the copy, though he has made the author a present of one hundred napoleons d'or, and procured him a place of an amanuensis in the chancellory of the Senate, having resolved never to accept any dedication, but wishing also not to hurt the feelings of the author by a refusal.

In a chateau where so many visitors of licentious and depraved morals meet, of both sexes, and where such an unlimited liberty reigns, intrigues must occur, and have of course not seldom furnished materials for the scandalous chronicle. Even Madame Joseph herself has either been gallant or calumniated. Report says that to the nocturnal assiduities of Eugene de Beauharnais and of Colonel la Fond-Blaniac she is exclusively indebted to the honour of maternity, and that these two rivals even fought a duel concerning the right of paternity. Eugene de Beauharnais never was a great favourite with Joseph Bonaparte, whose reserved manners and prudence form too great a contrast to his noisy and blundering way to accord with each other. Before he set out for Italy, it was well known in our fashionable circles that he had been interdicted the house of his uncle, and that no reconciliation took place, notwithstanding the endeavours of Madame Napoleon. To humble him still more, Joseph even nominated la Fond-Blaniac an equerry to his wife, who, therefore, easily consoled herself for the departure of her dear nephew.

The husband of Madame Miot (one of Madame Joseph's ladies-in-waiting) was not so patient, nor such a philosopher as Joseph Bonaparte. Some charitable person having reported in the company of a 'bonne amie' of Miot, that his wife did not pass her nights in solitude, but that she sought consolation among the many gallants and disengaged visitors at Morfontaine, he determined to surprise her. It was past eleven o'clock at night when his arrival was announced to Joseph, who had just retired to his closet. Madame Miot had been in bed ever since nine, ill of a migraine, and her husband was too affectionate not to be the first to inform her of his presence, without permitting anybody previously to disturb her. With great reluctance, Madame Miot's maid delivered the key of her rooms, while she accompanied him with a light. In the antechamber he found a hat and a greatcoat, and in the closet adjoining the bedroom, a coat, a waistcoat, and a pair of breeches, with drawers, stockings, and slippers. Though the maid kept coughing all the time, Madame Miot and her gallant did not awake from their slumber, till the enraged husband began to use the bludgeon of the lover, which had also been left in the closet. A battle then ensued, in which the lover retaliated so vigorously, that the husband called out "Murder! murder!" with all his might. The chateau was instantly in an uproar, and the apartments crowded with half-dressed and half-naked lovers. Joseph Bonaparte alone was able to separate the combatants; and inquiring the cause of the riot, assured them that he would suffer no scandal and no intrigues in his house, without seriously resenting it. An explanation being made, Madame Miot was looked for but in vain; and the maid declared that, being warned by a letter from Paris of her husband's jealousy and determination to surprise her, her mistress had reposed herself in her room; while, to punish the ungenerous suspicions of her husband, she had persuaded Captain d' Horteuil to occupy her place in her own bed. The maid had no sooner finished her deposition, than her mistress made her appearance and upbraided her husband severely, in which she was cordially joined by the spectators. She inquired if, on seeing the dress of a gentleman, he had also discovered the attire of a female; and she appealed to Captain d' Horteuil whether he had not the two preceding nights also slept in her bed. To this he, of course, assented; adding that, had M. Miot attacked him the first night, he would not then perhaps have been so roughly handled as now; for then he was prepared for a visit, which this night was rather unexpected. This connubial farce ended by Miot begging pardon of his wife and her gallant; the former of whom, after much entreaty by Joseph, at last consented to share with him her bed. But being disfigured with two black eyes and suffering from several bruises, and also ashamed of his unfashionable behaviour, he continued invisible for ten days afterwards, and returned to this city as he had left it, by stealth.

This Niot was a spy under Robespierre, and is a Counsellor of State under Bonaparte. Without bread, as well as without a home, he was, from the beginning of the Revolution, one of the most ardent patriots, and the first republican Minister in Tuscany. After the Sovereign of that country had, in 1793, joined the League, Miot returned to France, and was, for his want of address to negotiate as a Minister, shut up to perform the part of a spy in the Luxembourg, then transformed into a prison for suspected persons. Thanks to his patriotism, upwards of two hundred individuals of both sexes were denounced, transferred to the Conciergerie prison, and afterwards guillotined. After that, until 1799, he continued so despised that no faction would accept him for an accomplice; but in the November of that year, after Bonaparte had declared himself a First Consul, Miot was appointed a tribune, an office from which he was advanced, in 1802, to be a Counsellor of State. As Miot squanders away his salary with harlots and in gambling-houses, and is pursued by creditors he neither will nor can pay, it was merely from charity that his wife was received among the other ladies of Madame Joseph Bonaparte's household.



LETTER XXVII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—Notwithstanding the ties of consanguinity, honour, duty, interest, and gratitude, which bound the Spanish Bourbons to the cause of the Bourbons of France, no monarch has rendered more service to the cause of rebellion, and done more harm to the cause of royalty, than the King of Spain.

But here, again, you must understand me. When I speak of Princes whose talents are known not to be brilliant, whose intellects are known to be feeble, and whose good intentions are rendered null by a want of firmness of character or consistency of conduct; while I deplore their weakness and the consequent misfortunes of their contemporaries, I lay all the blame on their wicked or ignorant counsellors; because, if no Ministers were fools or traitors, no Sovereigns would tremble on their thrones, and no subjects dare to shake their foundation. Had Providence blessed Charles IV. of Spain with the judgment in selecting his Ministers, and the constancy of persevering in his choice, possessed by your George III.; had the helm of Spain been in the firm and able hands of a Grenville, a Windham, and a Pitt, the Cabinet of Madrid would never have been oppressed by the yoke of the Cabinet of St. Cloud, nor paid a heavy tribute for its bondage, degrading as well as ruinous.

"This is the age of upstarts," said Talleyrand to his cousin, Prince de Chalais, who reproached him for an unbecoming servility to low and vile personages; "and I prefer bowing to them to being trampled upon and crushed by them." Indeed, as far as I remember, nowhere in history are hitherto recorded so many low persons who, from obscurity and meanness, have suddenly and at once attained rank and notoriety. Where do we read of such a numerous crew of upstart Emperors, Kings, grand pensionaries, directors, Imperial Highnesses, Princes, Field-marshals, generals, Senators, Ministers, governors, Cardinals, etc., as we now witness figuring upon the theatre of Europe, and who chiefly decide on the destiny of nations? Among these, several are certainly to be found whose superior parts have made them worthy to pierce the crowd and to shake off their native mud; but others again, and by far the greatest number of these 'novi homines', owe their present elevation to shameless intrigues or atrocious crimes.

The Prime Minister—or rather, the viceroy of Spain, the Prince of Peace—belongs to the latter class. From a man in the ranks of the guards he was promoted to a general-in-chief, and from a harp player in antechambers to a president of the councils of a Prince; and that within the short period of six years. Such a fortune is not common; but to be absolutely without capacity as well as virtue, genius as well as good breeding, and, nevertheless, to continue in an elevation so little merited, and in a place formerly so subject to changes and so unstable, is a fortune that no upstart ever before experienced in Spain.

An intrigue of his elder brother with the present Queen, then Princess of Asturia, which was discovered by the King, introduced him first at Court as a harp player, and, when his brother was exiled, he was entrusted with the correspondence of the Princess with her gallant. After she had ascended the throne, he thought it more profitable to be the lover than the messenger, and contrived, therefore, to supplant his brother in the royal favour. Promotions and riches were consequently heaped upon him, and, what is surprising, the more undisguised the partiality of the Queen was, the greater the attachment of the King displayed itself; and it has ever since been an emulation between the royal couple who should the most forget and vilify birth and supremacy by associating this man not only in the courtly pleasures, but in the functions of Sovereignty. Had he been gifted with sound understanding, or possessed any share of delicacy, generosity, or discretion, he would, while he profited by their imprudent condescension, have prevented them from exposing their weaknesses and frailties to a discussion and ridicule among courtiers, and from becoming objects of humiliation and scandal among the people. He would have warned them of the danger which at all times attends the publicity of foibles and vices of Princes, but particularly in the present times of trouble and innovations. He would have told them: "Make me great and wealthy, but not at the expense of your own grandeur or of the loyalty of your people. Do not treat an humble subject as an equal, nor suffer Your Majesties, whom Providence destined to govern a high-spirited nation, to be openly ruled by one born to obey. I am too dutiful not to lay aside my private vanity when the happiness of my King and the tranquillity of my fellow subjects are at stake. I am already too high. In descending a little, I shall not only rise in the eyes of my contemporaries, but in the opinion of posterity. Every step I am advancing undermines your throne. In retreating a little, if I do not strengthen, I can never injure it." But I beg your pardon for this digression, and for putting the language of dignified reason into the mouth of a man as corrupt as he is imbecile.

Do not suppose, because the Prince of Peace is no friend of my nation, that I am his enemy. No! Had he shown himself a true patriot, a friend of his own country, and of his too liberal Prince, or even of monarchy in general, or of anybody else but himself—although I might have disapproved of his policy, if he has any—I would never have lashed the individual for the acts of the Minister. But you must have observed, with me, that never before his administration was the Cabinet of Madrid worse conducted at home or more despised abroad; the Spanish Monarch more humbled or Spanish subjects more wretched; the Spanish power more dishonoured or the Spanish resources worse employed. Never, before the treaty with France of 1796, concluded by this wiseacre (which made him a Prince of Peace, and our Government the Sovereign of Spain), was the Spanish monarchy reduced to such a lamentable dilemma as to be forced into an expensive war without a cause, and into a disgraceful peace, not only unprofitable, but absolutely disadvantageous. Never before were its treasures distributed among its oppressors to support their tyranny, nor its military and naval forces employed to fight the battles of rebellion. The loyal subjects of Spain have only one hope left. The delicate state of his present Majesty's health does not promise a much longer continuance of his reign, and the Prince of Asturia is too well informed to endure the guidance of the most ignorant Minister that ever was admitted into the Cabinet and confidence of a Sovereign. It is more than probable that under a new reign the misfortunes of the Prince of Peace will inspire as much compassion as his rapid advancement has excited astonishment and indignation.

A Cabinet thus badly directed cannot be expected to have representatives abroad either of abilities or patriotism. The Admiral and General Gravina, who but lately left this capital as an Ambassador from the Court of Spain to assume the command of a Spanish fleet, is more valiant than wise, and more an enemy of your country than a friend of his own. He is a profound admirer of Bonaparte's virtues and successes, and was, during his residence, one of the most ostentatiously awkward courtiers of Napoleon the First. It is said that he has the modesty and loyalty to wish to become a Spanish Bonaparte, and that he promises to restore by his genius and exploits the lost lustre of the Spanish monarchy. When this was reported to Talleyrand, he smiled with contempt; but when it was told to Bonaparte, he stamped with rage at the impudence of the Spaniard in daring to associate his name of acquired and established greatness with his own impertinent schemes of absurdities and impossibilities.

In the summer of 1793, Gravina commanded a division of the Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean, of which Admiral Langara was the commander-in-chief. At the capitulation of Toulon, after the combined English and Spanish forces had taken possession of it, when Rear-Admiral Goodall was declared governor, Gravina was made the commandant of the troops. At the head of these he often fought bravely in different sorties, and on the 1st of October was wounded at the re-capture of Fort Pharon. He complains still of having suffered insults or neglect from the English, and even of having been exposed unnecessarily to the fire and sword of the enemy merely because he was a patriot as well as an envied or suspected ally. His inveteracy against your country takes its date, no doubt, from the siege of Toulon, or perhaps, from its evacuation.

When, in May, 1794, our troops were advancing towards Collioure, he was sent with a squadron to bring it succours, but he arrived too late, and could not save that important place. He was not more successful at the beginning of the campaign of 1795 at Rosa, where he had only time to carry away the artillery before the enemy entered. In August, that year, during the absence of Admiral Massaredo, he assumed ad interim the command of the Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean; but in the December following he was disgraced, arrested, and shut up as a State prisoner.

During the embassy of Lucien Bonaparte to the Court of Madrid, in the autumn of 1800, Gravina was by his influence restored to favour; and after the death of the late Spanish Ambassador to the Cabinet of St. Cloud, Chevalier d' Azara, by the special desire of Napoleon, was nominated both his successor and a representative of the King of Etruria. Among the members of our diplomatic corps, he was considered somewhat of a Spanish gasconader and a bully. He more frequently boasted of his wounds and battles than of his negotiations or conferences, though he pretended, indeed, to shine as much in the Cabinet as in the field.

In his suite were two Spanish women, one about forty, and the other about twenty years of age. Nobody knew what to make of them, as they were treated neither as wives, mistresses, nor servants; and they avowed themselves to be no relations. After a residence here of some weeks, he was, by superior orders, waylaid one night at the opera, by a young and beautiful dancing girl of the name of Barrois, who engaged him to take her into keeping. He hesitated, indeed, for some time; at last, however, love got the better of his scruples, and he furnished for her an elegant apartment on the new Boulevard. On the day he carried her there, he was accompanied by the chaplain of the Spanish Legation; and told her that, previous to any further intimacy, she must be married to him, as his religious principles did not permit him to cohabit with a woman who was not his wife. At the same time he laid before her an agreement to sign, by which she bound herself never to claim him as a husband before her turn—that is to say, until sixteen other women, to whom he had been previously married, were dead. She made no opposition, either to the marriage or to the conditions annexed to it. This girl had a sweetheart of the name of Valere, an actor at one of the little theatres on the Boulevards, to whom she communicated her adventure. He advised her to be scrupulous in her turn, and to ask a copy of the agreement. After some difficulty this was obtained. In it no mention was made of her maintenance, nor in what manner her children were to be regarded, should she have any. Valere had, therefore, another agreement drawn up, in which all these points were arranged, according to his own interested views. Gravina refused to subscribe to what he plainly perceived were only extortions; and the girl, in her turn, not only declined any further connection with him, but threatened to publish the act of polygamy. Before they had done discussing this subject, the door was suddenly opened and the two Spanish ladies presented themselves. After severely upbraiding Gravina, who was struck mute by surprise, they announced to the girl that whatever promise or contract of marriage she had obtained from him was of no value, as, before they came with him to France, he had bound himself, before a public notary at Madrid, not to form any more connections, nor to marry any other woman, without their written consent. One of these ladies declared that she had been married to Gravina twenty-two years, and was his oldest wife but one; the other said that she had been married to him six years. They insisted upon his following them, which he did, after putting a purse of gold into Barrois's hand.

When Valere heard from his mistress this occurrence, he advised her to make the most money she could of the Spaniard's curious scruples. A letter was, therefore, written to him, demanding one hundred thousand livres—as the price of secrecy and withholding the particulars of this business from the knowledge of the tribunals and the police; and an answer was required within twenty-four hours. The same night Gravina offered one thousand Louis, which were accepted, and the papers returned; but the next day Valere went to his hotel, Rue de Provence, where he presented himself as a brother of Barrois. He stated that he still possessed authenticated copies of the papers returned, and that he must have either the full sum first asked by his sister, or an annuity of twelve thousand livres settled upon her. Instead of an answer, Gravina ordered him to be turned out of the house. An attorney then waited on His Excellency, on the part of the brother and the sister, and repeated their threats and their demands, adding that he would write a memorial both to the Emperor of the French and to the King of Spain, were justice refused to his principals any longer.

Gravina was well aware that this affair, though more laughable than criminal, would hurt both his character and credit if it were known in France; he therefore consented to pay seventy-six thousand livres more, upon a formal renunciation by the party of all future claims. Not having money sufficient by him, he went to borrow it from a banker, whose clerk was one of Talleyrand's secret agents. Our Minister, therefore, ordered every step of Gravina to be watched; but he soon discovered that, instead of wanting this money for a political intrigue, it was necessary to extricate him out of an amorous scrape. Hearing, however, in what a scandalous manner the Ambassador had been duped and imposed upon, he reported it to Bonaparte, who gave Fouche orders to have Valere, Barrois, and the attorney immediately transported to Cayenne, and to restore Gravina his money. The former part of this order the Minister of Police executed the more willingly, as it was according to his plan that Barrois had pitched upon Gravina for a lover. She had been intended by him as a spy on His Excellency, but had deceived him by her reports—a crime for which transportation was a usual punishment.

Notwithstanding the care of our Government to conceal and bury this affair in oblivion, it furnished matter both for conversation in our fashionable circles, and subjects for our caricaturists. But these artists were soon seized by the police, who found it more easy to chastise genius than to silence tongues. The declaration of war by Spain against your country was a lucky opportunity for Gravina to quit with honour a Court where he was an object of ridicule, to assume the command of a fleet which might one day make him an object of terror. When he took leave of Bonaparte, he was told to return to France victorious, or never to return any more; and Talleyrand warned him as a friend, "whenever he returned to his post in France to leave his marriage mania behind him in Spain. Here," said he, "you may, without ridicule, intrigue with a hundred women, but you run a great risk by marrying even one."

I have been in company with Gravina, and after what I heard him say, so far from judging him superstitious, I thought him really impious. But infidelity and bigotry are frequently next-door neighbours.



LETTER XXVIII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—It cannot have escaped the observation of the most superficial traveller of rank, that, at the Court of St. Cloud, want of morals is not atoned for by good breeding or good manners. The hideousness of vice, the pretensions of ambition, the vanity of rank, the pride of favour, and the shame of venality do not wear here that delicate veil, that gloss of virtue, which, in other Courts, lessens the deformity of corruption and the scandal of depravity. Duplicity and hypocrisy are here very common indeed, more so than dissimulation anywhere else; but barefaced knaves and impostors must always make indifferent courtiers. Here the Minister tells you, I must have such a sum for a place; and the chamberlain tells you, Count down so much for my protection. The Princess requires a necklace of such a value for interesting herself for your advancement; and the lady-in-waiting demands a diamond of such worth on the day of your promotion. This tariff of favours and of infamy descends 'ad infinitum'. The secretary for signing, and the clerk for writing your commission; the cashier for delivering it, and the messenger for informing you of it, have all their fixed prices. Have you a lawsuit, the judge announces to you that so much has been offered by your opponent, and so much is expected from you, if you desire to win your cause. When you are the defendant against the Crown, the attorney or solicitor-general lets you know that such a douceur is requisite to procure such an issue. Even in criminal proceedings, not only honour, but life, may be saved by pecuniary sacrifices.

A man of the name of Martin, by profession a stock-jobber, killed, in 1803, his own wife; and for twelve thousand livres—he was acquitted, and recovered his liberty. In November last year, in a quarrel with his own brother, he stabbed him through the heart, and for another sum of twelve thousand livres he was acquitted, and released before last Christmas. This wretch is now in prison again, on suspicion of having poisoned his own daughter, with whom he had an incestuous intercourse, and he boasts publicly of soon being liberated. Another person, Louis de Saurac, the younger son of Baron de Saurac, who together with his eldest son had emigrated, forged a will in the name of his parent, whom he pretended to be dead, which left him the sole heir of all the disposable property, to the exclusion of two sisters. After the nation had shared its part as heir of all emigrants, Louis took possession of the remainder. In 1802, both his father and brother accepted the general amnesty, and returned to France. To their great surprise, they heard that this Louis had, by his ill-treatment, forced his sisters into servitude, refusing them even the common necessaries of life. After upbraiding him for his want of duty, the father desired, according to the law, the restitution of the unsold part of his estates. On the day fixed for settling the accounts and entering into his rights, Baron de Saurac was arrested as a conspirator and imprisoned in the Temple. He had been denounced as having served in the army of Conde, and as being a secret agent of Louis XVIII. To disprove the first part of the charge, he produced certificates from America, where he had passed the time of his emigration, and even upon the rack he denied the latter. During his arrest, the eldest son discovered that Louis had become the owner of their possessions, by means of the will he had forged in the name of his father; and that it was he who had been unnatural enough to denounce the author of his days. With the wreck of their fortune in St. Domingo, he procured his father's release; who, being acquainted with the perversity of his younger son, addressed himself to the department to be reinstated in his property. This was opposed by Louis, who defended his title to the estate by the revolutionary maxim which had passed into a law, enacting that all emigrants should be considered as politically dead. Hitherto Baron de Saurac had, from affection, declined to mention the forged will; but shocked by his son's obduracy, and being reduced to distress, his counsellor produced this document, which not only went to deprive Louis of his property, but exposed him to a criminal prosecution.

This unnatural son, who was not yet twenty-five, had imbibed all the revolutionary morals of his contemporaries, and was well acquainted with the moral characters of his revolutionary countrymen. He addressed himself, therefore, to Merlin of Douai, Bonaparte's Imperial attorney-general and commander of his Legion of Honour; who, for a bribe of fifty thousand livres—obtained for him, after he had been defeated in every other court, a judgment in his favour, in the tribunal of cassation, under the sophistical conclusion that all emigrants, being, according to law, considered as politically dead, a will in the name of any one of them was merely a pious fraud to preserve the property in the family.

This Merlin is the son of a labourer of Anchin, and was a servant of the Abbey of the same name. One of the monks, observing in him some application, charitably sent him to be educated at Douai, after having bestowed on him some previous education. Not satisfied with this generous act, he engaged the other monks, as well as the chapter of Cambray, to subscribe for his expenses of admission as an attorney by the Parliament of Douai, in which situation the Revolution found him. By his dissimulation and assumed modesty, he continued to dupe his benefactors; who, by their influence, obtained for him the nomination as representative of the people to our First National Assembly. They soon, however, had reason to repent of their generosity. He joined the Orleans faction and became one of the most persevering, violent, and cruel persecutors of the privileged classes, particularly of the clergy, to whom he was indebted for everything. In 1792 he was elected a member of the National Convention, where he voted for the death of his King. It was he who proposed a law (justly called, by Prudhomme, the production of the deliberate homicide Merlin) against suspected persons; which was decreed on the 17th of September, 1793, and caused the imprisonment or proscription of two hundred thousand families. This decree procured him the appellation of Merlin Suspects and of Merlin Potence. In 1795 he was appointed a Minister of Police, and soon afterwards a Minister of Justice. After the revolution in favour of the Jacobins of the 4th of September, 1797, he was made a director, a place which he was obliged by the same Jacobins to resign, in June, 1799. Bonaparte expressed, at first, the most sovereign contempt for this Merlin, but on account of one of his sons, who was his aide-de-camp, he was appointed by him, when First Consul, his attorney-general.

As nothing paints better the true features of a Government than the morality or vices of its functionaries, I will finish this man's portrait with the following characteristic touches.

Merlin de Douai has been successively the counsel of the late Duc d' Orleans, the friend of Danton, of Chabot, and of Hebert, the admirer of Murat, and the servant of Robespierre. An accomplice of Rewbell, Barras, and la Reveilliere, an author of the law of suspected persons, an advocate of the Septembrizers, and an ardent apostle of the St. Guillotine. Cunning as a fog and ferocious as a tiger, he has outlived all the factions with which he has been connected. It has been his policy to keep in continual fermentation rivalships, jealousies, inquietudes, revenge and all other odious passions; establishing, by such means, his influence on the terror of some, the ambition of others, and the credulity of them all. Had I, when Merlin proposed his law concerning suspected persons, in the name of liberty and equality, been free and his equal, I should have said to him, "Monster, this, your atrocious law, is your sentence of death; it has brought thousands of innocent persons to an untimely end; you shall die by my hands as a victim, if the tribunals do not condemn you to the scaffold as an executioner or as a criminal."

Merlin has bought national property to the amount of fifteen million of livress—and he is supposed to possess money nearly to the same amount, in your or our funds. For a man born a beggar, and educated by charity, this fortune, together with the liberal salaries he enjoys, might seem sufficient without selling justice, protecting guilt, and oppressing or persecuting innocence.



LETTER XXIX.

Paris, August, 1805.

MY LORD:—The household troops of Napoleon the First are by thousands more numerous than those even of Louis XIV. were. Grenadiers on foot and on horseback, riflemen on foot and on horseback, heavy and light artillery, dragoons and hussars, mamelukes and sailors, artificers and pontoneers, gendarmes, gendarmes d'Alite, Velites and veterans, with Italian grenadiers, riflemen, dragoons, etc., etc., compose all together a not inconsiderable army.

Though it frequently happens that the pay of the other troops is in arrears, those appertaining to Bonaparte's household are as regularly paid as his Senators, Counsellors of State, and other public functionaries. All the men are picked, and all the officers as much as possible of birth, or at least of education. In the midst of this voluptuous and seductive capital, they are kept very strict, and the least negligence or infraction of military discipline is more severely punished than if committed in garrison or in an encampment. They are both better clothed, accoutred, and paid, than the troops of the line, and have everywhere the precedency of them. All the officers, and many of the soldiers, are members of Bonaparte's Legion of Honour, and carry arms of honour distributed to them by Imperial favour, or for military exploits. None of them are quartered upon the citizens; each corps has its own spacious barracks, hospitals, drilling-ground, riding or fencing-houses, gardens, bathing-houses, billiard-table, and even libraries. A chapel has lately been constructed near each barrack, and almoners are already appointed. In the meantime, they attend regularly at Mass, either in the Imperial Chapel or in the parish churches. Bonaparte discourages much all marriages among the military in general, but particularly among those of his household troops. That they may not, however, be entirely deprived of the society of women, he allows five to each company, with the same salaries as the men, under the name of washerwomen.

With a vain and fickle people, fond of shows and innovations, nothing in a military despotism has a greater political utility, gives greater satisfaction, and leaves behind a more useful terror and awe, than Bonaparte's grand military reviews. In the beginning of his consulate, they regularly occurred three times in the month; after his victory of Marengo, they were reduced to once in a fortnight, and since he has been proclaimed Emperor, to once only in the month. This ostentatious exhibition of usurped power is always closed with a diplomatic review of the representatives of lawful Princes, who introduce on those occasions their fellow-subjects to another subject, who successfully has seized, and continues to usurp, the authority of his own Sovereign. What an example for ambition! what a lesson to treachery!