numerous.

In examining his trunk, among the curious effects discovered by the police, were eighteen portraits, and one hundred billetdoux, with medallions, rings, bracelets, tresses of hair, &c. as Two of the portraits occasioned much scandal, and more gossipping. They were those of two of our most devout and most respectable court ladies, maids of honour to our empress, Madame Ney and Madame Lasnes; who never miss an opportunity of going to church, who have received the private blessing of the Pope, and who regularly confess to some Bishop or other, once in a fortnight. Madame Napoleone cleared them, however, of all suspicion, by declaring publicly in her drawingroom, that these portraits had come into the possession of Rabais by the infidelity of their maids; who had confessed their faults, and, therefore, had been charitably pardoned. Whether the opinions of Generals Ney and Lasnes coincide with Madame Napoleone's assertion, is uncertain; but Lasnes has been often heard to say, that from the instant his wife began to confess, he was convinced she was inclined to dishonour him; so that nothing surprised him.

One of the medallions in Rabais' collection contained, on one side, the portrait of Thuriot, and, on the other, that of his wife; both set with diamonds, and presented to her by him on their last wedding-day. For the supposed theft of this medallion, two of Thuriot's servants were in prison, when the arrest of Rabais explained the manner in which it had been lost. This so enraged him, that he beat and kicked his wife so heartily, that for some time even her life was in danger, and Thuriot lost all hopes of being a father.

Before the revolution, Thuriot had been, for fraud and forgery, struck off the roll as an advocate, and therefore joined it as a patriot. In 1791, he was chosen a deputy to the National Assembly, and, in 1792, to the National Convention. He always showed himself one of the most ungenerous enemies of the clergy, of monarchy, and of his King; for whose death he voted. On the 25th of May, 1792, in declaiming against Christianity and priesthood, he wished them both, for the welfare of mankind, at the bottom of the sea; and, on the 18th of December, the same year, he declared, in the Jacobin Club, that if the National Con vention evinced any signs of clemency towards Louis XVI. he

would go himself to the Temple, and blow out the brains of this unfortunate King. He defended, in the tribune, the massacre of the prisoners, affirming, that the tree of liberty could never flourish, without being inundated with the blood of aristocrats, and other enemies of the Revolution. He has been convicted by rival factions of the most shameful robberies, and his infamy and depravity were so notorious, that neither Marat, Brissot, Robespierre, nor the Directory, would or could employ him. After the revolution of the 9th November, 1799, Buonaparte gave him the office of Judge of the Criminal Tribunal, and, in 1804, made him a Commander of his Legion of Honour. He is now one of our Emperor's most faithful subjects, and most sincere Christians. Such is now his tender conscientiousness, that he was among those who were the first to be married again by some Cardinal to their present wives; to whom they had formerly been united only by the municipality. This new marriage, however, took place before Madame Thuriot had introduced herself to the acquaintance of the Imperial Grenadier Rabais.

MY LORD,

LETTER XXX.

Paris, August, 180h

BEING considered as a connoisseur, though I have no pretensions but that of being an amateur, Lucien Buonaparte, shortly before his disgrace, invited me to pass some days with him in the country, and to assist him in arranging his very valuable collection of pictures; next our public ones, the most curious and most valuable in Europe, and of course in the world. I found here, as at Joseph Buonaparte's, the same splendour, the same etiquette, and the same liberty; which latter was much enhanced by the really engaging and unassuming manners and conversation of the host. At Joseph's, even in the midst of abundance and of liberty, in seeing the person, or meditating on the character of the host, you feel both your inferiority of fortune and the hu miliation of dependence, and that you visit a master instead of a friend, who indirectly tells you,' eat drink, and rejoice, as long and as much as you like; but remember, that if you are happy, it is to my generosity you are indebted; and, if unhappy, that

I do not care a pin about you.' With Lucien it is the very reverse. His conduct seems to indicate, that, by your company, you confer an obligation on him; and he is studious to remove, on all occasions, that distance which fortune has placed between him and his guests; and as he cannot compliment them upon being wealthier than himself, he seizes with delicacy every opportunity to show that he acknowledges their superiority in talents and in genius, as more than an equivalent for the absence of riches.

He is, nevertheless, himself a young man of uncommon parts, and, as far as I could judge from my short intercourse with the reserved Joseph, and with the haughty Napoleone, he is abler and better informed than either, and much more open and sincere. His manners are also more elegant, and his language more polished: which is the more creditable to him, when it is remembered how much his education has been neglected, how vitiated the revolution made him, and that but lately his principal associates were, like himself, from among the vilest and most vulgar of the rabble.. It is not necessary to be a keen observer to remark in Napoleone the upstart soldier, and in Joseph the

mer low member of the law; but I defy the most refined cour t to see in Lucien any thing indicating a ci-devant sans-culotte. He has, besides, other qualities, (and those more estimable) which will place him much above his elder brothers in the opinions of posterity. He is extremely compassionate and liberal to the truly distressed; serviceable to those whom he knows are not his friends, and forgiving and obliging even to those who have proved and avowed themselves his enemies. These are virtues commonly very scarce, and hitherto never displayed by any other member of the Buonaparte family.

T

An acquaintance of yours, and a friend of mine, Count de at his return here from emigration, found, of his whole former fortune, producing once eighty thousand livres (3,300l.) in the year, only four farms unsold; and these were advertised for sale. A man who had once been his servant, but was then a groom to Lucien, offered to present a memorial for him to his master, to prevent the disposal of the only support which remained to subsist himself, with a wife and four children. Lucien asked Napoleone to prohibit the sale, and to restore the

count the farms, and obtained his consent; but Fouche, whose cousin wanted them, having purchased other national property in the neigbourhood, prevailed on Napoleone to forget his premise, and the farms were sold. As soon as Lucien heard of it, he sent for the count, delivered into his hand an annuity of six thousand livres (2507.) for the life of himself, his wife, and his children, as an indemnity for the inefficacy of his endeavours to serve him, as he expressed himself. Had the count retained the farms, they would not have given him a clear profit of half the amount, all taxes paid..

A young author, of the name of Gauvan, irritated by the loss of parents and fortune by the revolution, attacked, during 1799, in the public prints as well as in pamphlets, every revolutionist who had obtained notoriety or popluarity. He was particularly vehement against Lucien, and laid before the public all his crimes, and all his errors, and asserted as facts atrocities which were either calumnies or merely rumours. When, after Napoleone's assumption of the consulate, Lucien was appointed a minister of the interior, he sent for Gauvan, and said to him, "Great misfortunes have early made you wretched, and unjust; and you have frequently revenged yourself on those who could You do not want not prevent them; among whom I am one. capacity, nor, I believe, probity. Here is a commission, which makes you a director of the contributions in the department of the Rhine and Moselle, an office with a salary of twelve thousand livres, (5007.) but producing double that sum. If you meet with any difficulties, write to me-I am your friend. Take these one hundred louis-d'ors for the expenses of your journey, Adieu!". This anecdote I have read in Gauvan's own hand-writing, in a letter to his sister. He died in 1802; but Mademoiselle Gauvan, who is not yet fifteen, has a pension of three thousand livres a year(1257.) from Lucien, who has never seen her.

Lucien Buonaparte has another good quality; he is consistent in his political principles. Either from conviction or delusion, he is still a republican; and does not conceal that, had he sus-pected Napoleone of any intent to re-establish monarchy, much less tyranny, he would have joined those deputies, who, on the 9th of November, 1799, in the sitting at St. Cloud, demanded a decree of outlawry against him. If the present quarrel between

these two brothers were sifted to the bottom, perhaps it would be found to originate more from Lucien's republicanism than from his marriage.

I know, with all France and Europe, that Lucien's youth has been very culpable; that he has committed many indiscretions, much injustice, many imprudences, many errors, and, I fear, even some crimes. I know that he has been the most profligate among the profligate, the most debauched among libertines, the most merciless among plunderers, and the most perverse among rebels. I know that he is accused of being a Septembrizer; of having murdered one wife, and poisoned another; of having been a sy, a denouncer, a persecutor of innocent persons in the reign of terror. I know that he is accused of having fought his brothers-in-law; of having ill-used his mother; and of an incestuous commerce with his own sisters. I have read and heard of these and other enormous accusations; and far be it from me to defend, extenuate, or even deny them. But suppose all his infamy to be real, to be proved, to be authenticated, which it never has been, and, to its whole extent, I am persuaded, never can be; what are the cruel and depraved acts of which Lucien has been accused, to the enormities and barbarities of which Napoleone is convicted. Is the poisoning a wife more criminal than the poisoning a whole hospital of wounded soldiers? or the assisting to kill some confined persons, suspected of being enemies, more atrocious than the massacre, in cold blood, of thousands of disarmed prisoners? Is incest with a sister more shocking to humanity than the well-known, unnatural, pathic

but I will not continue the disgusting comparison. As long as Napoleone is unable to acquit himself of such barbarities and monstrous crimes, he has no right to pronounce Lucien unworthy to be called his brother; nor have Frenchmen, as long as they obey the former as a sovereign, nor has the continent, as long as it salutes him as such, any reason to despise the latter, for crimes which lose their enormity when compared to the horrid perpetrations of his Imperial brother.

An elderly lady, a relation of Lucien's wife, and a person in whose veracity and morality I have the greatest confidence, and for whom he always had evinced more regard than even for his own mother, has repeated to me many of their conversations.