Part 22 (2/2)

A cobbler, of the name of Matthieu, either in a fit of s, decorated hiion of Honour, and had an old star fastened on his coat

Thus accoutred, he went into the Palais Royal, in the an to speak to his audience of the absurdity of true republicans not being on a level, even under an E on, like him, all his ridiculous ornarand officers, or there exist no grand officers at all; we have all fought and paid for liberty, and for the Revolution, as ht and claiendar him into custody When Fouche asked him what he meant by such rebellious behaviour, he replied that it was only a trial to see whether destiny had intended him to become an Emperor or to remain a cobbler On the next day he was shot as a conspirator I saw the unfortunate man in the Palais Royal; his eyes looked wild, and his words were often incoherent

He was certainly a subjecta place in a madhouse than in a tomb

Cambaceres has been severely repri tooit in preference to the Iiven to understand that, except for four days in the year, the Imperial etiquette did not perhthood of the Prussian Order In Mada-room, before His Imperial Majesty set out for the Rhine, he was ornauese orders, together with those of the French Legion of Honour and of the Italian Iron Crown I have seen the Emperor Paul, as also an amateur of ribands and stars, but never with so many at once I have just heard that the Grand Master of Malta has presented Napoleon with the Grand Cross of the Maltese Order This is certainly a negative compliment to him, who, in July, 1798, officially declared to his then sectaries, the Turks and Mussulhts, and Order of Malta existed noour fashi+onable ladies, that the Empress of the French also intends to institute a new order of fehthood, not of honour, but of confidence; of which all our Court ladies, all the wives of our generals, public functionaries, etc, are to be members The Imperial Princesses of the Bonaparte faether with as n Empresses, Queens, Princesses, Countesses, and Baronesses as can be bayoneted into this revolutionary sisterhood Had the Continent remained tranquil, it would already have been officially announced by a Senatus Consultum I should suppose that Madame Bonaparte, with her splendid Court and brilliant retinue of Ger, need only say the word to find hundreds of princely recruits for her knighthood in petto Her mantle, as a Grand Mistress of the Order of CONFIDENCE, has been already embroidered at Lyons, and those who have seen it assert that it is truly superb The diamonds of the star on the mantle are valued at six hundred thousand livres

LETTER XXVI

PARIS, October, 1805

MY LORD:--Since Bonaparte's departure for Gerht here, chained, from La Vendee and the--Western Departments, and are imprisoned in the Temple Their crime is not exactly known, but private letters fro 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 Russia, Sweden, and England to support his claims

These are, however, reports to which I do not affix uilty, or only accused of such crio have been tortured, tried, and executed, or executed without a trial I suppose thees arrested by our Government, as security for the tranquillity of the Chouan Depart our armies' occupation elsewhere We have, nevertheless, two movable columns of six thousand men each in the country, or in its vicinity, and it would be not only ie or allure the unfortunate people of these wretched countries into any plots, which, situated as affairs now are, would be productive of great and certain evil to them, without even the probability of any benefit to the cause of royalty and of the Bourbons I do not ainst Bonaparte's tyranny, or that the Bourbons have no friends; on the contrary, the latter are not few, and the former very nu resistance to usurpation and oppression, has seized on most minds, and annihilated what little rereat public spirit We are tired of everything, even of our existence, and care no overned by a Maximilian Robespierre or by a Napoleon Bonaparte, by a Barras or by Louis XVIII Except, perhaps, a some ambitious schemers, remnants of former factions, I do not believe a Moreau, a Macdonald, a Lucien Bonaparte, or any person exiled by the Emperor, and formerly popular, could collect fifty trusty conspirators in all France; at least, as long as our aranized in their present for happen to our present chief, an iiven to the minds now sunk down, and raise our characters from their present torpid state But until such an event, we shall re our children and treasures for a cause we detest, and for a man we abhor

I am sorry to say it, but it certainly does, no honour to my nation when one million desperados of civil and overn, tyrannize, and pillage, at their ease and undisturbed, thirty millions of people, to whom their past crimes are known, and who have every reason to apprehend their future wickedness

This astonishi+ng resignation (if I can call it so, and if it does not deserve a worse name), is so her and reat as the misery of the people, and, except those employed under Bonaparte, and soreatest privations must be submitted to in order to pay the enormous taxes and make a decent appearance I know families of five, six, and seven persons, who formerly ealthy, and now have for a scanty subsistence an incohteen hundred livres--per year, hich they are obliged to live as they can, being deprived of all the resource that elsewhere labour offers to the industrious, and all the succours compassion bestows on the necessitous You know that here all trade and all commerce are at a stand or destroyed, and the hearts of our ar and brutal

A fa a revenue of one hundred and fifty thousand livres--subsist now on fifteen hundred livres--per year; and this sum must support six individuals--the father and ement of only one poor meal in the day; a dinner four times, and a supper three times, in the week They endure their distress with tolerable cheerfulness, though in the saarrets of a house, resides, in an elegant hotel, a room, but who is now a tribune, and has within these last twelve years, as a conventional deputy, amassed, in his mission to Brabant and Flanders, twelve millions of livres He has kindly let ht be received as a chaood education All the four daughters are good ood drawers, and very able with their needles By their talents they supported their parents and theration in Gere Those upstarts ant instruction or works of this sort apply to the first, most renowned, and fashi+onable reatest number, cannot afford even to pay the inferior ones and thereturned froo back again to Germany? First, it would expose them to suspicion, and, perhaps, to ruin, were they to deer or difficulty were re journey

But this sort of penury and wretchedness is also common with the families of the former wealthy merchants and tradesmen Paper money, a maximum, and requisitions, have reduced those that did not share in the crie of the Revolution, as much as the proscribed nobility And, contradictory as it may seem, the number of persons employed in commercial speculations has nation of trade, the consequence of war, of want of capital, protection, encourageazines of 1789 contained azines put together The expenses of these new o, the profit less, and the credit still less than the profit Hence nueries, and other evils of iance, and misery The fair and honest dealers suffer most fro, like other vilein wealth under their eyes, to make rapid fortunes, and to escape detection as well as punish is done but for ready money, and even bankers' bills, or bills accepted by bankers, are not taken in paynatures are avowed by the parties concerned You can easily conceive what confusion, what expenses, and what; loss of tieries and fabrications have made them absolutely necessary

The farmers and landholders are better off, but they also complain of the heavy taxes, and low price paid for what they bring to the market, which frequently, for want of readybut cash in pay the endeavours of our Government, the notes of the Bank of France have never been in circulation a them They have also been subject to losses by the fluctuation of paper money, by extortions, requisitions, and by the maximum In this class of my countrymen remains still some little national spirit and so favourable to Bonaparte, or to the Imperial Government, which the yearly increase of taxes, and, above all, the conscription, have rendered extrereat difference in the taxation of lands and landed property now and under our Kings, when I inform you that a friend of mine, who, in 1792, possessed, in one of the Western Departments, twenty-one farms, paid less in contribution for them all than he does now for the three farms he has recovered from the wreck of his fortune

LETTER XXVII

PARIS, October, 1805

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, froularly drilled, exercised, and reviewed, punished for neglect or fault according to enius or application All our private schools that wish for the protection of Government are forced to submit to the same military rules, and, therefore,recruits, are fit for any service as soon as put into requisition

The fatal effects to the independence of Europe to be dreaded from this sole innovation, I apprehend, have been too little considered by other nations A great Power, that can, without obstacle, and with but little expense, in four weeks increase its disposable military force frohty thousand young men, accustomed to military duty from their youth, must finally become the master of all other or rival Powers, and dispose at leisure of edoms, principalities, and republics NOTHING CAN SAVE THEM BUT THE ADOPTION OF SIMILAR MEASURES FOR THEIR PRESERVATION AS HAVE BEEN ADOPTED FOR THEIR SUBJUGATION

When l'Etat Militaire for the year 13 (a work containing the official statement of our military forces) was presented to Bonaparte by Berthier, the latter said: ”Sire, I lay before Your Majesty the book of the destiny of the world, which your hands direct as the sovereign guide of the armies of your empire” This coht as justly have been addressed to a Moreau, a Macdonald, a Le Courbe, or to any other general, as to Bonaparte, because a superior number of well disciplined troops, let them be well or even indifferently commanded, will defeat those inferior in nuiants Add to it the unity of plans, of dispositions, and of execution, which Bonaparte enjoys exclusively over such a great number of troops, while ten, or perhaps fifty, will direct or contradict every movement of his opponents I tremble when I meditate on Berthier's assertion; may I never live to see it realized, and to see all hitherto independent nations prostrated, acknowledge that Bonaparte and destiny are the saood and evil

One of the bad consequences of this our ious and e to colect, in the National Institute ”The youth,” said he, ”receive no other instruction but lessons to march, to fire, to bow, to dance, to sit, to lie, and to irace I do not ask for Spartans or Ro Sybarites” Within twenty-four hours afterwards, Arnaud was visited by a police agent, acconed by Fouche, which condemned him to reside at Orleans, and not to return to Paris without the perarded here as very moderate for such an indiscreet zeal

A schoolmaster at Auteuil, near this capital, of the naanized upon the footing of our fores In some few months he was offered more pupils than he could well attend to, and his house shortly became very fashi+onable, even for our upstarts, who sent their children there in preference He was ordered before Fouche last Christe the hours hitherto eion and morals, to a military exercise and instruction, as bothreplied that such an alteration was contrary to his plan and agreement with the parents of his scholars, the Minister stopped hi him that he must obey what had been prescribed by Government, or stand the consequences of his refractory spirit Having consulted with his friends and patrons, he divided the hours, and gave half of the tiion or morality to the study of military exercise His pupils, however, remained obstinate, broke the druht As this was not his fault, he did not expect any further disturbance, particularly after having reported to the police both his obedience and the unforeseen result But last March his house was suddenly surrounded in the night by gendarents entered it All the boys were ordered to dress and to pack up their effects, and to follow the gendarmes to several other schools, where the Government had placed them, and of which their parents would be informed

Gouron, his wife, four ushers, and six servants, were all arrested and carried to the police office, where Fouche, after reproaching them for their fanatical behaviour, as he terious and moral duties, a suitable situation had been provided for theroes stood sadly in need of their early arrival, for which reason they would all set out on that veryfor Rochefort When Gouron asked as to become of his property, furniture, etc, he was told that his house was intended by Government for a preparatory school, and would, with its contents, be purchased, and the amount paid him in lands in Cayenne It is not necessary to say that this example of Imperial justice had the desired effect on all other refractory private schoolmasters