Part 14 (1/2)

Last February, Madame de P----t (the wife of Comte de P----t, a relative, by her husband's side, of Madame de C----n, and who by the Revolution lost all their property, and now live with her as coht to bed of a son; the child was baptized by the Cardinal de Belloy, and Madame Joseph and Prince Louis Bonaparte stood sponsors This occurrence was celebrated with great poiven to nearly one hundred and fifty per sons of both sexes,--as usual, a mixture of ci-devant nobles and of ci-devant sans-culottes; of rank and nity

What that day struckand insulting the old Cardinal de Belloy with his impertinent conversation and affected piety This Villetard was, before the Revolution, a journeyman barber, and was released in 1789 by the mob from the prison of the Chatelet, where he was confined for theft In 1791 his patriotism was so well known in the Department of Yonne, that he was deputed by the Jacobins there to the Jacobins of the capital with an address, encouraging and advising the deposition of Louis XVI; and in 1792 he was chosen a uinary and most violent of the factions were always certain to reckon him in the number of their adherents

In December, 1797, when an insurrection, prepared by Joseph Bonaparte at Ronty and liberty, Villetard was sent by the Jacobin and atheistical party of the Directory to Loretto, to seize and carry off the celebrated Madonna In the execution of this coenius and the criin, a black gown said to have appertained to her, together with three broken china plates, which the Roes believed to have been used by her, were presented by him to the Directory, with a cruelly scandalous show, accompanied by a horribly blaspheht, after he had perpetrated this sacrilege, with two prostitutes, in the chapel of the Holy Virgin; and, on the next , placed one of thein had formerly stood, and ordered all the devotees at Loretto, and two leagues round, to prostrate the command occasioned the premature death of fifteen ladies, two of who the horrid outrage; and manyious, the pious, and the conscientious of their consolation and hope, adds the tor virtue upon its knees to bow before what it knows to be guilt and infamy

A traitor to his associates as to his God, it was he who, in November, 1799, presented at St Cloud the decree which excluded all those who opposed Bonaparte's authority from the Council of Five Hundred, and appointed the two committees which made him a First Consul In reward for this act of treachery, he was nominated to a place in the Conservative Senate He has now ranked hiularly to Mass and confesses; has made a brother of his, as a drummer, an Abbe; and his assiduity about the Cardinal was probably with a view to obtain advance priest

The Cardinal de Belloy is now ninety-six years of age, being born in 1709, and has been a Bishop for fifty-three years, but, during the Revolution, was proscribed, with all other prelates He reuillotine, but not froreatest want A descendant of a noble fa an unpolluted character, Bonaparte fixed upon him as one of the pillars for the reestablishment of the Catholic worshi+p, made him an Archbishop of Paris, and procured him the rank of a Cardinal from Rome But he is now in his second childhood, entirely directed by his grand vicaries, Malaret, De Mons, and Legeas, who are in the pay of, and absolutely devoted to, Bonaparte An innocent instrument in their hands, of those impious compliments pronounced by him to the Emperor and the E Froht extort any promise I observed, however, with pleasure, that he atched by the grand vicar, Malaret, who seldoht of His Eminence

These two so opposite characters--Ievidences of the composition of the society at Mada still ant services of plate, asher parties After the supper on this night, eleven silver and four gold plates, besides nuold spoons, forks, etc, were missed She informed Fouche of her loss, who had her house surrounded by spies, with orders not to let any servant pass without undergoing a strict search The first gentlee was His Excellency the Counsellor of State and grand officer of the Legion of Honour, Treilhard His servants were stopped and the cause explained They willingly, and against the protest of theirwas found upon the the full-dress hat of their master rather bulky under his arm, took the liberty to look into it, where they found one of Madaold plates and two of her spoons His Excellency i concealed their theft there Fouche, however, when called out, advised his friend to forgive the them, as the less said on the subject the better When Madame de C----n heard of this discovery, she asked Fouche to recall his order or to alter it ”A repetition of such s in the hats or in the pockets of the masters,” said she, ”would injure the reputation of my house and company” She never recovered the reht not be exposed in future to the sa day, to be used when she had mixed society

Treilhard had, before the Revolution, the reputation of being an honest man and an able advocate; but has since joined the criuilt and a sharer of their spoils In the convention, he voted for the death of Louis XVI and pursued without mercy the unfortunate Marie Antoinette to the scaffold

During his uillotine was erected and blood flowed in streams He was, nevertheless, accused by Robespierre of otiated as a plenipotentiary with the representatives of Princes, and in 1799 corresponded as a director with Ereat and dear friends He is now a Counsellor of State, in the section of legislation, and enjoys a fortune of severalfrom estates in the country, and from leases in the capital As this accident at Madaave out that he had of late been exceedingly absent, and, fro he can lay hold of into his pocket He is not a favourite with Madarace hiion of Honour, but was answered, ”Were I to turn away all the thieves and rogues that encon I despise them, but I must employ them”

It is whispered that the police have discovered another of Madaold plates at a pawnbroker's, where it had been pledged by the wife of another Counsellor of State, Francois de Nantes

This I give you h the fact is, that Mada, but very unfortunate; and she, with other of our fashi+onable ladies, has a debts

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ST CLOUD

Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London

BOOK 2

LETTER I

PARIS, September, 1805

MY LORD:--Since lected to present rand reviews and grand diploreeable, 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 teitated, abrupt, and rude than at his first grand audience after his arrival from Milan, when this ceremony had been performed I auise either his good or ill-humour; and it was only requisite to have eyes and ears to see and be disgusted at the difference of behaviour

I have heard a female friend of Madame Bonaparte explain, in part, the cause of this alteration Just before he set out for Italy, the agreeable news of the success of the first Rochefort squadron in the West Indies, and the escape of our Toulon fleet frohly elevated his spirits, as it was the first naval enterprise of any consequence since his reign I arand naval victory would flatter his vanity and alory of one of his ns He had also, at that tiotiation with Russia would keep the Continent submissive under his dictature, until he should find an opportunity of crushi+ng your power Youa blow in your country, after the junction of our fleet with the Spanish, not by any engagement between our Brest fleet and your Channel fleet, but under a supposition that you would detach squadrons to the East and West Indies in search of the co to orders, would have then left us masters of the Channel, and, if joined with the Batavian fleet, perhaps even of the North Sea By the incomprehensible activity of Lord Nelson, and by the defeat (or as we call it here, the negative victory) of Villeneuve and Gravina, all this first prospect had vanished Our vengeance against a nation of shopkeepers ere not only under the necessity of postponing, but, from the unpolite threats and treaties of the Cabinet of St Petersburg with those of Vienna and St

Jaunboats, instead of being useful in carrying an army to the destruction of the tyrants of the seas, were burdensouard the thees, in so short a period of tiht irritate a temper less patient than that of Napoleon the First

At his grand audience here, even after the arland had moved towards Germany, when the die was cast, and his mind should, therefore, have been made up, he was almost insupportable The los, and the still humbler expressions of the Prussian Ambassador, the Marquis da Lucchesini, were hardly noticed; and the Saxon Ae that no well-bredto a menial servant He did not cast a look, or utter a word, that was not an insult to the audience and a disgrace to his rank I never before saw hie and disappointment so indiscriminately We were, indeed (if I may use the term), humbled and trampled upon en rily at them; others he shocked by his hoarse voice and harsh words; and all--all of us--were afraid, in our turn, of experiencing sohbours I observed e colour, and even perspire, at His Majesty's approach

I believe the ree with ress, the restoration of the ancient and becos of France would be as desirable a point to demand from the Emperor of the French as the restoration of the balance of power

Before his arland quitted its old quarters on the coast, the officers and overnable terenadiers, of the division of Oudinot, were defiling before hih without cause, reprobated their , and once rode up to Captain Fournois, pushed hi out, ”Sacre Dieu! Advance; you walk like a turkey”

In the firstat the cane with his sword,the person of Bonaparte, who called out to his aide-de-camp, Savary: