he commanded the centre of the army of the Rhine, and assisted in gaining the victory of Hohenlinden. After the peace of Luneville, 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 commanded under Archduke Charles, Count 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 again displayed great talents during the campaign of 1799, when he headed a small corps, placed between General Suwarrow, 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 of 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 LXXVI.

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 Buonaparte ordered this paragraph to be inserted in the Moniteur, he discovered an arrière pensé, 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 an 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 de, solated 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 Buonaparte, in his wife's draw ing-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 Abbé 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 Napoleone, 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 an 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 exabbé has figured, either as a plotter or as an actor, in all our dreadful and sanguinary revolutionary epochas. The ac complice 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 Rewbell in 1797, and of Buonaparte 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. Buonaparte 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 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. Buonaparte knows it; and that he is one of those erafty, 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 Duke d'Enghien, and the murder of Pichegru, he was every day shut up for some hours with Napoleone Buonaparte at St. Cloud, or in the Thuilleries, 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, untif some Napoleone, 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 endan

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gered 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 6257. per annum; his places, pensions, and landed estates, produce now nearly five hundred thousand livres, 20,000l. 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 Tourrain, and Buonaparte even deliberated about transporting him to Cayenne; when Talleyrand observed, "that such a condemnation would endanger the 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 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, Buonaparte's 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 Napoleone left this capital to head his armies in Germany, he is said to have sent dispatches to all those traitors dispersed in different countries, whom he has selected to commence the new dynasties, under the protection of the Buonaparte 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 Strasburgh, to Buonaparte 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 Buonaparte expressed himself frankly, as related above, it was supposed by his army, that the Austrian government had already in its power, dispatches, which made our schemes of improvement at Paris, no longer any secrets at Vien

na. The writer of this letter added, that General Marmont was highly distressed on account of this accident, which might retard the prospect of restoring Europe to its long lost peace and tranquillity.

This officer made his first campaign under Pichegru in 1794, and was, in 1796, appointed by Buonaparte, one of his aides-decamp. His education has 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 St. George, before Mantua, he charged, at the head of the eighth battalion of grenadiers, and contributed much to its fortunate issue. In October, the same year, Buonaparte, as a mark of his satisfaction, sent him to present 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. Buonaparte, 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, Buonaparte 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