The Historic Court Memoirs of France, complete

Part 62 out of 62



under Frederick William II. that he began his diplomatic career, with an
appointment as Minister from Prussia to the late King of Poland. His
first act in this post. was a treaty signed on the 29th of March, 1790,
with the King and Republic of Poland, which changed an elective monarchy
into an hereditary one; but, notwithstanding the Cabinet of Berlin had
guaranteed this alteration, and the constitution decreed in consequence,
in 1791, three years afterwards Russian and Prussian bayonets annihilated
both, and selfishness banished faith.

In July, 1790, he assisted as a Prussian plenipotentiary at the
conferences at Reichenback, together with the English and Dutch
Ambassadors, having for object a pacification between Austria and Turkey.
In December of the same year he went with the same Ministers to the
Congress at Sistova, where, in May, 1791, he signed the Treaty of Peace
between the Grand Seignior and the Emperor of Germany. In June, 1792, he
was a second time sent as a Minister to Warsaw, where he remained until
January, 1793, when he was promoted to the post of Ambassador at the
Court of Vienna. He continued, however, to reside with His Prussian
Majesty during the greatest part of the campaign on the Rhine, and
signed, on the 24th of June, 1793, in the camp before Mentz, an offensive
and defensive alliance with your Court; an alliance which Prussian policy
respected not above eighteen months. In October, 1796, he requested his
recall, but this his Sovereign refused, with the most gracious
expressions; and he could not obtain it until March, 1797. Some
disapprobation of the new political plan introduced by Count von Haugwitz
in the Cabinet at Berlin is supposed to have occasioned his determination
to retire from public employment. As he, however, continued to reside in
the capital of Prussia, and, as many believed, secretly intrigued to
appear again upon the scene, the nomination, in 1800, to his present
important post was as much the consequence of his own desire as of the
favour of his King.

The Marquis of Lucchesini lives here in great style at the beautiful
Hotel de l'Infantado, where his lady's routs, assemblies, and circles are
the resort of our most fashionable gentry. Madame da Lucchesini is more
agreeable than handsome, more fit to shine at Berlin than at Paris; for
though her manners are elegant, they want that ease, that finish which a
German or Italian education cannot teach, nor a German or Italian society
confer. To judge from the number of her admirers, she seems to know that
she is married to a philosopher. Her husband was born at Lucca, in
Italy, and is, therefore, at present a subject of Bonaparte's brother-in-
law, Prince Bacciochi, to whom, when His Serene Highness was a marker at
a billiard-table, I have had the honour of giving many a shilling, as
well as many a box on the ear.




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 treated as, a treacherous
spy; nor innocent travellers, provided with regular passes, visiting a
country either for business or for pleasure, be imprisoned, like men
taken while combating with arms in their hands.

You remember, no doubt, from history, that many of our ships--that,
during the reigns of George I. and II., carried to Ireland and Scotland,
and landed there, the adherents and partisans of the House of Stuart were
captured on their return or on their passage; and that your Government
never seized the commanders of these vessels, to confine them as State
criminals, much less to torture or murder them in the Tower. If I am not
mistaken, the whole squadron which, in 1745, carried the Pretender and
his suite to Scotland, was taken by your cruisers; and the officers and
men experienced no worse or different treatment than their fellow
prisoners of war; though the distance is immense between the crime of
plotting against the lawful Government of the Princes of the House of
Brunswick, and the attempt to disturb the usurpation of an upstart of the
House of Bonaparte. But, even during the last war, how many of our ships
of the line, frigates, and cutters, did you not take, which had landed
rebels in Ireland, emissaries in Scotland, and malefactors in Wales; and
yet your generosity prevented you from retaliating, even at the time when
your Sir Sidney Smith, and this same unfortunate Captain Wright, were
confined in our State prison of the Temple! It is with Governments as
with individuals, they ought to be just before they are generous. Had
you in 1797, or in 1798, not endured our outrages so patiently, you would
not now have to lament, nor we to blush for, the untimely end of Captain
Wright.

From the last time that this officer had appeared before the criminal
tribunal which condemned Georges and Moreau, his fate was determined on
by our Government. His firmness offended, and his patriotism displeased;
and as he seemed to possess the confidence of his own Government, it was
judged that he was in its secrets; it was, therefore, resolved that, if
he refused to become a traitor, he should perish a victim. Desmarets,
Fouche's private secretary, who is also the secretary of the secret and
haute police, therefore ordered him to another private interrogatory.
Here he was offered a considerable sum of money, and the rank of an
admiral in our service, if he would divulge what he knew of the plans of
his Government, of its connections with the discontented in this country,
and of its means of keeping up a correspondence with them. He replied,
as might have been expected, with indignation, to such offers and to such
proposals, but as they were frequently repeated with new allurements, he
concluded with remaining silent and giving no answers at all. He was
then told that the torture would soon restore him his voice, and some
select gendarmes seized him and laid him on the rack; there he uttered no
complaint, not even a sigh, though instruments the most diabolical were
employed, and pains the most acute must have been endured. When
threatened that he should expire in torments, he said:

"I do not fear to die, because my country will avenge my murder, while my
God receives my soul." During the two hours of the first day that he was
stretched on the rack, his left arm and right leg were broken, and his
nails torn from the toes of both feet; he then passed into the hands of a
surgeon, and was under his care for five weeks, but, before he was
perfectly cured, he was carried to another private interrogatory, at
which, besides Desmarets, Fouche and Real were present.

The Minister of Police now informed him that, from the mutilated state of
his body, and from the sufferings he had gone through, he must be
convinced that it was not the intention of the French Government ever to
restore him to his native country, where he might relate occurrences
which the policy of France required to be buried in oblivion; he,
therefore, had no choice between serving the Emperor of the French, or
perishing within the walls of the prison where he was confined. He
replied that he was resigned to his destiny, and would die as he had
lived, faithful to his King and to his country.

The man in full possession of his mental qualities and corporeal strength
is, in most cases, very different from that unfortunate being whose mind
is, enervated by sufferings and whose body is weakened by wants. For
five months Captain Wright had seen only gaolers, spies, tyrants,
executioners, fetters, racks, and other tortures; and for five weeks his
food had been bread and his drink water. The man who, thus situated and
thus perplexed, preserves his native dignity and innate sentiments, is
more worthy of monuments, statues, or altars than either the legislator,
the victor, or the saint.

This interrogatory was the last undergone by Captain Wright. He was then
again stretched on the rack, and what is called by our regenerators the
INFERNAL torments, were inflicted on him. After being pinched with red-
hot irons all over his body, brandy, mixed with gunpowder, was infused in
the numerous wounds and set fire to several times until nearly burned to
the bones. In the convulsions, the consequence of these terrible
sufferings, he is said to have bitten off a part of his tongue, though,
as before, no groans were heard. As life still remained, he was again
put under the care of his former surgeon; but, as he was exceedingly
exhausted, a spy, in the dress of a Protestant clergyman, presented
himself as if to read prayers with him. Of this offer he accepted; but
when this man began to ask some insidious questions, he cast on him a
look of contempt and never spoke to him more. At last, seeing no means
to obtain any information from him, a mameluke last week strangled him in
his bed. Thus expired a hero whose fate has excited more compassion,
and whose character has received more admiration here, than any of our
great men who have fallen fighting for our Emperor. Captain Wright has
diffused new rays of renown and glory on the British name, from his tomb
as well as from his dungeon.

You have certainly a right to call me to an account for all the
particulars I have related of this scandalous and abominable transaction,
and, though I cannot absolutely guarantee the truth of the narration,
I am perfectly satisfied of it myself, and I hope to explain myself to
your satisfaction. Your unfortunate countryman was attended by and under
the care of a surgeon of the name of Vaugeard, who gained his confidence,
and was worthy of it, though employed in that infamous gaol. Either from
disgust of life, or from attachment to Captain Wright, he survived him
only twelve hours, during which he wrote the shocking details I have
given you, and sent them to three of the members of the foreign
diplomatic corps, with a prayer to have them forwarded to Sir Sidney
Smith or to Mr. Windham, that those his friends might be informed that,
to his last moment, Captain Wright was worthy of their protection and
kindness. From one of those Ministers I have obtained the original in
Vaugeard's own handwriting.

I know that Bonaparte and Talleyrand promised the release of Captain
Wright to the Spanish Ambassador; but, at that time, he had already
suffered once on the rack, and this liberality on their part was merely a
trick to impose upon the credulity of the Spaniard or to get rid of his
importunities. Had it been otherwise, Captain Wright, like Sir George
Rumbold, would himself have been the first to announce in your country
the recovery of his liberty.




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 his
Senate, and with the advice of his Council of State, exclusively. You
know that the Senators, as well as the Councillors of State, are
nominated by the Emperor; that he changes the latter according to his
whim, and that, though the former, according to the present constitution,
are to hold their offices for life, the alterations which remove entirely
the legislature and the tribunate may also make Senators movable. But as
all members of the Senate are favourites or relatives, he will probably
not think it necessary to resort to such a measure of policy.

In a former letter I have already mentioned the heterogeneous composition
of the Senate. The tribunate and legislative corps are worthy to figure
by its side; their members are also ci-devant mechanics of all
descriptions, debased attorneys or apostate priests, national spoilers
or rebellious regicides, degraded nobles or dishonoured officers.
The nearly unanimous vote of these corps for a consulate for life,
and for an hereditary Emperor, cannot, therefore, either be expressive of
the national will, or constitute the legality of Bonaparte's sovereignty.

In the legislature no vote opposed, and no voice declaimed against,
Bonaparte's Imperial dignity; but in the tribunate, Carnot--the
infamously notorious Carnot--'pro forma', and with the permission of the
Emperor 'in petto', spoke against the return of a monarchical form of
Government. This farce of deception and roguery did not impose even on
our good Parisians, otherwise, and so frequently, the dupes of all our
political and revolutionary mountebanks. Had Carnot expressed a
sentiment or used a word not previously approved by Bonaparte, instead of
reposing himself in the tribunate, he would have been wandering in
Cayenne.

Son of an obscure attorney at Nolay, in Burgundy, he was brought up, like
Bonaparte, in one of those military schools established by the
munificence of the French Monarchs; and had obtained, from the late
King, the commission of a captain of engineers when the Revolution broke
out. He was particularly indebted to the Prince of Conde for his support
during the earlier part of his life, and yet he joined the enemies of his
house, and voted for the death of Louis XVI. A member, with Robespierre
and Barrere, of the Committee of Public Safety, he partook of their
power, as well as of their crimes, though he has been audacious enough to
deny that he had anything to do with other transactions than those of the
armies. Were no other proofs to the contrary collected, a letter of his
own hand to the ferocious Lebon, at Arras, is a written evidence which he
is unable to refute. It is dated November 16th, 1793. "You must take,"
says he, "in your energy, all measures of terror commanded or required by
present circumstances. Continue your revolutionary attitude; never mind
the amnesty pronounced with the acceptance of the absurd constitution of
1791; it is a crime which cannot extenuate other crimes. Anti-
republicans can only expiate their folly under the age of the guillotine.
The public Treasury will always pay the journeys and expenses of
informers, because they have deserved well of their country. Let all
suspected traitors expire by the sword or by fire; continue to march upon
that revolutionary line so well delineated by you. The committee
applauds all your undertakings, all your measures of vigour; they are not
only all permitted, but commanded by your mission." Most of the decrees
concerning the establishment of revolutionary tribunals, and particularly
that for the organization of the atrocious military commission at Orange,
were signed by him.

Carnot, as an officer of engineers, certainly is not without talents;
but his presumption in declaring himself the sole author of those plans
of campaign which, during the years 1794, 1795, and 1796, were so
triumphantly executed by Pichegru, Moreau, and Bonaparte, is impertinent,
as well as unfounded. At the risk of his own life, Pichegru entirely
altered the plan sent him by the Committee of Public Safety; and it was
Moreau's masterly retreat, which no plan of campaign could prescribe,
that made this general so famous. The surprising successes of Bonaparte
in Italy were both unexpected and unforeseen by the Directory; and,
according to Berthier's assertion, obliged the, commander-in-chief,
during the first four months, to change five times his plans of
proceedings and undertakings.

During his temporary sovereignty as a director, Carnot honestly has made
a fortune of twelve millions of livres; which has enabled him not only to
live in style with his wife, but also to keep in style two sisters, of
the name of Aublin, as his mistresses. He was the friend of the father
of these girls, and promised him, when condemned to the guillotine in
1793, to be their second father; but he debauched and ruined them both
before either was fourteen years of age; and young Aublin, who, in 1796,
reproached him with the infamy of his conduct, was delivered up by him to
a military commission, which condemned him to be shot as an emigrant.
He has two children by each of these unfortunate girls.

Bonaparte employs Carnot, but despises and mistrusts him; being well
aware that, should another National Convention be convoked, and the
Emperor of the French be arraigned, as the King of France was, he would,
with as great pleasure, vote for the execution of Napoleon the First as
he did for that of Louis XVI. He has waded too far in blood and crime to
retrograde.

To this sample of a modern tribune I will add a specimen of a modern
legislator. Baptiste Cavaignae was, before the Revolution, an excise
officer, turned out of his place for infidelity; but the department of
Lot electing him, in 1792, a representative of the people to the National
Convention, he there voted for the death of Louis XVI. and remained a
faithful associate of Marat and Robespierre. After the evacuation of
Verdun by the Prussians, in October, 1792, he made a report to the
Convention, according to which eighty-four citizens of that town were
arrested and executed. Among these were twenty-two young girls, under
twenty years of age, whose crime was the having presented nosegays to the
late King of Prussia on his entry after the surrender of Verdun. He was
afterwards a national commissary with the armies on the coast near Brest,
on the Rhine, and in Western Pyrenees, and everywhere he signalized
himself by unheard of ferocities and sanguinary deeds. The following
anecdote, printed and published by our revolutionary annalist, Prudhomme,
will give you some idea of the morality of this our regenerator and
Imperial Solon: "Cavaignac and another deputy, Pinet," writes Prudhomme,
"had ordered a box to be kept for them at the play-house at Bayonne on
the evening they expected to arrive in that town. Entering very late,
they found two soldiers, who had seen the box empty, placed in its front.
These they ordered immediately to be arrested, and condemned them, for
having outraged the national representation, to be guillotined on the
next day, when they both were accordingly executed!" Labarrere, a
provost of the Marechaussee at Dax, was in prison as a suspected person.
His daughter, a very handsome girl of seventeen, lived with an aunt at
Severe. The two pro-consuls passing through that place, she threw
herself at their feet, imploring mercy for her parent. This they not
only promised, but offered her a place in their carriage to Dax, that she
might see him restored to liberty. On the road the monsters insisted on
a ransom for the blood of her father. Waiting, afflicted and ashamed,
at a friend's house at Dag, the accomplishment of a promise so dearly
purchased, she heard the beating of the alarm drum, and looked, from
curiosity, through the window, when she saw her unfortunate parent
ascending the scaffold! After having remained lifeless for half an hour,
she recovered her senses an instant, when she exclaimed:

"Oh, the barbarians! they violated me while flattering me with the hope
of saving my father!" and then expired. In October, 1795, Cavaignac
assisted Barras and Bonaparte in the destruction of some thousands of
men, women, and children in the streets of this capital, and was,
therefore, in 1796, made by the Directory an inspector-general of the
customs; and, in 1803, nominated by Bonaparte a legislator. His
colleague, Citizen Pinet, is now one of our Emperor's Counsellors of
State, and both are commanders of His Majesty's Legion of Honour; rich,
respected, and frequented by our most fashionable ladies and gentlemen.




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 countries where a part of
the necessary materials are already engaged, and of our own departments
which are to furnish the remainder. The whole has been drawn up in a
precise and clear manner by Bonaparte's Maritime Prefect at Antwerp,
M. Malouet, well known in your country, where he long remained as an
emigrant, and, I believe, was even employed by your Ministers.

You may, perhaps, smile at this vast naval scheme of Bonaparte; but if
you consider that he is the master of all the forests, mines, and
productions of France, Italy, and of a great part of Germany, with all
the navigable rivers and seaports of these countries and Holland, and
remember also the character of the man, you will, perhaps, think it less
impracticable. The greatest obstacle he has to encounter, and to remove,
is want of experienced naval officers, though even in this he has
advanced greatly since the present war, during which he has added to his
naval forces twenty--nine ships of the line, thirty--four frigates,
twenty-one cutters, three thousand prams, gunboats, pinnaces, etc., with
four thousand naval officers and thirty-seven thousand sailors, according
to the same account, signed by Malouet. It is true that most of our new
naval heroes have never ventured far from our coast, and all their naval
laurels have been gathered under our land batteries; but the impulse is
given to the national spirit, and our conscripts in the maritime
departments prefer, to a man, the navy to the army, which was not
formerly the case.

It cannot have escaped your observation that the incorporation of Genoa
procured us, in the South of our Empire, a naval station and arsenal, as
a counterpoise to Antwerp, our new naval station in the North, where
twelve ships of the line have been built, or are building, since 1803,
and where timber and other materials are collected for eight more. At
Genoa, two ships of the line and four frigates have lately been launched,
and four ships and two frigates are on the stocks; and the Genoese
Republic has added sixteen thousand seafaring men to our navy. Should
Bonaparte terminate successfully the present war, Naples and Venice will
increase the number of our seaports and resources on the borders of the
Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas. All his courtiers say that he will
conquer Italy in Germany, and determine at Vienna--the fate of London.

Of all our admirals, however, we have not one to compare with your
Nelson, your Hood, your St. Vincent, and your Cornwallis. By the
appointment of Murat as grand admiral, Bonaparte seems to indicate that
he is inclined to imitate the example of Louis. XVI., in the beginning of
his reign, and entrust the chief command of his fleets and squadrons to
military men of approved capacity and courage, officers of his land
troops. Last June, when he expected a probable junction of the fleet
under Villeneuve with the squadron under Admiral Winter, and the union of
both with Ganteaume at Brest, Murat was to have had the chief command of
the united French, Spanish, and Batavian fleets, and to support the
landing of our troops in your country; but the arrival of Lord Nelson in
the West Indies, and the victory of Admiral Calder, deranged all our
plans and postponed all our designs, which the Continental war has
interrupted; to be commenced, God knows when.

The best amongst our bad admirals is certainly Truguet; but he was
disgraced last year, and exiled twenty leagues from the coast, for having
declared too publicly "that our flotillas would never be serviceable
before our fleets were superior to yours, when they would become
useless." An intriguer by long habit and by character, having neither
property nor principles, he joined the Revolution, and was the second in
command under Latouche, in the first republican fleet that left our
harbours. He directed the expedition against Sardinia, in January, 1793,
during which he acquired neither honour nor glory, being repulsed with
great loss by the inhabitants. After being imprisoned under Robespierre,
the Directory made him a Minister of the marine, an Ambassador to Spain,
and a Vice-Admiral of France. In this capacity he commanded at Brest,
during the first eighteen months of the present war. He has an
irreconcilable foe in Talleyrand, with whom he quarrelled, when on his
embassy in Spain, about some extortions at Madrid, which he declined to
share with his principal at Paris. Such was our Minister's inveteracy
against him in 1798, that a directorial decree placed him on the list of
emigrants, because he remained in Spain after having been recalled to
France. In 1799, during Talleyrand's disgrace, Truguet returned here,
and, after in vain challenging his enemy to fight, caned him in the
Luxembourg gardens, a chastisement which our premier bore with true
Christian patience. Truguet is not even a member of the Legion of
Honour.

Villeneuve is supposed not much inferior in talents, experience, and
modesty to Truguet. He was, before the Revolution, a lieutenant of the
royal navy; but his principles did not prevent him from deserting to the
colours of the enemies of royalty, who promoted him first to a captain
and afterwards to an admiral.

His first command as such was over a division of the Toulon fleet, which,
in the winter of 1797, entered Brest. In the battle at Aboukir he was
the second in command; and, after the death of Admiral Brueys, he rallied
the ships which had escaped, and sailed for Malta, where, two years
afterwards, he signed, with General Vaubois, the capitulation of that
island. When hostilities again broke out, he commanded in the West
Indies, and, leaving his station, escaped your cruisers, and was
appointed first to the chief command of the Rochefort, and afterwards the
Toulon fleet, on the death of Admiral Latouche. Notwithstanding the
gasconade of his report of his negative victory over Admiral Calder,
Villeneuve is not a Gascon by birth, but only, by sentiment.

Ganteaume does not possess either the intriguing character of Truguet or
the valorous one of Villeneuve.

Before the Revolution he was a mate of a merchantman, but when most of
the officers of the former royal navy had emigrated or perished, he was,
in 1793, made a captain of the republican navy, and in 1796 an admiral.
During the battle of Aboukir he was the chief of the staff, under Admiral
Brueys, and saved himself by swimming, when l'Orient took fire and blew
up. Bonaparte wrote to him on this occasion: "The picture you have sent
me of the disaster of l'Orient, and of your own dreadful situation, is
horrible; but be assured that, having such a miraculous escape, DESTINY
intends you to avenge one day our navy and our friends." This note was
written in August, 1798, shortly after Bonaparte had professed himself a
Mussulman.

When, in the summer of 1799, our general-in-chief had determined to leave
his army of Egypt to its destiny, Ganteaume equipped and commanded the
squadron of frigates which brought him to Europe, and was, after his
consulate, appointed a Counsellor of State and commander at Brest. In
1800 he escaped with a division of the Brest fleet to Toulon, and, in the
summer of 1801, when he was ordered to carry succours to Egypt, your ship
Skitsure fell in with him, and was captured. As he did not, however,
succeed in landing in Egypt the troops on board his ships, a temporary
disgrace was incurred, and he was deprived of the command, but made a
maritime prefect. Last year favour was restored him, with the command of
our naval forces at Brest. All officers who have served under Ganteaume
agree that, let his fleet be ever so superior, he will never fight if he
can avoid it, and that, in orderly times, his capacity would, at the
utmost, make him regarded as a good master of a merchantman, and nothing
else.

Of the present commander of our, flotilla at Boulogne, Lacrosse, I will
also say some few words. A lieutenant before the Revolution, he became,
in 1789, one of the most ardent and violent Jacobins, and in 1792 was
employed by the friend of the Blacks, and our Minister, Monge, as an
emissary in the West Indies, to preach there to the negroes the rights of
man and insurrection against the whites, their masters. In 1800,
Bonaparte advanced him to a captain-general at Guadeloupe, an island
which his plots, eight years before, had involved in all the horrors of
anarchy, and where, when he now attempted to restore order, his former
instruments rose against him and forced him to escape to one of your
islands--I believe Dominico. Of this island, in return for his
hospitable reception, he took plans, according to which our General
Lagrange endeavoured to conquer it last spring. Lacrosse is a perfect
revolutionary fanatic, unprincipled, cruel, unfeeling, and intolerant.
His presumption is great, but his talents are trifling.




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 the
present, and to be indifferent as to the future; they would be glad could
they cease to feel that they exist. The police officers were now, with
their gendarmes, bayoneting them into illuminations for Bonaparte's
successes, as they dragooned them last year into rejoicings for his
coronation. I never observed before so much apathy; and in more than one
place I heard the people say, "Oh! how much better we should be with
fewer victories and more tranquillity, with less splendour and more
security, with an honest peace instead of a brilliant war." But in a
country groaning under a military government, the opinions of the people
are counted for nothing.

At Madame Joseph Bonaparte's circle, however, the countenances were not
so gloomy. There a real or affected joy seemed to enliven the usual
dullness of these parties; some actors were repeating patriotic verses in
honour of the victor; while others were singing airs or vaudevilles,
to inspire our warriors with as much hatred towards your nation as
gratitude towards our Emperor. It is certainly neither philosophical
nor philanthropical not to exclude the vilest of all passions, HATRED,
on such a happy occasion. Martin, in the dress of a conscript, sang six
long couplets against the tyrants of the seas; of which I was only able
to retain the following one:

Je deteste le peuple anglais,
Je deteste son ministere;
J'aime l'Empereur des Francais,
J'aime la paix, je hais la guerre;
Mais puisqu'il faut la soutenir
Contre une Nation Sauvage,
Mon plus doux, mon plus grand desir
Est de montrer tout mon courage.

But what arrested my attention, more than anything else which occurred in
this circle on that evening, was a printed paper mysteriously handed
about, and of which, thanks to the civility of a Counsellor of State,
I at last got a sight. It was a list of those persons, of different
countries, whom the Emperor of the French has fixed upon, to replace all
the ancient dynasties of Europe within twenty years to come. From the
names of these individuals, some of whom are known to me, I could
perceive that Bonaparte had more difficulty to select proper Emperors,
Kings, and Electors, than he would have had, some years ago, to choose
directors or consuls. Our inconsistency is, however, evident even here;
I did not read a name that is not found in the annals of Jacobinism and
republicanism. We have, at the same time, taken care not to forget
ourselves in this new distribution of supremacy. France is to furnish
the stock of the new dynasties for Austria, England, Spain, Denmark, and
Sweden. What would you think, were you to awake one morning the subject
of King Arthur O'Connor the First? You would, I dare say, be even more
surprised than I am in being the subject of Napoleon Bonaparte the First.
You know, I suppose, that O'Connor is a general of division, and a
commander of the Legion of Honour,--the bosom friend of Talleyrand, and
courting, at this moment, a young lady, a relation of our Empress, whose
portion may one day be an Empire. But I am told that, notwithstanding
Talleyrand's recommendations, and the approbation of Her Majesty, the
lady prefers a colonel, her own countryman, to the Irish general.
Should, however, our Emperor announce his determination, she would be
obliged to marry as he commands, were he even to give her his groom, or
his horse, for a spouse.

You can form no idea how wretched and despised all the Irish rebels are
here. O'Connor alone is an exception; and this he owes to Talleyrand,
to General Valence, and to Madame de Genlis; but even he is looked on
with a sneer, and, if he ever was respected in England, must endure with
poignancy the contempt to which he is frequently exposed in France. When
I was in your country I often heard it said that the Irish were generally
considered as a debased and perfidious people, extremely addicted to
profligacy and drunkenness, and, when once drunk, more cruelly ferocious
than even our Jacobins. I thought it then, and I still believe it,
a national prejudice, because I am convinced that the vices or virtues of
all civilized nations are relatively the same; but those Irish rebels we
have seen here, and who must be, like our Jacobins, the very dregs of
their country, have conducted themselves so as to inspire not only
mistrust but abhorrence. It is also an undeniable truth that they were
greatly disappointed by our former and present Government. They expected
to enjoy liberty and equality, and a pension for their treachery; but our
police commissaries caught them at their landing, our gendarmes escorted
them as criminals to their place of destination, and there they received
just enough to prevent them from starving. If they complained they were
put in irons, and if they attempted to escape they were sent to the
galleys as malefactors or shot as spies. Despair, therefore, no doubt
induced many to perpetrate acts of which they were accused, and to rob,
swindle, and murder, because they were punished as thieves and assassins.
But, some of them, who have been treated in the most friendly,
hospitable, and generous manner in this capital, have proved themselves
ungrateful, as well as infamous. A lady of my acquaintance, of a once
large fortune, had nothing left but some furniture, and her subsistence
depended upon what she got by letting furnished lodgings. Mischance
brought three young Irishmen to her house, who pretended to be in daily
expectation of remittances from their country, and of a pension from
Bonaparte. During six months she not only lodged and supported them, but
embarrassed herself to procure them linen and a decent apparel. At last
she was informed that each of, them had been allowed sixty livres--in the
month, and that arrears had been paid them for nine months. Their debt
to her was above three thousand livres--but the day after she asked for
payment they decamped, and one of them persuaded her daughter, a girl of
fourteen, to elope with him, and to assist him in robbing her mother of
all her plate.--He has, indeed, been since arrested and sentenced to the
galleys for eight years; but this punishment neither restored the
daughter her virtue nor the mother her property. The other two denied
their debts, and, as she had no other evidence but her own scraps of
accounts, they could not be forced to pay; their obdurate effrontery and
infamy, however, excited such an indignation in the judges, that they
delivered them over as swindlers to the Tribunal Correctional; and the
Minister of Police ordered them to be transported as rogues and vagabonds
to the colonies. The daughter died shortly after, in consequence of a
miscarriage, and the mother did not survive her more than a month, and
ended her days in the Hotel Dieu, one of our common hospitals. Thus,
these depraved young men ruined and murdered their benefactress and her
child; and displayed, before they were thirty, such a consummate villainy
as few wretches grown hoary in vice have perpetrated. This act of
scandalous notoriety injured the Irish reputation very much in this
country; for here, as in many other places, inconsiderate people are apt
to judge a whole nation according to the behaviour of some few of its
outcasts.




LETTER XXXV.

PARIS, October, 1805.

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 to repair, but which such an enemy as Bonaparte always takes
care not to leave unpunished.

The long inactivity of the army under the Archduke Charles has as much
surprised us as the defeat of the army under General von Mack; but from
what I know of the former, I am persuaded that he would long since have
pushed forward had not his movements been unfortunately combined with
those of the latter. The House of Lorraine never produced a more valiant
warrior, nor Austria a more liberal or better instructed statesman, than
this Prince. Heir to the talents of his ancestors, he has commanded,
with glory, against France during the revolutionary war; and, although he
sometimes experienced defeats, he has rendered invaluable services to the
chief of his House by his courage, by his activity, by his constancy, and
by that salutary firmness which, in calling the generals and superior
officers to their duty, has often reanimated the confidence and the
ardour of the soldier.

The Archduke Charles began, in 1793, his military career under the Prince
of Coburg, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian armies in Brabant,
where he commanded the advanced guard, and distinguished himself by a
valour sometimes bordering on temerity, but which, by degrees, acquired
him that esteem and popularity, among the troops often very advantageous
to him afterwards. He was, in 1794, appointed governor and captain-
general of the Low Countries, and a Field-marshal lieutenant of the army
of the German Empire. In April, 1796, he took the command-in-chief of
the armies of Austria and of the Empire, and, in the following June,
engaged in several combats with General Moreau, in which he was repulsed,
but in a manner that did equal honour to the victor and to the
vanquished.

The Austrian army on the Lower Rhine, under General Wartensleben, having,
about this time, been nearly dispersed by General Jourdan, the Archduke
left some divisions of his forces under General Latour, to impede the
progress of Moreau, and went with the remainder into Franconia, where he
defeated Jourdan near Amberg and Wurzburg, routed his army entirely, and
forced him to repass the Rhine in the greatest confusion, and with
immense loss. The retreat of Moreau was the consequence of the victories
of this Prince. After the capture of Kehl, in January, 1797, he assumed
the command of the army of Italy, where he in vain employed all his
efforts to put a stop to the victorious progress of Bonaparte, with whom,
at last, he signed the preliminaries of peace at Leoben. In the spring
of 1799, he again defeated Jourdan in Suabia, as he had done two years
before in Franconia; but in Switzerland he met with an abler adversary in
General Massena; still, I am inclined to think that he displayed there
more real talents than anywhere else; and that this part of his campaign
of 1799 was the most interesting, in a military point of view.

The most implacable enemies of the politics of the House of Austria
render justice to the plans, to the frankness, to the morality of
Archduke Charles; and, what is remarkable, of all the chiefs who have
commanded against revolutionary France, he alone has seized the true
manner of combating enthusiasts or slaves; at least, his proclamations
are the only ones composed with adroitness, and are what they ought to
be, because in them an appeal is made to the public opinion at a time
when opinion almost constitutes half the strength of armies.

The present opposer of this Prince in Italy is one of our best, as well
as most fortunate, generals. A Sardinian subject, and a deserter from
the Sardinian troops, he assisted, in 1792, our commander, General
Anselm, in the conquest of the county of Nice, rather as a spy than as a
soldier. His knowledge of the Maritime Alps obtained, in 1793, a place
on our staff, where, from the services he rendered, the rank of a general
of brigade was soon conferred on him. In 1796 he was promoted to serve
as a general of division under Bonaparte in Italy, where he distinguished
himself so much that when, in 1798, General Berthier was ordered to
accompany the army of the East to Egypt, he succeeded him as commander-
in-chief of our troops in the temporary Roman Republic. But his
merciless pillage, and, perhaps, the idea of his being a foreigner,
brought on a mutiny, and the Directory was obliged to recall him. It was
his campaign in Switzerland of 1799, and his defence of Genoa in 1800,
that principally ranked him high as a military chief. After the battle
of Marengo he received the command of the army of Italy; but his
extortions produced a revolt among the inhabitants, and he lived for some
time in retreat and disgrace, after a violent quarrel with Bonaparte,
during which many severe truths were said and heard on both sides.

After the Peace of Luneville, he seemed inclined to join Moreau, and
other discontented generals; but observing, no doubt, their want of views
and union, he retired to an estate he has bought near Paris, where
Bonaparte visited him, after the rupture with your country, and made him,
we may conclude, such offers as tempted him to leave his retreat. Last
year he was nominated one of our Emperor's Field-marshals, and as such
he relieved Jourdan of the command in the kingdom of Italy. He has
purchased with a part of his spoil, for fifteen millions of livres--
property in France and Italy; and is considered worth double that sum in
jewels, money, and other valuables.

Massena is called, in France, the spoiled child of fortune; and as
Bonaparte, like our former Cardinal Mazarin, has more confidence in
fortune than in merit, he is, perhaps, more indebted to the former than
to the latter for his present situation; his familiarity has made him
disliked at our Imperial Court, where he never addresses Napoleon and
Madame Bonaparte as an Emperor or an Empress without smiling.

General St. Cyr, our second in command of the army of Italy, is also an
officer of great talents and distinctions. He was, in 1791, only a
cornet, but in 1795, he headed, as a general, a division of the army of
the Rhine. In his report to the Directory, during the famous retreat of
1796, Moreau speaks highly of this general, and admits that his.
achievements, in part, saved the republican army. During 1799 he served
in Italy, and in 1800 he commanded the centre of the army of the Rhine,
and assisted in gaining the victory of Hohenlinden. After the Peace of
Lundville, he was appointed a Counsellor of State of the military
section, a place he still occupies, notwithstanding his present
employment. Though under forty years of age, he is rather infirm, from
the fatigues he has undergone and the wounds he has received. Although
he has never combated as a general-in-chief, there is no doubt but that
he would fill such a place with honour to himself and advantage to his
country.

Of the general officers who command under Archduke Charles, Comte de
Bellegarde is already known by his exploits during the last war. He had
distinguished himself already in 1793, particularly when Valenciennes and
Maubeuge were besieged by the united Austrian and English forces; and, in
1794, he commanded the column at the head of which the Emperor marched,
when Landrecy was invested. In 1796, he was one of the members of the
Council of the Archduke Charles, when this Prince commanded for the first
time as a general-in-chief, on which occasion he was promoted to a Field-
marshal lieutenant.

He displayed again great talents during the campaign of 1799, when he
headed a small corps, placed between General Suwarow in Italy, and
Archduke Charles in Switzerland; and in this delicate post he contributed
equally to the success of both. After the Peace of Luneville he was
appointed a commander-in-chief for the Emperor in the ci-devant Venetian
States, where the troops composing the army under the Archduke Charles
were, last summer, received and inspected by him, before the arrival of
the Prince. He is considered by military men as greatly superior to most
of the generals now employed by the Emperor of Germany.




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 Ministers.
"That he has determined on the universal change of dynasties, because a
usurper can never reign with safety or honour as long as any legitimate
Prince may disturb his power, or reproach him for his rank." Elevated
with prosperity, or infatuated with vanity and pride, he spoke a language
which his placemen, courtiers, and even his brother Joseph at first
thought premature, if not indiscreet. If all lawful Sovereigns do not
read in these words their proscription, and the fate which the most
powerful usurper that ever desolated mankind has destined for them, it
may be ascribed to that blindness with which Providence, in its wrath,
sometimes strikes those doomed to be grand examples of the vicissitudes
of human life.

"Had Talleyrand," said Louis Bonaparte, in his wife's drawing-room, "been
by my brother's side, he would not have unnecessarily alarmed or awakened
those whom it should have been his policy to keep in a soft slumber,
until his blows had laid them down to rise no more; but his soldier-like
frankness frequently injures his political views." This I myself heard
Louis say to Abbe Sieyes, though several foreign Ambassadors were in the
saloon, near enough not to miss a word. If it was really meant as a
reflection on Napoleon, it was imprudent; if designed as a defiance to
other Princes, it was unbecoming and impertinent. I am inclined to
believe it, considering the individual to whom it was addressed, a
premeditated declaration that our Emperor expected a universal war,
was prepared for it, and was certain of its fortunate issue.

When this Sieyes is often consulted, and publicly flattered, our
politicians say, "Woe to the happiness of Sovereigns and to the
tranquillity of subjects; the fiend of mankind is busy, and at work,"
and, in fact, ever since 1789, the infamous ex-Abbe has figured, either
as a plotter or as an actor, in all our dreadful and sanguinary
revolutionary epochas. The accomplice of La Fayette in 1789, of Brissot
in 1791, of Marat in 1792, of Robespierre in 1793, of Tallien in 1794, of
Barras in 1795, of Rewbel in 1797, and of Bonaparte in 1799, he has
hitherto planned, served,, betrayed, or deserted all factions. He is one
of the few of our grand criminals, who, after enticing and sacrificing
his associates, has been fortunate enough to survive them. Bonaparte has
heaped upon him presents, places, and pensions; national property,
senatories, knighthoods, and palaces; but he is, nevertheless, not
supposed one of our Emperor's most dutiful subjects, because many of the
late changes have differed from his metaphysical schemes of innovation,
of regeneration, and of overthrow. He has too high an opinion of his own
deserts not to consider it beneath his philosophical dignity to be a
contented subject of a fellow-subject, elevated into supremacy by his
labours and dangers. His modesty has, for these sixteen years past,
ascribed to his talents all the glory and prosperity of France, and all
her misery and misfortunes to the disregard of his counsels, and to the
neglect of his advice. Bonaparte knows it; and that he is one of those
crafty, sly, and dark conspirators, more dangerous than the bold
assassin, who, by sophistry, art, and perseverance insinuate into the
minds of the unwary and daring the ideas of their plots, in such an
insidious manner that they take them and foster them as the production of
their own genius; he is, therefore, watched by our Imperial spies, and
never consulted but when any great blow is intended to be struck, or some
enormous atrocities perpetrated. A month before the seizure of the Duc
d'Enghien, and the murder of Pichegru, he was every day shut up for some
hours with Napoleon Bonaparte at St. Cloud, or in the Tuileries; where he
has hardly been seen since, except after our Emperor's return from his
coronation as a King of Italy.

Sieyes never was a republican, and it was cowardice alone that made him
vote for the death of his King and benefactor; although he is very fond
of his own metaphysical notions, he always has preferred the preservation
of his life to the profession or adherence to his systems. He will not
think the Revolution complete, or the constitution of his country a good
one, until some Napoleon, or some Louis, writes himself an Emperor or
King of France, by the grace of Sieyes. He would expose the lives of
thousands to obtain such a compliment to his hateful vanity and excessive
pride; but he would not take a step that endangered his personal safety,
though it might eventually lead him to the possession of a crown.

From the bounty of his King, Sieyes had, before the Revolution, an income
of fifteen thousand livres--per annum; his places, pensions, and landed
estates produce now yearly five hundred thousand livres--not including
the interest of his money in the French and foreign funds.

Two years ago he was exiled, for some time, to an estate of his in
Touraine, and Bonaparte even deliberated about transporting him to
Cayenne, when Talleyrand observed "that such a condemnation would
endanger that colony of France, as he would certainly organize there a
focus of revolutions, which might also involve Surinam and the Brazils,
the colonies of our allies, in one common ruin. In the present
circumstances," added the Minister, "if Sieyes is to be transported, I
wish we could land him in England, Scotland, or Ireland, or even in
Russia."

I have just heard from a general officer the following anecdote, which he
read to me from a letter of another general, dated Ulm, the 25th instant,
and, if true, it explains in part Bonaparte's apparent indiscretion in
the threat thrown out against all ancient dynasties.

Among his confidential generals (and hitherto the most irreproachable of
all our military commanders), Marmont is particularly distinguished.
Before Napoleon left this capital to head his armies in Germany, he is
stated to have sent despatches to all those traitors dispersed in
different countries whom he has selected to commence the new dynasties,
under the protection of the Bonaparte Dynasty. They were, no doubt,
advised of this being the crisis when they had to begin their
machinations against thrones. A courier from Talleyrand at Strasburg to
Bonaparte at Ulm was ordered to pass by the corps under the command of
Marmont, to whom, in case the Emperor had advanced too far into Germany,
he was to deliver his papers. This courier was surprised and interrupted
by some Austrian light troops; and, as it was only some few hours after
being informed of this capture that Bonaparte expressed himself frankly,
as related above, it was supposed by his army that the Austrian
Government had already in its power despatches which made our schemes of
improvement at Paris no longer any secrets at Vienna. The writer of this
letter added that General Marmont was highly distressed on account of
this accident, which might retard the prospect of restoring to Europe its
long lost peace and tranquillity.

This officer made his first campaign under Pichegru in 1794, and was, in
1796, appointed by Bonaparte one of his aides-de-camp. His education had
been entirely military, and in the practice the war afforded him he soon
evinced how well he remembered the lessons of theory. In the year 1796,
at the battle of Saint-Georges, before Mantua, he charged at the head of
the eighth battalion of grenadiers, and contributed much to its fortunate
issue. In October of the same year, Bonaparte, as a mark of his
satisfaction, sent him to present to the Directory the numerous colours
which the army of Italy had conquered; from whom he received in return a
pair of pistols, with a fraternal hug from Carnot. On his return to
Italy he was, for the first time, employed by his chief in a political
capacity. A republic, and nothing but a republic, being then the order
of the day, some Italian patriots were convoked at Reggio to arrange a
plan for a Cisalpine Republic, and for the incorporation with it of
Modena, Bologna, and other neutral States; Marmont was nominated a French
republican plenipotentiary, and assisted as such in the organization of a
Commonwealth, which since has been by turns a province of Austria or a
tributary State of France.

Marmont, though combating for a bad cause, is an honest man; his hands
are neither soiled with plunder, nor stained with blood. Bonaparte,
among his other good qualities, wishes to see every one about him rich;
and those who have been too delicate to accumulate wealth by pillage, he
generally provides for, by putting into requisition some great heiress.
After the Peace of Campo Formio, Bonaparte arrived at Paris, where he
demanded in marriage for his aide-de-camp Marmont, Mademoiselle
Perregeaux, the sole child of the first banker in France, a well-educated
and accomplished young lady, who would be much more agreeable did not her
continual smiles and laughing indicate a degree of self-satisfaction and
complacency which may be felt, but ought never to be published.

The banker, Perregeaux, is one of those fortunate beings who, by drudgery
and assiduity, has succeeded in some few years to make an ample fortune.
A Swiss by birth, like Necker, he also, like him, after gratifying the
passion of avidity, showed an ambition to shine in other places than in
the counting-house and upon the exchange. Under La Fayette, in 1790, he
was the chief of a battalion of the Parisian National Guards; under
Robespierre, a commissioner for purchasing provisions; and under
Bonaparte he is become a Senator and a commander of the Legion of Honour.
I am told that he has made all his money by his connection with your
country; but I know that the favourite of Napoleon can never be the
friend of Great Britain. He is a widower; but Mademoiselle Mars, of the
Emperor's theatre, consoles him for the loss of his wife.

General Marmont accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt, and distinguished himself
at the capture of Malta, and when, in the following year, the siege of
St. Jean d'Acre was undertaken, he was ordered to extend the
fortifications of Alexandria; and if, in 1801, they retarded your
progress, it was owing to his abilities, being an officer of engineers as
well as of the artillery. He returned with Bonaparte to Europe, and was,
after his usurpation, made a Counsellor of State. At the battle of
Marengo he commanded the artillery, and signed afterwards, with the
Austrian general, Count Hohenzollern, the Armistice of Treviso, which
preceded shortly the Peace of Luneville. Nothing has abated Bonaparte's
attachment to this officer, whom he appointed a commander-in-chief in
Holland, when a change of Government was intended there, and whom he will
entrust everywhere else, where sovereignty is to be abolished, or thrones
and dynasties subverted.




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. Our
armies under Bonaparte have never before penetrated into the heart of a
country where subversion was not prepared, and where subversion did not
follow.

How relatively insignificant, in the eyes of Providence, must be the
independence of States and the liberties of nations, when such a
relatively insignificant personage as General von Mack can shake them?
Have, then, the Austrian heroes--a Prince Eugene, a Laudon, a Lasci, a
Beaulieu, a Haddick, a Bender, a Clairfayt, and numerous other valiant
and great warriors--left no posterity behind them; or has the presumption
of General von Mack imposed upon the judgment of the Counsellors of his
Prince? This latter must have been the case; how otherwise could the
welfare of their Sovereign have been entrusted to a military quack, whose
want of energy and bad disposition had, in 1799, delivered up the capital
of another Sovereign to his enemies. How many reputations are gained by
an impudent assurance, and lost when the man of talents is called upon to
act and the fool presents himself.

Baron von Mack served as an aide-de-camp under Field-marshal Laudon,
during the last war between Austria and Turkey, and displayed some
intrepidity, particularly before Lissa. The Austrian army was encamped
eight leagues from that place, and the commander-in-chief hesitated to
attack it, believing it to be defended by thirty thousand men. To decide
him upon making this attack, Baron von Mack left him at nine o'clock at
night, crossed the Danube, accompanied only by a single Uhlan, and
penetrated into the suburb of Lissa, where he made prisoner a Turkish
officer, whom, on the next morning at seven o'clock, he presented to his
general, and from whom it was learnt that the garrison contained only six
thousand, men. This personal temerity, and the applause of Field-marshal
Laudon, procured him then a kind of reputation, which he has not since
been able to support. Some theoretical knowledge of the art of war,
and a great facility of conversing on military topics, made even the
Emperor Joseph conceive a high opinion of this officer; but it has long
been proved, and experience confirms it every day, that the difference is
immense between the speculator and the operator, and that the generals of
Cabinets are often indifferent captains when in the camp or in the field.

Preceded by a certain celebrity, Baron von Mack served, in 1793, under
the Prince of Coburg, as an adjutant-general, and was called to assist at
the Congress at Antwerp, where the operations of the campaign were
regulated. Everywhere he displayed activity and bravery; was wounded
twice in the month of May; but he left the army without having performed
anything that evinced the talents which fame had bestowed on him. In
February, 1794, the Emperor sent him to London to arrange, in concert
with your Government, the plans of the campaign then on the eve of being
opened; and when he returned to the Low Countries he was advanced to a
quartermaster-general of the army of Flanders, and terminated also this
unfortunate campaign without having done anything to justify the
reputation he had before acquired or usurped. His Sovereign continued,
nevertheless, to employ him in different armies; and in January, 1797, he
was appointed a Field-marshal lieutenant and a quartermaster-general of
the army of the Rhine. In February he conducted fifteen thousand of the
troops of this army to reinforce the army of Italy; but when Bonaparte in
April penetrated into Styria and Carinthia, he was ordered to Vienna as a
second in command of the levy 'en masse'.

Real military characters had already formed their opinion of this
officer, and saw a presumptuous charlatan where others had admired an
able warrior. His own conduct soon convinced them that they neither had
been rash nor mistaken. The King of Naples demanding, in 1798, from his
son-in-law, the Emperor of Germany, a general to organize and head his
troops, Baron von Mack was presented to him. After war had been declared
against France he obtained some success in partial engagements, but was
defeated in a general battle by an enemy inferior in number. In the
Kingdom of Naples, as well as in the Empire of Germany, the fury of
negotiation seized him when he should have fought, and when he should
have remembered that no compacts can ever be entered into with political
and military earthquakes, more than with physical ones. This imprudence,
particularly as he was a foreigner, excited suspicion among his troops,
whom, instead of leading to battle, he deserted, under the pretence that
his life was in danger, and surrendered himself and his staff to our
commander, Championnet.

A general who is too fond of his life ought never to enter a camp, much
less to command armies; and a military chief who does not consider the
happiness and honour of the State as his first passion and his first
duty, and prefers existence to glory, deserves to be shot as a traitor,
or drummed out of the army as a dastardly coward. Without mentioning the
numerous military faults committed by General von Mack during this
campaign, it is impossible to deny that, with respect to his own troops,
he conducted himself in the most pusillanimous manner. It has often been
repeated that martial valour does not always combine with it that courage
and that necessary presence of mind which knows how to direct or repress
multitudes, how to command obedience and obtain popularity; but when a
man is entrusted with the safety of an Empire, and assumes such a
brilliant situation, he must be weak-minded and despicable indeed, if he
does not show himself worthy of it by endeavouring to succeed, or perish
in the attempt. The French emigrant, General Dumas, evinced what might
have been done, even with the dispirited Neapolitan troops, whom he
neither deserted, nor with whom he offered to capitulate.

Baron von Mack is in a very infirm state of health, and is often under
the necessity of being carried on a litter; and his bodily complaints
have certainly not increased the vigour of his mind. His love of life
seems to augment in proportion as its real value diminishes. As to the
report here of his having betrayed his trust in exchanging honour for
gold, I believe it totally unfounded. Our intriguers may have deluded
his understanding, but our traitors would never have been able to seduce
or shake his fidelity. His head is weak, but his heart is honest.
Unfortunately, it is too true that, in turbulent times, irresolution and
weakness in a commander or a Minister operate the same, and are as
dangerous as, treason.




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Complacency which may be felt, but ought never to be published
General who is too fond of his life ought never to enter a camp
Generals of Cabinets are often indifferent captains in the field
How many reputations are gained by an impudent assurance
Irresolution and weakness in a commander operate the same
Love of life increase in proportion as its real value diminishes
Opinion almost constitutes half the strength of armies
Presumptuous charlatan
Pretensions or passions of upstart vanity
Pride of an insupportable and outrageous ambition
Prudence without weakness, and with firmness without obstinacy
They ought to be just before they are generous
They will create some quarrel to destroy you
Vices or virtues of all civilized nations are relatively the same
We are tired of everything, even of our existence










ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ST. CLOUD:

A stranger to remorse and repentance, as well as to honour
Accused of fanaticism, because she refused to cohabit with him
All his creditors, denounced and executed
All priests are to be proscribed as criminals
As everywhere else, supported injustice by violence
As confident and obstinate as ignorant
Bestowing on the Almighty the passions of mortals
Bonaparte and his wife go now every morning to hear Mass
Bonaparte dreads more the liberty of the Press than all other
Bourrienne
Bow to their charlatanism as if it was sublimity
Cannot be expressed, and if expressed, would not be believed
Chevalier of the Guillotine: Toureaux
Complacency which may be felt, but ought never to be published
Country where power forces the law to lie dormant
Distinguished for their piety or rewarded for their flattery
Easy to give places to men to whom Nature has refused parts
Encounter with dignity and self-command unbecoming provocations
Error to admit any neutrality at all
Expeditious justice, as it is called here
Extravagances of a head filled with paradoxes
Feeling, however, the want of consolation in their misfortunes
Forced military men to kneel before priests
French Revolution was fostered by robbery and murder
Future effects dreaded from its past enormities
General who is too fond of his life ought never to enter a camp
Generals of Cabinets are often indifferent captains in the field
God is only the invention of fear
Gold, changes black to white, guilt to innocence
Hail their sophistry and imposture as inspiration
He was too honest to judge soundly and to act rightly
Her present Serene Idiot, as she styles the Prince Borghese
Hero of great ambition and small capacity: La Fayette
How many reputations are gained by an impudent assurance
How much people talk about what they do not comprehend
If Bonaparte is fond of flattery--pays for it like a real Emperor
Indifference about futurity
Indifference of the French people to all religion
Invention of new tortures and improved racks
Irresolution and weakness in a commander operate the same
Its pretensions rose in proportion to the condescensions
Jealous of his wife as a lover of his mistress
Justice is invoked in vain when the criminal is powerful
Labour as much as possible in the dark
Love of life increase in proportion as its real value diminishes
Marble lives longer than man
May change his habitations six times in the month--yet be home
Men and women, old men and children are no more
Military diplomacy
Misfortunes and proscription would not only inspire courage
More vain than ambitious
My maid always sleeps with me when my husband is absent
My means were the boundaries of my wants
Napoleon invasion of States of the American Commonwealth
Nature has destined him to obey, and not to govern
Not suspected of any vices, but all his virtues are negative
Not only portable guillotines, but portable Jacobin clubs
Nothing was decided, though nothing was refused
Now that she is old (as is generally the case), turned devotee
One of the negative accomplices of the criminal
Opinion almost constitutes half the strength of armies
Prelate on whom Bonaparte intends to confer the Roman tiara
Prepared to become your victim, but not your accomplice
Presumptuous charlatan
Pretensions or passions of upstart vanity
Pride of an insupportable and outrageous ambition
Procure him after a useless life, a glorious death
Promises of impostors or fools to delude the ignorant
Prudence without weakness, and with firmness without obstinacy
Saints supplied her with a finger, a toe, or some other parts
Salaries as the men, under the name of washerwomen
Satisfying himself with keeping three mistresses only
Should our system of cringing continue progressively
Sold cats' meat and tripe in the streets of Rome
Step is but short from superstition to infidelity
Sufferings of individuals, he said, are nothing
Suspicion and tyranny are inseparable companions
Suspicion is evidence
They will create some quarrel to destroy you
They ought to be just before they are generous
"This is the age of upstarts," said Talleyrand
Thought at least extraordinary, even by our friends
Thought himself eloquent when only insolent or impertinent
Two hundred and twenty thousand prostitute licenses
Under the notion of being frank, are rude
United States will be exposed to Napoleon's outrages
Usurped the easy direction of ignorance
Vices or virtues of all civilized nations are relatively the same
Want is the parent of industry
We are tired of everything, even of our existence
Were my generals as great fools as some of my Ministers
Which crime in power has interest to render impenetrable
Who complains is shot as a conspirator
With us, unfortunately, suspicion is the same as conviction
Would cease to rule the day he became just










ETEXT EDITORS BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE HISTORIC COURT MEMOIRS:

A man born solely to contradict
A stranger to remorse and repentance, as well as to honour
A pious Capuchin explained her dream to her
A cardinal may be poisoned, stabbed, got rid of altogether
A good friend when a friend at all, which was rare
A King's son, a King's father, and never a King
A liar ought to have a good memory
A lingering fear lest the sick man should recover
A king is made for his subjects, and not the subjects for him
Accused of fanaticism, because she refused to cohabit with him
Admit our ignorance, and not to give fictions and inventions
Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd
Advised the King not to separate himself from his army
Ah, Madame, we have all been killed in our masters' service!
Air of science calculated to deceive the vulgar
Alas! her griefs double mine!
All the death-in-life of a convent
All priests are to be proscribed as criminals
All his creditors, denounced and executed
Allowed her candles and as much firewood as she wanted
Always sold at a loss which must be sold at a given moment
Always has a fictitious malady in reserve
Ambition puts a thick bandage over the eyes
And then he would go off, laughing in his sleeve
And scarcely a woman; for your answers are very short
Aptitude did not come up to my desire
Armed with beauty and sarcasm
Arranged his affairs that he died without money
Art of satisfying people even while he reproved their requests
Artagnan, captain of the grey musketeers
As confident and obstinate as ignorant
As everywhere else, supported injustice by violence
Asked the King a hundred questions, which is not the fashion
Bad company spoils good manners
Bad habit of talking very indiscreetly before others
Beaumarchais sent arms to the Americans
Because he is fat, he is thought dull and heavy
Because the Queen has only the rinsings of the glass
Believed that to undertake and succeed were only the same things
Bestowing on the Almighty the passions of mortals
Better to die than to implicate anybody
Bonaparte dreads more the liberty of the Press than all other
Bonaparte and his wife go now every morning to hear Mass
Bourrienne
Bow to their charlatanism as if it was sublimity
Brought me her daughter Hortense de Beauharnais
But all shame is extinct in France
But with a crawling baseness equal to her previous audacity
Can make a Duchess a beggar, but cannot make a beggar a Duchess
Cannot reconcile themselves to what exists
Cannot be expressed, and if expressed, would not be believed
Canvassing for a majority to set up D'Orleans
Capacity was small, and yet he believed he knew everything
Carried the idea of the prerogative of rank to a high pitch
Chevalier of the Guillotine: Toureaux
Clergy enjoyed one-third the national revenues
Clouds--you may see what you please in them
Comeliness of his person, which at all times pleads powerfully
Common and blamable practice of indulgence
Compelled to pay, who would have preferred giving voluntarily
Complacency which may be felt, but ought never to be published
Condescension which renders approbation more offensive
Conduct of the sort which cements and revives attachments
Conjugal impatience of the Duc de Bourgogne
Console me on the morrow for what had troubled me to-day
Countries of the Inquisition, where science is a crime
Country where power forces the law to lie dormant
Cuddlings and caresses of decrepitude
Customs are nearly equal to laws
Danger of inducing hypocrisy by placing devotion too high
Danger of confiding the administration to noblemen
Dared to say to me, so he writes
Dead always in fault, and cannot be put out of sight too soon
Death came to laugh at him for the sweating labour he had taken
Declaring the Duke of Orleans the constitutional King
Depicting other figures she really portrays her own
Depopulated a quarter of the realm
Desmarets no longer knew of what wood to make a crutch
Difference between brilliant theories and the simplest practice
Dignified tone which alone secures the respect due to power
Displaying her acquirements with rather too much confidence
Distinguished for their piety or rewarded for their flattery
Do not repulse him in his fond moments
Domestics included two nurses, a waiting-maid, a physician
Duc de Grammont, then Ambassador, played the Confessor
Duc d'Orleans, when called on to give his vote for death of King
Duplicity passes for wit, and frankness is looked upon as folly
Easy to give places to men to whom Nature has refused parts
Educate his children as quietists in matters of religion
Elegant entertainments were given to Doctor Franklin
Embonpoint of the French Princesses
Encounter with dignity and self-command unbecoming provocations
Enriched one at the expense of the other
Envy and malice are self-deceivers
Error to admit any neutrality at all
Etiquette still existed at Court, dignity alone was wanting
Even doubt whether he believes in the existence of a God
Everything in the world bore a double aspect
Exceeded all that was promised of her, and all that I had hoped
Exclaimed so long against high head-dresses
Expeditious justice, as it is called here
Extravagances of a head filled with paradoxes
Extravagant, without the means to be so
Extreme simplicity was the Queens first and only real mistake
Fashion of wearing a black coat without being in mourning
Fatal error of conscious rectitude
Favourite of a queen is not, in France, a happy one
Feel themselves injured by the favour shown to others
Feeling, however, the want of consolation in their misfortunes
Few would be enriched at the expense of the many
Few individuals except Princesses do with parade and publicity
Follies and superstitions as the rosaries and other things
Foolishly occupying themselves with petty matters
For penance: "we must make our servants fast"
For want of better support I sustained myself with courage
Forced military men to kneel before priests
Formed rather to endure calamity with patience than to contend
Formerly the custom to swear horridly on all occasions
Found it easier to fly into a rage than to reply
Frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can act
French people do not do things by halves
French Revolution was fostered by robbery and murder
Frequent and excessive bathing have undermined her health
Fresh proof of the intrigues of the Jesuits
From bad to worse was easy
From faith to action the bridge is short
Future effects dreaded from its past enormities
General who is too fond of his life ought never to enter a camp
Generals of Cabinets are often indifferent captains in the field
God is only the invention of fear
Gold, changes black to white, guilt to innocence
Grand-Dieu, mamma! will it be yesterday over again?
Great filthiness in the interior of their houses
Great things originated from the most insignificant trifles
Grow like a dilapidated house; I am only here to repair myself
Hail their sophistry and imposture as inspiration
Happiness does not dwell in palaces
Happy with him as a woman who takes her husband's place can be
Hate me, but fear me
He was scarcely taught how to read or write
He was accused of putting on an imperceptible touch of rouge
He was too honest to judge soundly and to act rightly
He contradicted me about trifles
He liked nobody to be in any way superior to him
He always slept in the Queen's bed
He is afraid to command
He was not fool enough for his place
He who quits the field loses it
He limped audaciously
He was a good sort of man, notwithstanding his weaknesses
He had good natural wit, but was extremely ignorant
He had pleased (the King) by his drugs
He was born bored; he was so accustomed to live out of himself
He was so good that I sometimes reproached him for it
He was often firm in promises
Hearsay liable to be influenced by ignorance or malice
Height to which her insignificance had risen
Her present Serene Idiot, as she styles the Prince Borghese
Her teeth were very ugly, being black and broken (Queen)
Hero of great ambition and small capacity: La Fayette
His ruin was resolved on; they passed to the order of the day
His death, so happy for him and so sad for his friends
His habits were publicly known to be those of the Greeks
His great piety contributed to weaken his mind
His seraglio in the Parc-aux-Cerfs
History of the man with the iron mask
Honesty is to be trusted before genius
Honour grows again as well as hair
Honours and success are followed by envy
Hopes they (enemies) should hereafter become our friends
How difficult it is to do good
How much people talk about what they do not comprehend
How can I have any regret when I partake your misfortunes
How many reputations are gained by an impudent assurance
I love the conveniences of life too well
I am unquestionably very ugly
I do not like these rhapsodies
I had a mind, he said, to commit one sin, but not two
I hate all that savours of fanaticism
I formed a religion of my own
I dared not touch that string
I abhorred to gain at the expense of others
I thought I should win it, and so I lost it
I have seldom been at a loss for something to laugh at
I myself being the first to make merry at it (my plainness)
I should praise you more had you praised me less
I never take medicine but on urgent occasions
I wished the husband not to be informed of it
If Bonaparte is fond of flattery--pays for it like a real Emperor
If ever I establish a republic of women....
If I should die, shall I not have lived long enough?
Ignorance and superstition the first of virtues
Imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture
In order to say something cutting to you, says it to himself
In England a man is the absolute proprietor of his wife
In the great world, a vague promise is the same as a refusal
In Rome justice and religion always rank second to politics
In ill-assorted unions, good sense or good nature must intervene
Indifference of the French people to all religion
Indifference about futurity
Indiscreet and tyrannical charity
Indulge in the pleasure of vice and assume the credit of virtue
Infinite astonishment at his sharing the common destiny
Interests of all interested painted on their faces
Intimacy, once broken, cannot be renewed
Invention of new tortures and improved racks
Irresolution and weakness in a commander operate the same
It is easier to offend me than to deceive me
It is an unfortunate thing for a man not to know himself
It was not permitted to argue with him
It is an ill wind that blows no one any good
It is the usual frailty of our sex to be fond of flattery
It is a sign that I have touched the sore poin
Its pretensions rose in proportion to the condescensions
Jealous of his wife as a lover of his mistress
Jealous without motive, and almost without love
Jesuits: all means were good that furthered his designs
Jewels and decoration attract attention (to the ugly)
Judge of men by the company they keep
Juggle, which put the wealth of Peter into the pockets of Paul
Justice is invoked in vain when the criminal is powerful
King was being wheeled in his easy chair in the gardens
King (gave) the fatal order to the Swiss to cease firing
Kings only desire to be obeyed when they command
Knew how to point the Bastille cannon at the troops of the King
La Fayette to rescue the royal family and convey them to Rouen
Labour as much as possible in the dark
Laughed at qualities she could not comprehend
Laws will only be as so many black lines on white paper
Leave me in peace; be assured that I can put no heir in danger
Les culottes--what do you call them?' 'Small clothes,'
Less easily forget the injuries we inflict than those received
Like will to like
Listeners never hear any good of themselves
Louis Philippe, the usurper of the inheritance of her family
Louis XIV. scarcely knew how to read and write
Love of life increase in proportion as its real value diminishes
Love-affair between Mademoiselle de la Valliere and the King
Lovers are not criminal in the estimation of one another
Madame de Montespan had died of an attack of coquetry
Madame made the Treaty of Sienna
Madame de Sevigne
Madame de Maintenon in returning young and poor from America
Made his mistresses treat her with all becoming respect
Make religion a little more palpable
Manifesto of a man who disgorges his bile
Many an aching heart rides in a carriage
Marble lives longer than man
May change his habitations six times in the month--yet be home
Men and women, old men and children are no more
Mightily tired of masters and books
Military diplomacy
Mind well stored against human casualties
Mirabeau forgot that it was more easy to do harm than good
Misfortunes and proscription would not only inspire courage
Mistrust is the sure forerunner of hatred
Money the universal lever, and you are in want of it
Monseigneur, who had been out wolf-hunting
More facility I have as King to gratify myself
More vain than ambitious
More dangerous to attack the habits of men than their religion
Most intriguing little Carmelite in the kingdom
Much is forgiven to a king
My maid always sleeps with me when my husband is absent
My husband proposed separate beds
My little English protegee
My means were the boundaries of my wants
My wife went to bed, and received a crowd of visitors
My father fortunately found a library which amused him
Napoleon invasion of States of the American Commonwealth
Nature has destined him to obey, and not to govern
Necessity is said to be the mother of invention
Never been able to bend her to a more human way of life
Never was a man so ready with tears, so backward with grief
Never approached any other man near enough to know a difference
Never shall a drop of French blood be shed by my order
No ears that will discover when she (The Princess) is out of tune
No accounting for the caprices of a woman
No one is more dangerous than a man clothed with recent authority
No phrase becomes a proverb until after a century's experience
No man more ignorant of religion than the King was
No means, therefore, of being wise among so many fools
Nobility becoming poor could not afford to buy the high offices
None but little minds dreaded little books
Not show it off was as if one only possessed a kennel
Not only portable guillotines, but portable Jacobin clubs
Not to repose too much confidence in our friends
Not suspected of any vices, but all his virtues are negative
Not allowing ecclesiastics to meddle with public affairs
Not lawful to investigate in matters of religion
Nothing was decided, though nothing was refused
Now that she is old (as is generally the case), turned devotee
Observe the least pretension on account of the rank or fortune
Of course I shall be either hissed or applauded.
Of a politeness that was unendurable
Offering you the spectacle of my miseries
Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest
Old Maintenon
Omissions must be repaired as soon as they are perceived
On domestic management depends the preservation of their fortune
One of the negative accomplices of the criminal
Only retire to make room for another race
Only your illegitimate daughter
Opinion almost constitutes half the strength of armies
Original manuscripts of the Memoirs of Cardinal Retz
Others were not allowed to dream as he had lived
Over-caution may produce evils almost equal to carelessness
Panegyric of the great Edmund Burke upon Marie Antoinette
Parliament aided the King to expel the Jesuits from France
Pension is granted on condition that his poems are never printed
People with difficulty believe what they have seen
People in independence are only the puppets of demagogues
People who had only sores to share
Permissible neither to applaud nor to hiss
Persuaded themselves they understood each other
Pleasure of making a great noise at little expense
Poetry without rhapsody
Policy, in sovereigns, is paramount to every other
Polite when necessary, but insolent when he dared
Pope excommunicated those who read the book or kept it
Pope not been ashamed to extol the Saint-Bartholomew
Prefer truth to embellishment
Prelate on whom Bonaparte intends to confer the Roman tiara
Prepared to become your victim, but not your accomplice
Present princes and let those be scandalised who will!
Presumptuous charlatan
Pretensions or passions of upstart vanity
Prevent disorder from organising itself
Pride of an insupportable and outrageous ambition
Princes thus accustomed to be treated as divinities
Princess at 12 years was not mistress of the whole alphabet
Procure him after a useless life, a glorious death
Promises of impostors or fools to delude the ignorant
Promotion was granted according to length of service
Provided they are talked of, they are satisfied
Prudence without weakness, and with firmness without obstinacy
Quiet work of ruin by whispers and detraction
Rabble, always ready to insult genius, virtue, and misfortune
Rather out of contempt, and because it was good policy
Received all the Court in her bed
Regardlessness of appearances
Reproaches rarely succeed in love
Respectful without servility
Revocation of the edict of Nantes
Revolution not as the Americans, founded on grievances
Ridicule, than which no weapon is more false or deadly
Robes battantes for the purpose of concealing her pregnancy
Rome must be infallible, or she is nothing
Said that if they were good, they were sure to be hated
Saints supplied her with a finger, a toe, or some other parts
Salaries as the men, under the name of washerwomen
Salique Laws
Satire without bitterness
Satisfying himself with keeping three mistresses only
Saw peace desired were they less inclined to listen to terms
Saw no other advantage in it than that of saving her own life
Says all that he means, and resolutely means all that he can say
Scarcely any history has been written at first hand
Seeing myself look as ugly as I really am (in a mirror)
Seeing him eat olives with a fork!
Sending astronomers to Mexico and Peru, to measure the earth
Sentiment is more prompt, and inspires me with fear
She often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony
She never could be agreeable to women
She lose her head, and her accomplice to be broken on the wheel
She drives quick and will certainly be overturned on the road
She always says the right thing in the right place
She awaits your replies without interruption
Shocking to find so little a man in the son of the Marechal
Should our system of cringing continue progressively
Shun all kinds of confidence
Simplicity of the Queen's toilet began to be strongly censured
Since becoming Queen she had not had a day of real happiness
Situated as I was betwixt fear and hope
Situations in life where we are condemned to see evil done
So many crimes perpetrated under that name (liberty)
So great a fear of hell had been instilled into the King
Sold cats' meat and tripe in the streets of Rome
Soon tired of war, and wishing to return home (Louis XIV)
Spark of ambition would have destroyed all his edifice
Spirit of party can degrade the character of a nation
Spoil all by asking too much
Spoke only about as much as three or four women
Step is but short from superstition to infidelity
Stout, healthy girl of nineteen had no other sins to confess
Subject to frequent fits of abstraction
Subjecting the vanquished to be tried by the conquerors
Sufferings of individuals, he said, are nothing
Sulpicians
Supported by unanswerable reasons that did not convince
Suppression of all superfluous religious institutions
Suspicion and tyranny are inseparable companions
Suspicion of a goitre, which did not ill become her
Suspicion is evidence
Sworn that she had thought of nothing but you all her life
Taken pains only to render himself beloved by his pupil
Talent without artifice
Tastes may change
Teacher lost little, because he had little to lose
Thank Heaven, I am out of harness
That what he called love was mere debauchery
That air of truth which always carries conviction
That Which Often It is Best to Ignore
The Jesuits were suppressed
The emigrant party have their intrigues and schemes
The King delighted to manage the most disgraceful points
The charge of extravagance
The three ministers, more ambitious than amorous
The anti-Austrian party, discontented and vindictive
The author (Beaumarchais) was sent to prison soon afterwards
The record of the war is as the smoke of a furnace
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day
The pretended reformed religion
The King replied that "too much was too much"
The King remained as if paralysed and stupefied
The shortness of each day was his only sorrow
The safest place on the Continent
The most horrible sights have often ridiculous contrasts
The old woman (Madame Maintenon)
The nothingness of what the world calls great destinies
The argument of interest is the best of all with monks
The clergy, to whom envy is not unfamiliar
The pulpit is in want of comedians; they work wonders there
The monarch suddenly enough rejuvenated his attire
The porter and the soldier were arrested and tortured
Then comes discouragement; after that, habit
There was no end to the outrageous civilities of M. de Coislin
There is not one real patriot among all this infamous horde
There is too much of it for earnest, and not enough for jest
There is an exaggeration in your sorrow
These expounders--or confounders--of codes
These liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple
They ought to be just before they are generous
They will create some quarrel to destroy you
They say you live very poorly here, Moliere
"This is the age of upstarts," said Talleyrand
Those muskets were immediately embarked and sold to the Americans
Those who have given offence to hate the offended party
Those who did it should not pretend to wish to remedy it
Thought at least extraordinary, even by our friends
Thought himself eloquent when only insolent or impertinent
Throw his priest into the Necker
Time, the irresistible healer
To tell the truth, I was never very fond of having children
To despise money, is to despise happiness, liberty...
To be accused was to incur instant death
To die is the least event of my life (Maintenon)
To be formally mistress, a husband had to be found
To embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability
Touched, but like a man who does not wish to seem so
Traducing virtues the slanderers never possessed
Troubles might not be lasting
True nobility, gentlemen, consists in giving proofs of it
Trust not in kings
Two hundred and twenty thousand prostitute licenses
Under the notion of being frank, are rude
Underrated what she could not imitate
United States will be exposed to Napoleon's outrages
Unreasonable love of admiration, was his ruin
Usurped the easy direction of ignorance
Ventured to give such rash advice: inoculation
Vices or virtues of all civilized nations are relatively the same
Violent passion had changed to mere friendship
Want is the parent of industry
Was but one brilliant action that she could perform
We are tired of everything, even of our existence
We die as we have lived, and 'tis rare it happens otherwise
We say "inexpressibles
We look upon you as a cat, or a dog, and go on talking
We must have obedience, and no reasoning
Weeping just as if princes had not got to die like anybody else
Well, this is royally ill played!
Went so far as to shed tears, his most difficult feat of all
Were my generals as great fools as some of my Ministers
What they need is abstinence, prohibitions, thwartings
What do young women stand in need of?--Mothers!
Whatever course I adopt many people will condemn me
When the only security of a King rests upon his troops
When one has been pretty, one imagines that one is still so
When kings become prisoners they are very near death
When women rule their reign is always stormy and troublous
When one has seen him, everything is excusable
Where the knout is the logician
Which crime in power has interest to render impenetrable
While the Queen was blamed, she was blindly imitated
Whispered in his mother's ear, "Was that right?"
Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace in Europe
Who counted others only as they stood in relation to himself
Who confound logic with their wishes
Who complains is shot as a conspirator
Wife: property or of furniture, useful to his house
Wise and disdainful silence is difficult to keep under reverses
Wish you had the generosity to show, now and again, less wit
Wish art to eclipse nature
With us, unfortunately, suspicion is the same as conviction
With him one's life was safe
Women who misconduct themselves are pitiless and severe
Won for himself a great name and great wealth by words
World; so unreasoning, and so little in accord with itself
Would you like to be a cardinal? I can manage that
"Would be a pity," she said, "to stop when so fairly on the road"
Would cease to rule the day he became just
You are a King; you weep, and yet I go
You never look in a mirror when you pass it
You know, madame, that he generally gets everything he wants
You tell me bad news: having packed up, I had rather go
Young Prince suffered from the rickets
Young girls seldom take much notice of children
Your swords have rusted in their scabbards






 


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