Every one who has observed Buonaparte's incessant endea vours to intrude himself among the sovereigns of Europe, was convinced that he would cajole, or force as many of them as he could, into his revolutionary knighthood; but I heard men who are not ignorant of the selfishness and corruption of our times, deny the possibility of any independent Prince suffering his name to be registered among criminals of every description, from the thief who picked the pockets of his fellow-citizens in the streets, down to the regicide who sat in judgment and condemned his King; from the plunderers who have laid waste provinces, republics, and kingdoms, down to assassins who shot, drowned, or guillotined their countrymen en masse. For my part, I never had but one opinion, and it unfortunately has turned out a just one. I always was convinced that those Princes who received other presents from Buonaparte could have no plausible excuse to decline his ribands, crosses, and stars. But who could have presumed to think, that in return for these blood-stained baubles, they would have sacrificed those honourable and dignified ornaments, which, for ages past, have been the exclusive distinction of what birth had exalted, virtue made eminent, talents conspicuous, honour illustrious, or valour meritorious! Who would have dared to say, that the Prussian Eagle and the Spanish Golden Fleece should thus be prostituted, thus polluted? I do not mean by this remark, to throw any blame on the conferring those and other orders on Napoleone Buonaparte, or even on his brothers; I know it is usual, between legitimate sovereigns in alliance, sometimes to exchange their knighthoods; but to debase royal orders so much as to present them to a Cambaceres, a Talleyrand, a Fouché, a Bernadotte, a Fesch, and other vile and criminal wretches, I do not deny, to have excited my astonishment, as well as my indignation. What honest, I do not say, what noble subject of Prussia, or of Spain, will hereafter think themselves rewarded for their loyalty, industry, patriotism, or zeal, when they remember that their sovereigns have nothing to give but what the rebel has obtained, the robber worn, the murderer vilified, and the regicide debased?

The number of grand officers of the Legion of Honour does not yet amount to more than eighty; according to a list, circulated at Milan last spring, of which I have seen a copy. Of these

grand officers, three had been shoemakers, two tailors, four bakers, four barbers, six friars, eight abbés, six officers, three pedlars, three chandlers, seven drummers, sixteen soldiers, and eight regicides; four were lawful Kings, and the six others, Electors, or Princes of the most ancient houses in Europe. I have looked over our own official list, and as far as I know, the calculation is exact, both with regard to the number and to the quality.

This new institution of knighthood produced a singular effect on my vain and giddy countrymen, who, for twelve years before, had scarcely seen a star or a riband, except those of foreign ambassadors, who were frequently insulted when wearing them. It became now the fashion to be a knight, and those who really were not so, put pinks, or rather blooms, or flowers of a darker red, in their button holes, so as to resemble, and to be taken at a distance for the red ribands of the members of the Legion of Honour.

A man of the name of Villeaume, an engraver by profession, took advantage of this knightly fashion and mania, and sold for four Louis d'ors, not only the stars, but pretended letters of knighthood, said to be procured by his connexion with persons of the household of the Emperor. In a month's time, according to a register kept by him, he had made twelve hundred and fifty knights. When his fraud was discovered, he was already out of the way, safe with his money; and notwithstanding the researches of the police, has not since been taken.

A person, calling himself Baron Von Rinken, a subject and an agent of one of the many Princes of Hohenlohe, according to his own assertion, arrived here with real letters and patents of knighthood, which he offered to sale for three hundred livres, (127.). The stars of this order were as large as the star of the grand officers of the Legion of Honour, and nearly resembled it; but the ribands were of a different colour. He had already disposed of a dozen of these stars, when he was taken up by the police, and shut up in the Temple, where he still remains. Four other agents of inferior petty German Princes have also been arrested, for offering the orders of their sovereigns to sale.

A captain Rouvais, who received six wounds in his campaign under Pichegru, in 1794, wore the star of the Legion of Honour

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without being nominated a knight. He has been tried by a military commission, deprived of his pension, and condemned to four years' imprisonment, in irons. He proved that he had presented fourteen petitions to Buonaparte, for obtaining this mark of distinction, but in vain; while hundreds of others, who had hardly seen an enemy, or at the most, made but one campaign, or been once wounded, had succeeded in their demands. As soon as sentence had been pronounced against him, he took a small pistol from his pocket, and shot himself through the head, saying, "Some one else will soon do the same for Buonaparte.”

A cobler, of the name of Matthieu, either in a fit of madness, or from hatred to the new order of things, decorated himself with the large riband of the Legion of Honour, and had an old star fastened on his coat. Thus accoutred, he went into the Palais Royal, in the middle of the day, got upon a chair, and began to speak to his audience of the absurdity of true republicans not being on a level, even under an Emperor, and putting on, like himself, all his ridiculous ornaments. "We are here," said he, "either all grand officers, or there exist no grand officers at all; we have all fought and paid for liberty, and for the Revolution, as much as Buonaparte, and have, therefore, the same right and claim with him." Here a police agent and some gens-d'armes interrupted his eloquenee, by taking him into custody. When Fouché asked him what he meant by such a rebellious behaviour; he replied, "that it was only a trial, to see whether destiny had intended him to become an Emperor, or to remain a cobler."On the next day, he was shot as a conspirator. I saw the unfortunate man in the Palais Royal; his eyes looked wild, and his words were often incoherent. He was certainly a subject more deserving a place in a mad-house, than in a tomb.

Cambaceres has been severely reprimanded by the Emperor, for showing too much partiality for the Royal Prussian Black Eagle, by wearing it in preference to the Imperial Legion of Honour. He was given to understand, that, except four days in the year, the Imperial etiquette did not permit any subjects to display their knighthood of the Prussian Order. In Madame Buonaparte's last drawing-room, before his Imperial Majesty set out for the Rhine, he was ornamented with the Spanish, Neapoli tan, Prussian, and Portuguese Orders, together with those of

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the French Legion of Honour, and of the Italian Iron Crown.I have seen the Emperor Paul, who was also an amateur of ribands and stars, but never with so many at once. I have just heard that the Grand Master of Malta, has presented Napoleone with the Grand Cross of the Maltese Order. This is certainly a compliment to him, who, in July, 1798, officially declared to his then sectaries, the Turks and Mussulmen, "that the Grand Master, Commanders, Knights, and Order of Malta existed no more."

I have heard it related for a certainty, among our fashionable ladies, that the Empress of the French also intends to institute a new order of female knighthood, not of honour, but of confidence ; of which all our court ladies, all the wives of our generals, public functionaries, &c. are to be members. The Imperial Princesses of the Buonaparte family, are to be hereditary grand officers, together with as many foreign empresses, queens, princesses, countesses, and baronesses, as can be bayoneted into this revolutionary sisterhood. Had the Continent remained tranquil, it would already have been officially announced by a Senatus Consultum. I should suppose that Madame Buonaparte with her splendid court, and brilliant retinue of German Princes and Electors at Strasburgh, need only say a word, to find hundreds of princely recruits for her knighthood in petto. Her mantle, as a Grand Mistress of the Order of CONFIDENCE, has been already embroidered at Lyons; and those who have seen it, assert that it is truly superb. The diamonds of the star on the mantle are valued at six hundred thousand livres, (25,0007.).

LETTER LXVI.

Paris, October, 1805.

MY LORD,

SINCE Buonaparte's departure for Germany, fifteen individuals have been brought here chained from La Vendee, and the western departments, and are imprisoned in the Temple. Their crime is not exactly known; but private letters from those countries relate, that they were recruiting for another insurrection, and that some of them were entrusted as ambassadors from their

discontented countrymen to Louis XVIII. to ask for his return to France, and for the assistance of Russia, Sweden, and England, to support his claims.

These are, however, reports to which I do not affix much credit. Had the prisoners in the Temple been guilty, or only accused, of such crimes, they would long ago have been tortured, tried and executed, or executed without a trial. I suppose them mere hostages arrested by our government, as security for the tranquillity of the Chouan departments, during our armies' occupation elsewhere. We have, nevertheless, two moveable columns of six thousand men each, in the country, or in its vicinity, and it would not be only impolitic, but a cruelty, to engage or allure the unfortunate people of these wretched countries into any plots, which, situated as affairs now are, would be productive of great and certain evil to them, without even the probability of any benefit to the cause of Royalty, and of the Bourbons. I do not mean to say by this, that no disaffection exists against Buonaparte's tyranny, or that the Bourbons have no friends; on the contrary, the latter are not few, and the former very numerous. But a kind of apathy, the effect of unavailing resistance to usurpation and oppression, has seized on most minds, and annihilated what little remained of our never very great public spirit. We are tired of every thing, even of our existence, and care no more whether we are governed by a Robespierre, or by a Buonaparte, by a Barras, or by Louis XVIII. Except, perhaps, among the military, or among some ambitious schemers, remnants of former factions, I do not believe a Moreau, a Macdonald, a Lucien Buonaparte, or any person exiled by the Emperor, and formerly popular, could collect fifty trusty conspirators in all France; at least, as long as our armies are victorious, and organized in their present formidable manner.— Should any thing happen to our present chief, an impulse may be given to the minds now sunk down, and raise our characters from their present torpid state. But until such an event, we shall remain as we are; indolent, but submissive, sacrificing our children and treasures, for a cause we detest, and for a man we abhor. I am sorry to say it, but it certainly does no honour to my nation, when one million of desperadoes, of civil and military handitti, are suffered to govern, tyrannize and pillage, at their