Memoirs Of The Court Of St. Cloud - free ebook by Lewis Goldsmith

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Memoirs Of The Court Of St. Cloud

Lewis Goldsmith

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PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.

The present work contains particulars of the great Napoleon not to be found in any other publication, and forms an interesting addition to the information generally known about him. The writer of the Letters (whose name is said to have been Stewarton, and who had been a friend of the Empress Josephine in her happier, if less brilliant days) gives full accounts of the lives of nearly all Napoleon’s Ministers and Generals, in addition to those of a great number of other characters, and an insight

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THE COURT OF ST. CLOUD. INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

THE COURT OF ST. CLOUD. INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

PARIS, November 10th, 1805. MY LORD,—The Letters I have written to you were intended for the private entertainment of a liberal friend, and not for the general perusal of a severe public. Had I imagined that their contents would have penetrated beyond your closet or the circle of your intimate acquaintance, several of the narratives would have been extended, while others would have been compressed; the anecdotes would have been more numerous, and my own remarks fewer; some portraits would have b

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LETTER I.

LETTER I.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—I promised you not to pronounce in haste on persons and events passing under my eyes; thirty-one months have quickly passed away since I became an attentive spectator of the extraordinary transactions, and of the extraordinary characters of the extraordinary Court and Cabinet of St. Cloud. If my talents to delineate equal my zeal to inquire and my industry to examine; if I am as able a painter as I have been an indefatigable observer, you will be satisfied, and with

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LETTER II.

LETTER II.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Though the Treaty of Luneville will probably soon be buried in the rubbish of the Treaty of Amiens, the influence of their parents in the Cabinet of St. Cloud is as great as ever: I say their parents, because the crafty ex-Bishop, Talleyrand, foreseeing the short existence of these bastard diplomatic acts, took care to compliment the innocent Joseph Bonaparte with a share in the parentage, although they were his own exclusive offspring. Joseph Bonaparte, who in 1797

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LETTER III.

LETTER III.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—No act of Bonaparte’s government has occasioned so many, so opposite, and so violent debates, among the remnants of revolutionary factions comprising his Senate and Council of State, as the introduction and execution of the religious concordat signed with the Pope. Joseph was here again the ostensible negotiator, though he, on this as well as on former occasions, concluded nothing that had not been prepared and digested by Talleyrand. Bonaparte does not in general p

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LETTER IV.

LETTER IV.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—That Bonaparte had, as far back as February, 1803 (when the King of Prussia proposed to Louis XVIII. the formal renunciation of his hereditary rights in favour of the First Consul), determined to assume the rank and title, with the power of a Sovereign, nobody can doubt. Had it not been for the war with England, he would, in the spring of that year, or twelve months earlier, have proclaimed himself Emperor of the French, and probably would have been acknowledged as

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LETTER V.

LETTER V.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Thanks to Talleyrand’s political emigration, our Government has never been in ignorance of the characters and foibles of the leading members among the emigrants in England. Otto, however, finished their picture, but added, some new groups to those delineated by his predecessor. It was according to his plan that the expedition of Mehee de la Touche was undertaken, and it was in following his instructions that the campaign of this traitor succeeded so well in Great Br

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LETTER VI.

LETTER VI.

MY LORD:—The day on which Madame Napoleon Bonaparte was elected an Empress of the French, by the constitutional authorities of her husband’s Empire, was, contradictory as it may seem, one of the most uncomfortable in her life. After the show and ceremony of the audience and of the drawing-room were over, she passed it entirely in tears, in her library, where her husband shut her up and confined her. The discipline of the Court of St. Cloud is as singular as its composition is unique. It is, by t

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LETTER VII.

LETTER VII.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Though Government suffer a religious, or, rather, anti-religious liberty of the Press, the authors who libel or ridicule the Christian, particularly the Roman Catholic, religion, are excluded from all prospect of advancement, or if in place, are not trusted or liked. Cardinal Caprara, the nuncio of the Pope, proposed last year, in a long memorial, the same severe restrictions on the discussions or publications in religious matters as were already ordered in those co

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LETTER VIII.

LETTER VIII.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—I was particularly attentive in observing the countenances and demeanour of the company at the last levee which Madame Napoleon Bonaparte held, previous to her departure with her husband to meet the Pope at Fontainebleau. I had heard from good authority that “to those whose propensities were known, Duroc’s information that the Empress was visible was accompanied with a kind of admonitory or courtly hint, that the strictest decency in dress and manners, and a convers

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LETTER IX.

LETTER IX.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Notwithstanding what was inserted in our public prints to the contrary, the reception Bonaparte experienced from his army of England in June last year, the first time he presented himself to them as an Emperor, was far from such as flattered either his vanity or views. For the first days, some few solitary voices alone accompanied the “Vive l’Empereur!” of his generals, and of his aides-de-camp. This indifference, or, as he called it, mutinous spirit, was so much th

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LETTER X.

LETTER X.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—According to a general belief in our diplomatic circles, it was the Austrian Ambassador in France, Count von Cobenzl, who principally influenced the determination of Francis II. to assume the hereditary title of Emperor of Austria, and to acknowledge Napoleon Emperor of the French. Johann Philipp, Count von Cobenzl, enjoys, not only in his own country, but through all Europe, a great reputation as a statesman, and has for a number of years been employed by his Court

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LETTER XI.

LETTER XI.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—On the arrival of her husband at Aix-la-Chapelle, Madame Napoleon had lost her money by gambling, without recovering her health by using the baths and drinking the waters; she was, therefore, as poor as low-spirited, and as ill-tempered as dissatisfied. Napoleon himself was neither much in humour to supply her present wants, provide for her extravagances, or to forgive her ill-nature; he ascribed the inefficacy of the waters to her excesses, and reproached her for h

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LETTER XII.

LETTER XII.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Bonaparte has been as profuse in his disposal of the Imperial diadem of Germany, as in his promises of the papal tiara of Rome. The Houses of Austria and Brandenburgh, the Electors of Bavaria and Baden, have by turns been cajoled into a belief of his exclusive support towards obtaining it at the first vacancy. Those, however, who have paid attention to his machinations, and studied his actions; who remember his pedantic affectation of being considered a modern, or r

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LETTER XIII.

LETTER XIII.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—No Queen of France ever saw so many foreign Princes and Princesses in her drawing-rooms as the first Empress of the French did last year at Mentz; and no Sovereign was ever before so well paid, or accepted with less difficulty donations and presents for her gracious protection. Madame Napoleon herself, on her return to this capital last October, boasted that she was ten millions of livres—richer in diamonds; two millions of livres richer in pearls, and three million

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LETTER XIV.

LETTER XIV.

LETTER XIV. MY LORD:—I believe that I have mentioned to you, when in England, that I was an old acquaintance of Madame Napoleon, and a visitor at the house of her first husband. When introduced to her after some years’ absence, during which fortune had treated us very differently, she received me with more civility than I was prepared to expect, and would, perhaps, have spoken to me more than she did, had not a look of her husband silenced her. Madame Louis Bonaparte was still more condescending

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LETTER XV.

LETTER XV.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—You have with some reason in England complained of the conduct of the members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, when the pretended correspondence between Mr. Drake and Mehee de la Touche was published in our official gazette. Had you, however, like myself, been in a situation to study the characters and appreciate the worth of most of them, this conduct would have excited no surprise, and pity would have taken the place both of accusation and reproach. Hard

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LETTER XVI.

LETTER XVI.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Upwards of two months after my visit to General Murat, I was surprised at the appearance of M. Darjuson, the chamberlain of Princesse Louis Bonaparte. He told me that he came on the part of Prince Louis, who honoured me with an invitation to dine with him the day after. Upon my inquiry whether he knew if the party would be very numerous, he answered, between forty and fifty; and that it was a kind of farewell dinner, because the Prince intended shortly to set out fo

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LETTER XVII.

LETTER XVII.

PARIS, August, 1805. My LORD:—The arrival of the Pope in this country was certainly a grand epoch, not only in the history of the Revolution, but in the annals of Europe. The debates in the Sacred College for and against this journey, and for and against his coronation of Bonaparte, are said to have been long as well as violent, and arranged according to the desires of Cardinal Fesch only by the means of four millions of livres distributed apropos among its pious members. Of this money the Cardi

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LETTER XVIII.

LETTER XVIII.

Paris, August, 1805. MY LORD:—The amiable and accomplished Amelia Frederique, Princess Dowager of the late Electoral Prince, Charles Louis of Baden, born a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, has procured the Electoral House of Baden the singular honour of giving consorts to three reigning and Sovereign Princes,—to an Emperor of Russia, to a King of Sweden, and to the Elector of Bavaria. Such a distinction, and such alliances, called the attention of those at the head of our Revolution; who, after atte

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LETTER XIX.

LETTER XIX.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—The sensation that the arrival of the Pope in this country caused among the lower classes of people cannot be expressed, and if expressed, would not be believed. I am sorry, however, to say that, instead of improving their morals or increasing their faith, this journey has shaken both morality and religion to their foundation. According to our religious notions, as you must know, the Roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ, and infallible; he can never err. The atheist

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LETTER XX.

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 dict

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LETTER XXI.

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

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LETTER XXII.

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

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LETTER XXIII.

LETTER XXIII.

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 enf

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LETTER XXIV.

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 functionar

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LETTER XXV.

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

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LETTER XXVI.

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 visi

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LETTER XXVII.

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 re

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LETTER XXVIII.

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 hypo

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LETTER XXIX.

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 tha

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LETTER XXX.

LETTER XXX.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Regarding me as a connoisseur, though I have no pretensions but that of being an amateur, Lucien Bonaparte, shortly before his disgrace, invited me to pass some days with him in the country, and to assist him in arranging his very valuable collection of pictures—next our public ones, the most curious and most valuable in Europe, and, of course, in the world. I found here, as at Joseph Bonaparte’s, the same splendour, the same etiquette, and the same liberty, which l

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LETTER XXXI.

LETTER XXXI.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—As long as Austria ranks among independent nations, Bonaparte will take care not to offend or alarm the ambition and interest of Prussia by incorporating the Batavian Republic with the other provinces of his Empire. Until that period, the Dutch must continue (as they have been these last ten years) under the appellation of allies, oppressed like subjects and plundered like foes. Their mock sovereignty will continue to weigh heavier on them than real servitude does o

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LETTER XXXII.

LETTER XXXII.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—Not to give umbrage to the Cabinet of Berlin, Bonaparte communicated to it the necessity he was under of altering the form of Government in Holland, and, if report be true, even condescended to ask advice concerning a chief magistrate for that country. The young Prince of Orange, brother-in-law of His Prussian Majesty, naturally presented himself; but, after some time, Talleyrand’s agents discovered that great pecuniary sacrifices could not be expected from that qua

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LETTER XXXIII.

LETTER XXXIII.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—The Italian subjects of Napoleon the First were far from displaying the same zeal and the same gratitude for his paternal care and kindness in taking upon himself the trouble of governing them, as we good Parisians have done. Notwithstanding that a brigade of our police agents and spies, drilled for years to applaud and to excite enthusiasm, proceeded as his advanced guard to raise the public spirit, the reception at Milan was cold and everything else but cordial an

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LETTER XXXIV.

LETTER XXXIV.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—After the discovery of Charlotte Encore’s attempt, Bonaparte, who hitherto had flattered himself that he possessed the good wishes, if not the affection, of his female subjects, made a regulation according to which no women who had not previously given in their names to the prefects of his palaces, and obtained previous permission, can approach his person or throw themselves at his feet, without incurring his displeasure, and even arrest. Of this Imperial decree, la

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LETTER XXXV.

LETTER XXXV.

PARIS, August, 1805. MY LORD:—I believe I have before remarked that, under the Government of Bonaparte, causes relatively the most insignificant have frequently produced effects of the greatest consequence. A capricious or whimsical character, swaying with unlimited power, is certainly the most dangerous guardian of the prerogatives of sovereignty, as well as of the rights and liberties of the people. That Bonaparte is as vain and fickle as a coquette, as obstinate as a mule, and equally audacio

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LETTER XXXVI.

LETTER XXXVI.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—Bonaparte is now the knight of more Royal Orders than any other Sovereign in Europe, and were he to put them on all at once, their ribands would form stuff enough for a light summer coat of as many different colours as the rainbow. The Kings of Spain, of Naples, of Prussia, of Portugal, and of Etruria have admitted him a knight-companion, as well as the Electors of Bavaria, Hesse, and Baden, and the Pope of Rome. In return he has appointed these Princes his grand

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LETTER XXXVII.

LETTER XXXVII.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—I can truly defy the world to produce a corps of such a heterogeneous composition as our Conservative Senate, when I except the members composing Bonaparte’s Legion of Honour. Some of our Senators have been tailors, apothecaries, merchants, chemists, quacks, physicians, barbers, bankers, soldiers, drummers, dukes, shopkeepers, mountebanks, Abbes, generals, savans, friars, Ambassadors, counsellors, or presidents of Parliament, admirals, barristers, Bishops, sailor

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LETTER XXXVIII.

LETTER XXXVIII.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—The reciprocal jealousy and even interest of Austria, France, and Russia have hitherto prevented the tottering Turkish Empire from being partitioned, like Poland, or seized, like Italy; to serve as indemnities, like the German empire; or to be shared, as reward to the allies, like the Empire of Mysore. When we consider the anarchy that prevails, both in the Government and among the subjects, as well in the capital as in the provinces of the Ottoman Porte; when we

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LETTER XXXIX.

LETTER XXXIX.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—Three months before Brune set out on his embassy to Constantinople, Talleyrand and Fouche were collecting together all the desperadoes of our Revolution, and all the Italian, Corsican, Greek, and Arabian renegadoes and vagabonds in our country, to form him a set of attendants agreeable to the real object of his mission. You know too much of our national character and of my own veracity to think it improbable, when I assure you that most of our great men in place

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LETTER XL.

LETTER XL.

PARIS, September, 1805. My LORD:—Madame de C———n is now one of our most fashionable ladies. Once in the week she has a grand tea-party; once in a fortnight a grand dinner; and once in the month a grand ball. Foreign gentlemen are particularly well received at her house, which, of course, is much frequented by them. As you intend to visit this country after a peace, it may be of some service to you not to be unacquainted with the portrait of a lady whose invitation to see the original you may dep

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LETTER I.

LETTER I.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—Since my return here, I have never neglected to present myself before our Sovereign, on his days of grand reviews and grand diplomatic audiences. I never saw him more condescending, more agreeable, or, at least, less offensive, than on the day of his last levee, before he set out to be inaugurated a King of Italy; nor worse tempered, more petulant, agitated, abrupt, and rude than at his first grand audience after his arrival from Milan, when this ceremony had bee

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LETTER II.

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

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LETTER III.

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

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LETTER IV.

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 letter

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LETTER V.

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 moat 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 i

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LETTER VI.

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, i

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LETTER VII.

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

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LETTER VIII.

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 exter

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LETTER IX.

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

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LETTER X.

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 k

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LETTER XI.

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 w

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LETTER XII.

LETTER XII.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—A general officer, who has just arrived from Italy, has assured me that, so far from Bonaparte’s subjects on the other side of the Alps being contented and attached to his person and Government, were a victorious Austrian army to enter the plains of Lombardy a general insurrection would be the consequence. During these last nine years the inhabitants have not enjoyed a moment’s tranquillity or safety. Every relation or favourite whom Napoleon wished to provide fo

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LETTER XIII.

LETTER XIII.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—A ridiculous affair lately occasioned a great deal of bustle among the members of our foreign diplomatic corps. When Bonaparte demanded for himself and for his wife the title of Imperial Majesty, and for his brothers and sisters that of Imperial Highness, he also insisted on the salutation of a Serene Highness being given to his Arch-Chancellor, Cambaceres, and his Arch-Treasurer, Lebrun. The political consciences of the independent representatives of independent

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LETTER XIV.

LETTER XIV.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—No Sovereign Prince has more incurred the hatred of Bonaparte than the present King of Sweden; and I have heard from good authority that our Government spares neither bribes nor intrigues to move the tails of those factions which were dissolved, but not crushed, after the murder of Gustavus III. The Swedes are generally brave and loyal, but their history bears witness that they are easily misled; all their grand achievements are their own, and the consequence of

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LETTER XV.

LETTER XV.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—Believe me, Bonaparte dreads more the liberty of the Press than all other engines, military or political, used by his rivals or foes for his destruction. He is aware of the fatal consequences all former factions suffered from the public exposure of their past crimes and future views; of the reality of their guilt, and of the fallacy of their boasts and promises. He does not doubt but that a faithful account of all the actions and intrigues of his Government, its

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LETTER XVI.

LETTER XVI.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—The Prince Borghese has lately been appointed a captain of the Imperial Guard of his Imperial brother-in-law, Napoleon the First, and is now in Germany, making his first campaign. A descendant of a wealthy and ancient Roman family, but born with a weak understanding, he was easily deluded into the ranks of the revolutionists of his own country, by a Parisian Abbe, his instructor and governor, and gallant of the Princesse Borghese, his mother. He was the first sec

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LETTER XVII.

LETTER XVII.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—When preparations were made for the departure of our army of England for Germany, it excited both laughter and murmuring among the troops. Those who had always regarded the conquest of England as impracticable in present circumstances, laughed, and those who had in their imagination shared the wealth of your country, showed themselves vexed at their disappointment. To keep them in good spirits, the company of the theatre of the Vaudevilles was ordered from hence

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LETTER XVIII.

LETTER XVIII.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—Portugal has suffered more from the degraded state of Spain, under the administration of the Prince of Peace, than we have yet gained by it in France. Engaged by her, in 1793, in a war against its inclination and interest, it was not only deserted afterwards, but sacrificed. But for the dictates of the Court of Madrid, supported, perhaps, by some secret influence of the Court of St. James, the Court of Lisbon would have preserved its neutrality, and, though not a

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LETTER XIX.

LETTER XIX.

PARIS, September, 1805. MY LORD:—In some of the ancient Republics, all citizens who, in time of danger and trouble, remained neutral, were punished as traitors or treated as enemies. When, by our Revolution, civilized society and the European Commonwealth were menaced with a total overthrow, had each member of it been considered in the same light, and subjected to the same laws, some individual States might, perhaps, have been less wealthy, but the whole community would have been more happy and

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LETTER XX.

LETTER XX.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—The insatiable avarice of all the members of the Bonaparte family has already and frequently been mentioned; some of our philosophers, however, pretend that ambition and vanity exclude from the mind of Napoleon Bonaparte the passion of covetousness; that he pillages only to get money to pay his military plunderers, and hoards treasures only to purchase slaves, or to recompense the associates and instruments of his authority. Whether their assertions be just or not,

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LETTER XXI.

LETTER XXI.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—The Counsellor of State and intendant of the Imperial civil list, Daru, paid for the place of a commissary-general of our army in Germany the immense sum of six millions of livres—which was divided between Madame Bonaparte (the mother), Madame Napoleon Bonaparte, Princesse Louis Bonaparte, Princesse Murat and the Princesse Borghese. By this you may conclude in what manner we intend to treat the wretched inhabitants of the other side of the Rhine. This Daru is too g

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LETTER XXII.

LETTER XXII.

MY LORD:—You must often have been surprised at the immense wealth which, from the best and often authentic information, I have informed you our generals and public functionaries have extorted and possess; but the catalogue of private rapine committed, without authority, by our soldiers, officers, commissaries, and generals, is likewise immense, and surpassing often the exactions of a legal kind that is to say, those authorized by our Government itself, or by its civil and military representative

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LETTER XXIII.

LETTER XXIII.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—Since Bonaparte’s departure for Germany, the vigilance of the police has much increased: our patrols are doubled during the night, and our spies more numerous and more insolent during the day. Many suspected persons have also been exiled to some distance from this capital, while others, for a measure of safety, have been shut up in the Temple, or in the Castle of Vincennes. These ‘lettres de cachet’, or mandates of arrest, are expedited during the Emperor’s absence

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LETTER XXIV.

LETTER XXIV.

MY LORD:—Though loudly complained of by the Cabinet of St. Cloud, the Cabinet of St. Petersburg has conducted itself in these critical times with prudence without weakness, and with firmness without obstinacy. In its connections with our Government it has never lost sight of its own dignity, and, therefore, never endured without resentment those impertinent innovations in the etiquette of our Court, and in the manner and language of our Emperor to the representatives of legitimate Sovereigns. Ha

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LETTER XXV.

LETTER XXV.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—The Legion of Honour, though only proclaimed upon Bonaparte’s assumption of the Imperial rank, dates from the first year of his consulate. To prepare the public mind for a progressive elevation of himself, and for consequential distinctions among all classes of his subjects, he distributed among the military, arms of honour, to which were attached precedence and privileges granted by him, and, therefore, liable to cease with his power or life. The number of these a

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LETTER XXVI.

LETTER XXVI.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—Since Bonaparte’s departure for Germany, fifteen individuals have been brought here, chained, from La Vendee and the—Western Departments, and are imprisoned in the Temple. Their crime is not exactly known, but private letters from those countries relate that they were recruiting for another insurrection, and that some of them were entrusted as Ambassadors from their discontented countrymen to Louis XVIII. to ask for his return to France, and for the assistance of R

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LETTER XXVII.

LETTER XXVII.

MY LORD:—In a military empire, ruled by a military despot, it is a necessary policy that the education of youth should also be military. In all our public schools or prytanees, a boy, from the moment of entering, is registered in a company, and regularly drilled, exercised, and reviewed, punished for neglect or fault according to martial law, and advanced if displaying genius or application. All our private schools that wish for the protection of Government are forced to submit to the same milit

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LETTER XXVIII.

LETTER XXVIII.

MY LORD:—Before Bonaparte set out for the Rhine, the Pope’s Nuncio was for the first time publicly rebuked by him in Madame Bonaparte’s drawing-room, and ordered loudly to write to Rome and tell His Holiness to think himself fortunate in continuing to govern the Ecclesiastical States, without interfering with the ecclesiastical arrangements that might be thought necessary or proper by the Government in France. Bonaparte’s policy is to promote among the first dignitaries of the Gallican Church th

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LETTER XXIX.

LETTER XXIX.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—The short journey of Count von Haugwitz to Vienna, and the long stay of our Imperial Grand Marshal, Duroc, at Berlin, had already caused here many speculations, not quite corresponding with the views and, perhaps, interests of our Court, when our violation of the Prussian territory made our courtiers exclaim: “This act proves that the Emperor of the French is in a situation to bid defiance to all the world, and, therefore, no longer courts the neutrality of a Princ

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LETTER XXX.

LETTER XXX.

MY LORD:—The provocations of our Government must have been extraordinary indeed, when they were able to awaken the Cabinet of Berlin from its long and incomprehensible infatuation of trusting to the friendly intentions of honest Talleyrand, and to the disinterested policy of our generous Bonaparte. To judge its intents from its acts, the favour of the Cabinet of St. Cloud was not only its wish but its want. You must remember that, last year, besides his ordinary Ambassador, Da Lucchesini, His Pr

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LETTER XXXI.

LETTER XXXI.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—The unexampled cruelty of our Government to your countryman, Captain Wright, I have heard reprobated, even by some of our generals and public functionaries, as unjust as well as disgraceful. At a future General Congress, should ever Bonaparte suffer one to be convoked, except under his auspices and dictature, the distinction and treatment of prisoners of war require to be again regulated, that the valiant warrior may not for the future be confounded with, and treat

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LETTER XXXII.

LETTER XXXII.

PARIS, October, 1805. My LORD:—Should Bonaparte again return here victorious, and a pacificator, great changes in our internal Government and constitution are expected, and will certainly occur. Since the legislative corps has completed the Napoleon code of civil and criminal justice, it is considered by the Emperor not only as useless, but troublesome and superfluous. For the same reasons the tribunate will also be laid aside, and His Majesty will rule the French Empire, with the assistance of

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LETTER XXXIII.

LETTER XXXIII.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—I suppose your Government too vigilant and too patriotic not to be informed of the great and uninterrupted activity which reigns in our arsenals, dockyards, and seaports. I have seen a plan, according to which Bonaparte is enabled, and intends, to build twenty ships of the line and ten frigates, besides cutters, in the year, for ten years to come. I read the calculation of the expenses, the names of the forests where the timber is to be cut, of the foreign countrie

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LETTER XXXIV.

LETTER XXXIV.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—The defeat of the Austrians has excited great satisfaction among our courtiers and public functionaries; but the mass of the inhabitants here are too miserable to feel for anything else but their own sufferings. They know very well that every victory rivets their fetters, that no disasters can make them more heavy, and no triumph lighter. Totally indifferent about external occurrences, as well as about internal oppressions, they strive to forget both the past and t

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LETTER XXXV.

LETTER XXXV.

MY LORD:—The plan of the campaign of the Austrians is incomprehensible to all our military men—not on account of its profundity, but on account of its absurdity or incoherency. In the present circumstances, half-measures must always be destructive, and it is better to strike strongly and firmly than justly. To invade Bavaria without disarming the Bavarian army, and to enter Suabia and yet acknowledge the neutrality of Switzerland, are such political and military errors as require long successes

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LETTER XXXVI.

LETTER XXXVI.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—“I would give my brother, the Emperor of Germany, one further piece of advice. Let him hasten to make peace. This is the crisis when, he must recollect, all States must have an end. The idea of the approaching extinction of the, dynasty of Lorraine must impress him with horror.” When Bonaparte ordered this paragraph to be inserted in the Moniteur, he discovered an ‘arriere pensee’, long suspected by politicians, but never before avowed by himself, or by his Ministe

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LETTER XXXVII.

LETTER XXXVII.

PARIS, October, 1805. MY LORD:—Many wise people are of the opinion that the revolution of another great Empire is necessary to combat or oppose the great impulse occasioned by the Revolution of France, before Europe can recover its long-lost order and repose. Had the subjects of Austria been as disaffected as they are loyal, the world might have witnessed such a terrible event, and been enabled to judge whether the hypothesis was the production of an ingenious schemer or of a profound statesman.

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