support another war, with a formidable league, perhaps of all other European nations. The issue, however, he said, would be glorious to France, who, by her achievments, would force all pecple to acknowledge her their mother country; and then first Europe would constitute but one family.

Chaptal was as certain as every body else, of the destruction of the tyrants of the seas; but he thought France would never be secure against the treachery of modern Carthage, until she followed the example of Rome towards ancient Carthage; and therefore, after reducing London to ashes, it would be proper to disperse round the universe, all the inhabitants of the British islands, and to re-people them with nations less evil-disposed, and less corrupted. Portalis observed, that it was more easy to conceive than to execute such a vast plan. It would not be an undertaking of five, of ten, nor of twenty years, to transplant these nations; that misfortunes and prescription would not only inspire courage and obstinacy, but desperation. "No people," continued he," are more attached to their customs and countries than Islanders in general; and though British subjects are the greatest travellers, and found every where, they all suppose their country the best, and always wish to return to it, and finish their days amidst their native fogs and smoke. Neither the Saxons nor the Danes, nor Norman conquerors, transplanted them, but after reducing them, incorporated themselves by marriage among the vanquished; and in some few generations, were but one people. It is asserted, by all persons who have lately visited Great Britain, that, though the civilization of the lower classes, is much behind that of the same description in France, the higher orders, the rich and the fashionable, are, with regard to their manners, more French than English; and might easily be cajoled into obcdience and subjection to the sovereignty of a nation, whose customs by free choice they have adopted in preference to their own; and whose language forms a necessary part of their edu cation; and indeed, of the education of almost every class in the British empire. The universality of the French language is the best ally France has in assisting her to conquer an universal dcminion. He wished therefore, that when we were in a situation. to dictate in England, instead of proscribing Englishmen, we should proscribe the English language; and advance and re

ward in preference all those parents, whose children were sent to be educated in France, and all those families who voluntarily adopted in their houses and societies exclusively the French language. Murat was afraid, that if France did not transplant the most stubborn Britons, and settle among them French colonies, when once their military and commercial navy was annihilated, they would turn pirates, and perhaps, within half a century, lay all other nations as much under contribution by their piracies, as they now do by their industry; and that, like the pirates on the coast of Barbary, the instant they had no connexions with other civilized nations, cut the throats of each other, and agree in nothing but in plundering, and considering all other people in the world their natural enemies and purveyors. To this opinion Talleyrand, by nodding assent, seemed to adhere; but he added, "Earthquakes are generally dreaded as destructive, but such a convulsion of nature as would swallow up the British islands, with all their inhabitants, would be the greatest blessing Provi dence ever conferred on mankind."

Louis Buonaparte then addressed himself to me, and to the Marquis de F――: "Gentlemen," said he," you have been in England; what is your opinion of the character of these islanders, and of the probability of their subjugation?" I answered, that during the fifteen months I resided in London, I was too much occupied to prevent myself from starving, to meditate about any thing else; that my stomach was my sole meditation, as well as anxiety. That, however, I believed, that in England, as every where else, a mixture of good and bad qualities was to be found; but which prevailed, would be presumption in me, from my position, to decide. But I did not doubt, that if we cordially hated the English, they returned us the compliment with interest; and, therefore, the contest with them would be a severe one. The Marquis de F imprudently attempted to convince the company, that it was difficult, if not impossible, for our army to land in England, much less to conquer it, until we were masters of the seas by a superior navy. He would, perhaps, have been still more indiscreet, had not Madame Louis inter pted him, and given another turn to the conversation, by inquiring about the fair sex in England, and if it was true, that handsome women were more numerous there than in France? Here again

the Marquis, instead of paying her a compliment, as she perhaps expected, roundly assured her, that for one beauty in France, hundreds might be counted in England, where gentlemen were therefore not so easily satisfied; and that a woman, regarded by them only as an ordinary person, would pass for a first rate beauty among French beaux, on account of the great scarcity of them here.—“ You must excuse the Marquis, ladies," said I in my turn; "he has not been in love in England; there, perhaps, he found the belles less cruel than in France; where, for the cruelty of one lady, or for her insensibility of his merit, he revenges himself on the whole sex."—" I apply to M. Talleyrand,” answered the Marquis; "he has been longer in England than myself.”—“ I am not a competent judge," retorted the minister; "Madame Talleyrand is here, and has not the honour of being a Frenchwoman; but I dare say, the Marquis will agree with me, that in no society in the British island, among a dozen of ladies, has he counted more beauties, or admired greater accomplishments, or more perfection." To this the Marquis bowed assent, saying, that in all his general remarks, the party present of course was not included. All the ladies, who were well acquainted with his absent and blundering conversation, very good-hu-. mouredly laughed; and Madame Murat assured him, that if he would give her the address of the belle in France, who had transformed a gallant Frenchman into a chevalier of British beauty, she would attempt to make up their difference. "She is no more,. "Madame," answered the Marquis; "she was unfortunately guillotined two days before"-(the father of Madame Louis, he was going to say, when Talleyrand interrupted him with a significant look, and said)" before the fall of Robespierre, you mean.” From these and other traits of the Marquis's character, you may see he erred more from absence of mind than any premeditation to give offence. He received, however, the next morning, a lettre de cachet from Fouche, which exiled him to Blois, and forbade him to return to Paris, without further orders from the minister of police. I know from high authority, that to the inter-ference of Princess Louis, alone, is he indebted for not being shut up in the Temple, and perhaps transported to our colonies, for having depreciated the power and means of France to invade England. I am perfectly convinced, that none of those who,

spoke on the subject of the invasion, expressed any thing but what they really thought; and that of the whole party, none, except Talleyrand, the marquis, and myself, entertained the least doubt of the success of the expedition; so firmly did they rely on the former fortune of Buonaparte, his boastings, and his as

surance.

After dinner, I had an opportunity of conversing for ten minutes, with Madame Louis Buonaparte, whom I found extremely amiable; but I fear that she is not happy. Her husband, though the most stupid, is however the best tempered of the Buonapartes, and seemed very attentive and attached to her. She was far advanced in her pregnancy, and looked notwithstanding uncommonly well. I have heard that Louis is inclined to inebriation, and, when in that situation, is very brutal to his wife, and very indelicate with other women before her eyes. He intrigues with her own servants; and the number of his illegitimate children is said to be as many as his years. She asked General Murat, to present me and recommend me to Fouche, which he did with great politeness, and the minister assured me, that he should be glad to see me at his hotel; which I much doubt. The last word Madame Louis said to me, in showing me a princely crown richly set with diamonds, and given her by her father-in-law, Napoleone, were, "Alas! grandeur is not always happiness, nor the most elevated the most fortunate lot."

LETTER XVII.

Paris, August, 1805.

THE arrival of the Pope in this country was certainly a grand epoch, not only in the history of the Revolution, but in the annals of Europe. The debates in the sacred college for and against this journey, and for and against his coronation of Buonaparte, are said to have been long as well as violent; and only arranged according to the desires of Cardinal Fesch, by the means of four millions of livres, 166,000l. distributed a-propos among its pious members. Ofthis money, the Cardinals Mattei, Pamphili, Dugnani, Maury, Pignatelli, Roverella, Somaglia, Pacca, Brancadoro, Litta, Gabrielli, Spina, Despuig, and Galeffi, are said to have shared

the greatest part; and, from the most violent anti-Buonapartists, they instantly became the strenuous adherents of Napoleone the First; who, of course, cannot be ignorant of their real worth. (

The person entrusted by Buonaparte and Talleyrand to carry on at Rome the intrigue which sent Pius VII. to cross the Alps, was Cardinal Fesch, brother of Madame Lætitia Buonaparte, by the side of her mother, who, in a second marriage, chose a pedlar of the name of Nicolo Fesch, for her husband.

Joseph, Cardinal Fesch, was born at Ajaccio in Corsica, on the 8th of March, 1763, and was in his infancy received as a singing boy, (enfant de chaur) in a convent of his native place. In 1782, whilst he was on a visit to some of his relations, in the island of Sardinia, being on a fishing party some distance from shore, he was, with his companions, captured by an Algerine felucca, and carried a captive to Algiers. Here he turned Mussulman, and, until 1790, was a zealous believer in, and professor of, the Alcoran. In that year, he found an opportunity to escape from Algiers, and to return to Ajaccio, when he abjured his renegacy, exchanged the Alcoran for the Bible, and in 1791 was made a constitutional curate, that is to say, a revolutionary Christian priest. In 1793, when even those were proscribed, he renounced the sacristy of his church for the bar of a tavern, where, during 1794 and 1795, he gained a small capital by the number and liberality of his English customers. After the victories of his nephew, Napoleone, in Italy, during the following year, he was advised to reassume the clerical habit; and after Napoleone's proclamation of a First Consul, he was made Archbishop of Lyons. In 1802, Pius VII. decorated him with the Roman purple; and he is now a pillar of the Roman faith, in a fair way of seizing the Roman tiara. If letters from Rome can be depended upon, Cardinal Fesch, in the name of the Emperor of the French, informed his Holiness the Pope, that he must either retire to a convent, or travel to France, either abdicate his own sovereignty, or inaugurate Napoleone the First a Sovereign of France. Without the decision of the sacred college, effected in the manner already stated, the majority of the faithful believe that this Pontiff would have preferred obscurity to disgrace.

While Joseph Fesch was a master of a tavern, he married the daughter of a tinker, by whom he had three children. This mar