Part 20 (1/2)

As I aents, I will also say soh the same persons frequently occupy both the one office and the other A lory of Marat and Robespierre, offered to Bonaparte, on the evening preceding his departure for Strasburg, the following lines; and was in return presented with a purse full of gold, and an order to the Minister of the Interior, Chany, to be employed in his offices, until better provided for

STANZAS

ON THE RUMOUR OF A WAR WITH AUSTRIA

Kings who, so often vanquish'd, vainly dare Menace the victor that has laid you low-- Look now at France--and view your own despair In the majestic splendour of your foe

What s, Still your deluded reason thuswings Shall fall--but fall on your devoted heads

And thou, Napoleon, if thy hty sword Shall for thy people conquer new renown; Go--Europe shall attest, thy heart preferr'd The modest olive to the laurel crown

But thee, lov'd chief, to new achievements bold

The aroused spirit of the soldier calls; Speak!--and Vienna cowering shall behold Our banners waving o'er her prostrate walls

I received, four days afterwards, at the circle of Madame Joseph Bonaparte, with all other visitors, a copy of these stanzas Most of the foreign Ambassadors were of the party, and had also a share of this patriotic donation Count von Cobenzl had prudently absented hie would have been officially announced to hi, dull, disgusting poereatthat he surpasses them all, tells his countrymen that their Emperor is the deputy Divinity upon earth--the es will erect statues, build temples, burn incense, fall down and adore A proportionate share of abuse is, of course, bestowed on your nation He says:

A Londres on vit briller d'un eclat ephemere Le front tout radieux d'un leterre, Un SOLEIL tout nouveau parut au firmament, Et ce soleil du peuple franc Admire de l'Europe entiere Sur la terre est nomme BONAPARTE LE GRAND

For this delicate coeneral in Italy, and a Knight of the Legion of Honour It ranted that, if Bonaparte is fond of flattery, he does not receive it gratis, but pays for it like a real Emperor

It has lately become the etiquette, not only in our Court circle and official assemblies, but even in fashi+onable societies of persons who are, or wish to become, Bonaparte's public functionaries, to distribute and have read and applauded these disinterested effusions of our poetical geniuses This fashi+on occasioned lately a curious blunder at a tea-party in the hotel of Madaed by this lady had also been employed by Chenier, or soainst several of our literary ladies, in which Madame de Genlis and Madame de Stael (who has just arrived here from her exile) were, with others, very severely handled By iven to the porter of Madame de Talleyrand, and a copy was handed to each visitor, even to Madame de Genlis and Mada their contents Picard, after reading an act of a new play, was asked by the lady of the house to read this poetic worshi+p of the Emperor of the French After the first two lines he stopped short, looking round hi a trick had been played upon hiiven them, and Mada Picard to continue with another

scene of his play, as he had adroitly begun, y in the world, and by it exposed the ladies still more ere the objects of the satire; which, an hour afterwards, was exchanged for the verses intended for the hoe of the Emperor, and the cause of the error was cleared up

I have read somewhere of a tyrant of antiquity who forced all his subjects to furnish one roo to their circumstances, and to have it consecrated for the reception of his bust, before which, under pain of death, they were coht They were to enter this room, bareheaded and barefooted, to remain there only on their knees, and to leave it without turning their back towards the sacred representative of their Prince All laughing, sneezing, coughing, speaking, or even whispering, were capitally prohibited; but crying was not only perry, or unwell Should our systeressively to increase as it has done these last three years, we, too, shall very soon have rooms consecrated, and an idol to adore

LETTER XVIII

PARIS, Septeal has suffered raded state of Spain, under the adained 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 isher of the French Republic, never have been counted a her avowed enemies

In the peace of 1795, and in the subsequent treaty of 1796, which transformed the family compact of the French and Spanish Bourbons into a national alliance between France and Spain, there was no question about Portugal In 1797, indeed, our Governuese plenipotentiary, buthis country of so up its representative as a State prisoner in the Temple Of this violation of the laws of civilized nations, Spain never coe it After four years of negotiation, and an expenditure of thirty millions, the imbecile Spanish premier supported demands made by our Government, which, if assented to, would have left Her Most Faithful Majesty without any territory in Europe, and without any place of refuge in A your country to send any but pecuniary succours, Portugal would have become an easy prey to the united Spanish and French forces, had the reed about the partition of the spoil Their disunion, the consequence of their avidity, saved it froe A province was ceded to Spain, the banks and the navigation of a river to France, and fifty millions to the private purse of the Bonaparte faht have been supposed that such renunciations, and such offerings, would have satiated ah the Cabinet of Lisbon was in peace with the Cabinet of St Cloud, the pretensions and encroachments of the latter left the for tributes it required commercial monopolies, and when its commerce was favoured, it demanded seaports to ensure the security of its trade Its pretensions rose in proportion to the condescensions of the State it, oppressed With the al has paid in loans, in contributions, in requisitions, in donations, in tributes, and in presents, itten years, an army of one hundred thousand men; and could it then have been worse situated than it has been since, and is still at this , and the individuals enity and independence than the extortions themselves were injurious to its resources The first revolutionary Aratitude and his conteenerals have ar and insolent gler, he was a sler hioon, a deserter, a coiner, a Jacobin, and a terrorist; and he has, with all the meanness and brutality of these different trades, a kind of native iusts He seems to say, ”I a so To obtain the rank I possess I have respected no huht be ibbet or in the palace of a Prince, seized by the executioner or dining with Sovereigns, I am, I will, and I must, always remain the sarandeur to exalt me”

General, Ambassador, Field-marshal, First Consul, or E individual; a stranger to remorse and repentance, as well as to honour and virtue Where Bonaparte sends a banditto of such a stamp, he has resolved on destruction

A kind of terace was said to have occasioned Lasnes's first uard, in 1802, he had appropriated to hiimental chest, and, as a punishment, was exiled as an Aainst Bonaparte he took care to pour out on the Regent of Portugal Without inquiring or caring about the etiquette of the Court of Lisbon, he brought the sans-culotte etiquette of the Court of the Tuileries with hiitin, as he had done with his own sans-culotte friend and First Consul; and, what is the ent not only admitted him to the royal table, but stood sponsor to his child by a ho had been two years his mistress before he was divorced from his first spouse, and hohter of a King, was also obliged to associate

Avaricious as well as unprincipled, he pursued, as an Aler, and, instead of being ashamed of a discovery, proclaimed it publicly, deserted his post, was not repriain in Portugal His conduct afterwards could not be surprising He only insisted that some faithful and able Ministers should be removed, and others appointed in their place, more complaisant and less honest

New plans of Bonaparte, however, delivered Portugal frorenadier A, as abandoned but

Gendral Junot is the son of a corn-chandler near the corn-market of this capital, and was a shop, he was turned out of the parental dwelling, and therefore lodged himself as an inmate of the Jacobin Club In 1792, he entered, as a soldier, in a regiainst the county of Nice; and, in 1793, he served before Toulon, where he became acquainted with Bonaparte, who the unfortunate Toulonese; and hom, also, in the autumn of the same year, he, therefore, was arrested as a terrorist