ed a million of livres to set the wheels in motion, and keep them going afterwards. The hint was taken, and an agreement signed for one million, payable on the day when the princely patent should be delivered to the Arch-Chancellor.

Among the mistresses provided by our minister for the mem bers of the foreign diplomatic corps, Madame Bs is one of the ablest in the way of intrigue. She was instructed to alarm her bonne amie, the Bavarian minister Cetto, who is always bustling and pushing himself forwards in the grand questions of etiquette. A fool rather than a rogue, and an intriguer while he thinks himself a negotiator, he was happy to have this occasion to prove his penetrating genius and astonishing information. A convocation of the diplomatic corps was therefore called, and the suggestions of Cetto were regarded as an inspiration, and approved of, with a resolution to persevere unanimously. At their first audience with Talleyrand, on this subject, he seemed to incline in their favour; but as soon as he observed how much they showed themselves interested about this trifling punctilio, it occurred to him, that they as well as Cambaceres might in some way or other reward the service he intended to perform. Madame B- -s was again sent for; and she once more advised her lover, who again advised his colleagues. Their scanty purses were opened, and a subscription entered into for a very valuable diamond, which, with the million of the Arch-Chancellor, gave satisfaction to all parties; and even Joseph Buonaparte was reconciled, upon the consideration that Cambaceres has no children, and that, therefore, the Prince will expire with the Grand officer of State.

Cambaceres, though before the Revolution a nobleman of a parliamentary family, was so degraded and despised, for his unnatural and beastly propensities, that to see him in the ranks of rebellion was not unexpected. Born in Languedoc, his countrymen were the first to suffer from his revolutionary proceedings, and reproached him as one of the most active instruments of persecution against the clergy of Thoulouse, and as one of the causes of all the blood that flowed in consequence. A coward as well as a traitor, after the death of Louis XVI. he never dared ascend the tribune of the National Convention, but always gave a silent vote to all the atrocious laws proposed and car

ried by Marat, Robespierre, and their accomplices. It was in 1795, when the reign of terror had ceased, that he first displayed his zeal for anarchy, and his hatred to royalty; his contemptible and disgusting vices were, however, so publicly reprobated, that even the Directory dared not nominate him a minister of justice, a place for which he intrigued, in vain, from 1796 to 1799; when Buonaparte, either not so scrupulous, or setting himsetf above the public opinion, caused him to be called to the Consulate; which, in 1802, was insured him for life, but exchanged in 1804, for the office of an Arch-Chancellor.

He is now worth thirty millions of livres, (1,250,0001.) all honestly obtained by his revolutionary industry. Besides a Prince, a Serene Highness, an Arch-Chancellor, a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, he is also a Knight of the Prussian Black Eagle! For his brother, who was for a long time an emigrant clergyman, and whom he then renounced as a fanatic, he has now procured the Archbishoprick of Rouen, and a Cardinal's hat. His eminence is also a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour in France, and a Pope in petto at Rome.

LETTER LIV.

Paris, September, 1805.

MY LORD,

NO sovereign prince has more incurred the hatred of Buonaparte than the present King of Sweden; and I have heard from good authority, that our government spares neither bribes nor intrigues to move the sails of those factions, which were dissolved, but not crushed, after the murder of Gustavus III. The Swedes are generally brave and loyal, but their history bears witness that they are easily misled; all their grand achievements are their own, and the consequences of their national spirit and national valour, while all their disasters have been effected by the influence of foreign gold, and of foreign machinations. Had they not been the dupes of the plots and views of the cabinets of Versailles and St. Petersburgh, their country might have been as powerful in the nineteenth century as it was in the seventeenth.

That Gustavus Adolphus IV. both knew the danger of Europe, and indicated the remedy, his Majesty's notes, as soon as of age, presented by the able and loyal minister Blidt, to the Diet of Ratisbon, evince. Had they been more attended to during 1798 and 1799, Buonaparte would not perhaps have now been so great, but the continent would have remained more free and more independent. They were the first causes of our Emperor's official anger against the cabinet of Stockholm.

When, however, his Swedish Majesty entered into the northern league, his ambassador, Baron Ehrensward, was for some time treated here with no insults distinct or different from those to which all foreign diplomatic agents have been accustomed to, during the present reign; but when he demanded reparation for the piracies committed, during the last war, by our privateers, on the commerce of his nation, the tone was changed; and when his Sovereign, in 1803, was on a visit to his father-in-law, the Elector of Baden, and there preferred the agreeable company of the unfortunate Duke d'Enghein to the society of our minister, Baron Ehrensward never entered Napoleone's diplomatic circle, or Madame Napoleone's drawing-room, without hearing rebukes and experiencing disgusts. One day, when more than usually attacked, he said, on leaving the apartment, to another ambassador, and in the hearing of Duroc, "that it required more real courage to encounter with dignity and self-command unbecoming provocations, which the persons who gave them knew could not be resented, than to brave a death which the mouths of cannon vomit, or the points of the bayonet inflict." Duroc reported to his master what he heard, and, but for Talleyrand's interference, the Swedish ambassador would, on the same night, have been lodged in the Temple. Orders were already given for that purpose, but were revoked.

This Baron Ehrensward, who is also a general in the service of his country, has almost from his youth passed his time at courts; first in his own counry, and afterwards in Spain, where he resided twelve years as our ambassador. Frank as a soldier, but also polite as a courtier, he was not a little surprised at the new etiquette of our new court, and at the endurance of all the members of the diplomatic corps, of whom hardly one had spirit enough to remember that he was the representative of one, at

least nominally independent prince or state. It must be added, that he was the only foreign diplomatist with Count Markoff, who was not the choice of our cabinet, and therefore was not in our secrets.

As soon as his Swedish Majesty heard of the unexpected and unlawful seizure of the Duke d'Enghein, he wrote a letter with his own hand to Buonaparte, which he sent by his Adjutant-General Tawast; but this officer arrived too late, and only in time to hear of the execution of the prince he intended to save, and the indecent expressions of Napoleone, when acquainted with the object of his mission. Baron Ehrensward was then recalled, and a court mourning ordered by Gustavus Adolphus IV. as well as by Alexander the First, for the lamented victim of the violated laws of nations and humanity. This so enraged our ruler, that General Caulincourt (the same who commanded the expedition which crossed the Rhine, and captured the Duke d'Enghein) was engaged to head and lead fifty other banditti who were destined to pass in disguise into Baden, and to bring the King of Sweden a prisoner to this capital; fortunately, his Majesty had some suspicion of the attempt, and removed to a greater distance from our frontiers than Carlsruhe. So certain was our government of the success of this shameful enterprize, that our charge d'affaires in Sweden was preparing to engage the discontented and disaffected there for the convocation of a diet, and the establishment of a regency.

According to the report in our diplomatic circle, Buonaparte and Talleyrand intended never more to release their royal captive, when once in their power; but, after forcing him to resign the throne to his son, keep him a prisoner for the remainder of his days, which they would have taken care should not have been long. The Duke of Sudermania was to have been nominated a regent until the majority of the young king, not yet six years of age. The Swedish diets were to recover that influence, or rather that licentiousness, to which Gustavus III. by the revolution of the 19th of August, 1772, put an end. All exiled regicides or traitors, were to be recalled, and a revolutionary focus organized in the north, equally threatening Russia and Denmark. The dreadful consequences of such an event are incalculable. Thanks to the prudence of his Swedish Majesty, all these schemes evaporated in air.

Not being able to dethrone a Swedish monarch, our cabinet resolved to partition the Swedish territory; to which effect I am assured that proposals were last summer made to the cabinets of St. Petersburgh, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Swedish Finland was stated to have been offered to Russia, Swedish Pomerania to Prussia, and Scania and Bleking to Denmark; but the overture was rejected.

The king of Sweden possesses both talents and information, superior to most of his contemporaries: and he has surrounded himself with counsellors who, with their experience, make wisdom more firm, more useful, and more valuable. His chancellor, d'Ehrenheim, unites modesty with sagacity; he is a most able statesman, an accomplished gentleman, and the most agreeable of men. He knows the languages, as well as the constitutions of every country in Europe, with equal perfection as his native tongue and national code. Had his sovereign the same ascendancy over the European politics as Christiana had during the negotiation of the treaty of Munster, other states would admire and Sweden be proud of another Axel Oxenstierna.

Count de Fersen, who also has, and is worthy of the confidence of his prince, is a nobleman, the honour and pride of his rank. A colonel, before the revolution, of the regiment Royal Suedois, in the service of my country, his principles were so well appreciated, that he was entrusted by Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, when so many were justly suspected, and served royalty in distress, at the risk of his own existence. This was so much the more generous in hint, as he was a foreigner, of one of the most ancient families, and one of the richest noblemen in his own country. To him Louis XVIII. is indebted for his life; and he brought consolation to the deserted Marie Antoinette even in the dungeon of the Conciergerie, when a discovery would have been a sentence of death. In 1797, he was appointed by his king plenipotentiary to the Congress of Radstadt, and arrived there just at the time when Buonaparte, after the destruction of happiness in Italy, had resolved on the ruin of liberty in Switzerland, and came there proud of past exploits, and big with future schemes of mischief. His reception from the conqueror of Italy was such as might have been expected by distinguished loyalty from successful rebellion. He was told that