company stopped instantly, as at a word of command, and a general murmur was heard.

"Lay down your arms, and march out of the file instantly," commanded Buonaparte, 66 or you shall be cut down for your mutiny by my guides." They hesitated for a moment, but the guides advancing to surround them, they obeyed, and were disarmed. On the following afternoon, by a special military commission, each tenth man was condemned to be shot; but Buonaparte pardoned them, upon condition of serving for life in the colonies; and the whole company was ordered to the colonial depots. The widow and five children of Captain Fournois, the next morning threw themselves at the emperor's feet, presenting a petition, in which they stated that the pay of the captain had been their only support. "Well," replied Buonaparte to the kneeling petitioners, " Fournois was both a fool and a traitor; but, nevertheless, I shall take care of you." Indeed, they have been so well taken care of, that nobody knows what has become of them.

I am almost certain that I am not telling you what you did not know beforehand, in informing you, that the spirit of our troops is greatly different from that of the Germans, and even from that of your own country. Every one of our soldiers would prefer being shot to being beat or caned.-Flogging is with us out of the question. It may, perhaps, be national vanity, but I am doubtful whether any other army upon the globe is, or can be, governed, with regard to discipline, in a less violent and more delicate manner; and nevertheless, be kept in subordination, and perform the most brilliant exploits. Remember, I speak of our spirit of subordination and discipline, and not of our character as citizens, as patriots, or as subjects. I have often hinted it, but, I believe, I have not explained myself so fully before; but my firm opinion and persuasion is, that with regard to our loyalty, our duty, and our moral and political principles, I do not think that another such an inconsistent and despicable people exist in the universe.

The condition of the slave is certainly in itself that of vileness; but is that slave a vile being, who for a blow pierces his bosom because he is unable to avenge it? And what epithet can be given him, who braves voluntarily a death seemingly certain, not from

the love of his country, but from a principle of honour, almost incompatible with the dishonour of bondage.

During the siege of York Town, in America, we had, during one night, erected a battery, with intent to blow up a place which, according to the report of our spies, was your magazine of ammunition, &c. We had not time to finish it before daylight; but one loaded twenty-four pounder was mounted; and our cannoneer, the moment he was about to fire it, was killed. Six more of our men, in the same attempt, experienced the same fate. My regiment constituted the advanced guard nearest to the spot, and La Fayette brought me the order from the Commander in Chief, to engage some of my men upon that desperate undertaking. I spoke to them, and two advanced, but were both instantly shot by your sharp-shooters. I then looked at my grenadiers without uttering any thing, when, to my sorrow, one of my best and most orderly men advanced, saying: "My colonel permit me to try my fortune!" Having assented, he went coldly amidst hundreds of bullets whistling around his ears, set fire to the cannon, which blew up a depot of powder as was expected, and in the confusion returned unhurt. La Fayette then presented him with his purse. "No, Sir," replied he, “ money did not make me venture upon such a perilous undertaking." I understood my man, promoted him to a sergeant, and recommended him to Rochambeau, who, in some months, procured him the commission of a sub-lieutenant. He is now one of Buonaparte's field-marshals, and the only one of that rank who has no crimes to reproach himself with.-This man was the soldier of a despot, but was his action that of a man of honour, which a staunch republican of ancient Rome would have been proud of? Who can explain this contradiction?

This anecdote about Fournois I heard General Savary relate at Madame Duchatel's, as a proof of Buonaparte's generosity and clemency, which he affirmed excited the admiration of the whole camp at Boulogne. I do not suppose this officer to be above thirty years of age, of which he has passed the first twenty-five in orphan-houses or in watch-houses: but no tyrant ever had a more cringing slave, or a more abject courtier. His affectation to extol every thing that Buonaparte does, right or wrong, is at last become so habitual, that it is naturalized, and you may mistake that for sincerity which is nothing but imposture or flattery.

This son of a Swiss porter is now one of Buonaparte's adjutant-generals, a colonel of the Gens d'Armes d'Elite, a general of brigade in the army, and a commander of the Legion of Honour-all these places he owes, not to valour or merit, but to abjectness, immorality and servility. When an aid-de-camp with Buonaparte in Egypt, he served him as a spy on his comrades, and on officers of the staff; and was so much detested, that near Aboukir several shots were fired at him in his tent, by his own countrymen. He is supposed still to continue the same espionage, and as a colonel of the Gens d'Armes d'Elite, he is charged with the secret execution of all proscribed persons or state prisoners, who have been secretly condemned; a commission that a despot gives to a man he trusts, but dares not offer to a man he esteems. He is so well known, that, the instant he enters a society, silence immediately follows, and he has the whole conversation to himself. This he is stupid enough to take for a compliment, or for a mark of respect, or an acknowledgment of his superior parts and intelligence; when, in fact, it is a direct reproach with which prudence arms itself against suspected or known dishonesty. Besides his wife, he has to support six other women whom he has seduced and ruined; and notwithstanding the numerous opportunities his master has procured him of pilJaging and enriching himself, he is still much in debt; but woe to his creditors, were they indiscreet enough to ask for their payments! The Secret Tribunal would soon seize them, and transport them, or deliver them over to the hands of their debtor, to be shot as traitors or conspirators.

MY LORD,

LETTER XLII.

Paris, September, 1805.

I AM told that it was the want of pecuniary resources that made Buonaparte so ill-tempered on his last levee-day. He would not have come here at all, but preceded his army to burgh, had his minister of finances, Gaudin, and his minister of

Stras

the public treasury, Marbois, been able to procure forty-four mil- · lions of livres (1,800,000l.) to pay a part of the arrears of the troops, and for the speedy conveyance of ammunition and artillery, towards the Rhine.

Immediately after his arrival here, Buonaparte sent for the Directors of the Bank of France, informing them, that within twenty-four hours, they must advance him thirty-six millions of livres (1,500,0001.) upon the revenue of the last quarter of 1808. The president of the bank, Senator Garrat, demanded two hours to lay before the Emperor the situation of the bank, that his Majesty might judge what sum it was possible to spare, without ruining the credit of an establishment, hitherto so useful to the commerce of the empire. To this Buonaparte replied, that he was not ignorant of the resources, or of the credit of the bank, no more than of its public utility; but that the affairs of state suffered from every hour's delay, and that, therefore, he insisted upon having the sum demanded, even within two hours, partly in paper and partly in cash; and were they to show any more opposition, he would order the bank and all its effects to be seized that moment. The Directors bowed, and returned to the bank; whither they were followed by four waggons, escorted by hussars, and belonging to the financial department of the Army of England. In these were placed eight millions of livres in cash; and twenty-eight millions in bank notes, were delivered to M. Lefevre, the secretary-general of Marbois, who presented, in exchange, Buonaparte's bond and security for the amount, bearing an interest of five per cent yearly.

When this money-transaction was known to the public, the alarm became general, and long before the hour the bank is usually open, the adjoining streets were crowded with persons, desiring to exchange their notes for cash. During the night, the Directors had taken care to pay themselves for the bank notes in their own possession, with silver or gold; and as they expected a run, they ordered all persons to be paid in copper coin, as long as any money of that metal remained. It required a long time to count those half-pennies and centimes (five of which make a sous, or half-penny) but the people were not tired with waiting, until towards three o'clock in the afternoon, when the bank is shut up. They then became so clamorous, that a com

pany of Gens-d'Armes was placed, for protection, at the entrance of the bank; but, as the tumult increased, the street was surrounded by the police guards, and above six hundred individuals, many of them women, were carried off under an escort, to different police commissaries, and to the prefecture of the police; there, most of them, after being examined, were reprimanded and released. The same night, the police spies reported in the coffee-houses of the Palais Royal, and on the Boulevards, that this run on the bank was encouraged, and paid for by English emissaries, some of whom were already taken, and would be executed on the next day. On the morning, however, the streets adjoining the bank were still more crowded, and the crowd still more tumultuous, because payment was refused for all notes but those of five hundred livres (211.) The activity of the police agents, supported by the Gens-d'Armes and police soldiers, again restored order, after several hundred persons had been taken up for their mutinous conduct. Of these, many were, on the same evening, loaded with chains, and placed in carts, under military escort, paraded about near the bank and the Palais Royal; the police having, as a measure of safety, under suspicion that they were influenced by British gold, condemned them to be transported to Cayenne; and the carts set out on the same night for Rochefort, the place of their embarkation.

On the following day, not an individual approached the bank, but all trade and all payments were at a stand; nobody would sell but for ready-money, and nobody who had bank notes would part with cash. Some Jews and money-brokers, in the Palais Royal, offered cash for these bills, at a discount of from ten to twenty per cent. But these usurers were, in their turn, taken up and transported as agents of Pitt. An interview was then demanded by the directors and principal bankers, with the ministers of finances and of the public treasury. In this conference it was settled, that as soon as the two millions of dollars, on their way from Spain, had arrived at Paris, the bank should reassume its payments. These dollars government would lend the bank for three months, and take in return its notes, but the bank was nevertheless to pay an interest of six per cent during that period. All the bankers agreed, not to press unnecessarily, for any exchange of bills into cash; and to keep up the credit of the bank even by the individual credit of their own houses.