allowable and wise to learn from an enemy; but our statemen will not be taught even by a fellow countryman and a friend. It is well known even in England, where I first heard it, that when Lord Castlereagh passed through Paris, on his way from Vienna, an Englishman of his acquaintance, who, from a residence of some months in that city, and an extensive communication with the better informed portion of society, was at least worth listening to, endeavoured to convey to his lordship's ear some truths relative to the condition of France, and the dangerous position of the king. The noble lord in the blue ribbon gave him a hearing, but being told of the increasing discontent of the kingdom, the imprudence of the royal family, the officious treachery of the ministers, and the imminent, the almost inevit able ruin of the restored sovereign, his lordship only remarked, that he wondered at the progress which the king had made in public opinion. Had this well informed person been believed, had he only been heard with attention, a hint, a remonstrance from his lordship might have put the Bourbons upon their guard→→ Louis had not been lost. But, accustomed to pick politics from the partialities of corresponding colonels and foreign office cypherers, the English minister would not learn any thing through an irregular channel; he scorned to receive intelligence from any, one not paid nor interested to deceive him; and instead of attending to the truth, conveyed, perhaps, a little in the disagreeable form of a lesson, he preferred to hear from Mr. de Blacas, that nothing could exceed the popularity of the French ministry (particularly of the grand master of the robes) and of the king. Thus are empires lost. Those who are acquainted with the composition of our diplomatic body cannot be surprised at the Cimmerian darkness of our reigning English politicians. It cannot be denied that any English cabinet must be exceedingly embarrassed in the selection of their foreign agents, and that, from the necessity of silencing the importunity, and satisfying the demands of those possessed of parliamentary influence, they may run an even chance of excluding whatsoever things are honest, just, true, and of good report from many of our embassies, missions, and correspondencies. Restricted to a choice not amongst the most serviceable, but the best allied of their fellow countrymen; they ought not to be surprised at occasionally discovering, when too late, that some of their peregrè missi have dropped the mode of lying, (allow me the literal translation of Sir Henry Wotton's Latin) comprehended the old definition, and have deceived only their employers. "Vides mi fili quam parvâ sapientia regitur mundus,”* was

* "You shall see, my son, by how little wisdom the world is governed."

the speech of a great minister to his travelling son; and a young Englishman who is furnished with all his circular letters from Downing-street is likely to make the same remark, although the civilities he may receive in his progress will naturally make him unwilling to point the apothegm of Oxienstern, against an individual who may have been his kind acquaintance, or per haps his generous host.

I own to you that I do not find it difficult to account for seeing lads, whom we recollect third-rate scholars of fourth forms, hurried from us for their implastic dullness, figuring in ostensible stations; but you must confess to me that the fact is deplorable, and must be productive of the worst consequence to the national interest.

With such inefficient tools it is not then very likely that our government should be celebrated for the management of its foreign relations: it is not to be accounted strange, that in every court of Europe English diplomacy shold be a standing jest, nor that every archieve should be filled with documents, every political circle abound with good stries, not at all redounding to the credit of British sense and penetration. We have renewed the times of James the First, when that excellent prince was so profuse of his missions, that the Jesuits of Antwerp, as Howell tells us, compared his hundred thousand ambassadors, and put them in the scale, with the hundred thousand red herrings of Denmark, and the hundred thousand cheeses of Holland. The saloons of Vienna, which have lately seen every and each of our living ministers after his kind, still tremble with an universal titter, and, if opportunity should serve, the laugh may spread throughout the whole of Europe. The trick was admirable of sending the Duke of Wellington to interpose his name between the Metternichs, the Hardenbergs, and the Razumowskis, and the sinking credit of the English plenipotentiaries. Pity, however, that his grace had not declined; he might have said, in the words of Gregory Nazianzen-Non ego cum gruibus simul anseribusque sedebo in synodis.* There is one perpetual question put to all our countrymen in this place,-how can the English be so entirely ignorant of all that is passing in France? they can hardly be weak enough to believe every thing told in the Austrian Observer or the Brussels Gazette.

I was, indeed, able to procure a clue to one or two extraordinary reports honoured by the notice and belief of our gazetteers. An English woman who keeps a lodging-house in this town informed me that Lille had surrendered, and gone over with

* It is not for me to sit in congress among cranes and geese.

10,000 men to the king, whose entry into Paris was fixed for that day fortnight. She knew it for certain-it was known at the police, the chief of which was her good friend: she had communications with a person at St. Maloes, who sent her accounts of the insurrections in Brittany,, and received in return her happy intelligence. It was useless to laugh at the absurdity of the tale, which is now to be seen, with several corroborative facts, in the last bundle of newspapers. I repeat, then, that there is no disturbance of any kind at Paris. The first few days of my arrival there was a collection of spectators under the windows of an appartment, at which Napoleon occasionally showed himself to the people amidst loud and continual applause; but the Emperor has removed to the Elysée Napoléon, that he may be able to walk in the gardens, in which he is also in the habit of receiving and conferring with his ministers of

state.

LETTER III.

Paris, April 24.

I HAVE seen him twice: the first time, on Sunday, the 16th, at the review of the national guards; the second time, at the Français, on the following Friday, April 21, at his first visit to that theatre since his return. Having witnessed the first appearance of the Bourbon Princes last year in front of the national guard and the same theatre, I am able to make some comparison between the two receptions, and what is called the popularity, of each dynasty. The first occasion was a trial which some of the female partizans of Napoleon appeared to dread. A rumour had gone about that some violence would be attempted against the Emperor's person by the republicans on the day of the review. Several people whispered the suspicion to me, and added, that the deed was to be done by a female. The time naturally selected for the purpose was the moment when the national guards were to be all under arms, as that body, whatever may be their politics, would, it is thought, defend their properties and the peace of the city, rather than fly to the revenge of any individual act. I was in the apartments in the Tuileries, allotted to Me la Reine Hortense, who was present at one of the windows, together with some ladies of the court. The beautiful was of the party: she manifested the utmost inquietude; told me she had no alarm from the guards, but was

uneasy at the appearance of several people in plain clothes, crowding round the steps of the great porch of the palace, where the Emperor was to mount his horse: however, she recovered herself, and seemed to forget her fears, when the discharges of cannon at the Invalids announced the surrender of Marseilles, and the pacification of the whole empire. By half past one, twenty-four battalions of the guard had marched into the court of the Tuileries. There were no troops of the line or of the Imperial guard under arms on that day, but there were several military men amongst the spectators about the porch, who consisted chiefly of women, and of the above-mentioned persons, apparently of the lower classes. Your friend

and myself were, I think, the only gentlemen in plain clothes. We waited silently, and for some time at the window-the anxiety of the ladies was renewed, but instantly dissipated by the shouts of vive l'Empereur, which announced that Napoleon was on horseback. He rode off to the left of the line, but the approaching shouts told that he was returning. An officer rode quickly past the windows, waving his sword to the lines to fall back a little, and shortly afterwards followed Napoleon himself, with his suit, and distinguished, from amidst their waving plumes and glittering uniforms, by the far famed unornamented hat, and his simple coat and single star and cross. He cantered down the lines-as he passed near the spot at which I had placed myself for a better view, he suddenly drew up and spoke to a man in the ranks: an old soldier near me said aloud, without addressing himself to any one, (the tears glistening in his eyes) see how he stops to read the petition of the meanest of his army." I caught repeated glances of him as he glided through the ranks, at the end of each of which he stopped a short time, as well as before several soldiers in the line, who held out petitions for his acceptation. His progress was announced from right to left and left to right, by continued acclamations. The battalions then moved nearer towards the palace in close order; the gates in front of the triumphal arch were thrown open, and the remaining twenty-four battalions, marching from the Place du Carousel into the court, were inspected in the same manner by the Emperor. Afterwards a space was made vacant in the midst of the court, half way between the palace and the triumphal arch. Napoleon advanced thither with his staff drawn round behind him. A large body of the officers of the national guard then quitted their ranks and rushed towards the Emperor, who addressed them in the speech which you have seen in the Moniteur of the 17th,* and which

* See Appendix, No. 1,

LETTERS FROM PARIS.

17

was frequently interrupted by shouts, and received at the close, when he added, "vous jurez enfin de tout sacrifier à l'honneur et à l'independance de la France," by a thousand voices exclaming, "we swear." After some thronging and movements, the Emperor wheeled round into an open space, before the porch of the Tuileries, and put himself in front of his staff to review the whole body of the troops, who prepared to pass by in columns of companies: two officers of the guard were kind enough to push me forwards within ten paces of him; many of the spectators were about the same distance from him on his right and his left, whilst a whole line of them stood opposite, just far enough to allow the columns to march between them and the Emperor.-The staff were behind; Count Lobau was close upon his left, with his sword drawn: scarcely had a regiment passed, when he suddenly threw his foot out of the stirrup, and coming heavily to the ground, advanced in front of his horse, which was led off by an aide-de-camp, who rushed forwards, but was too late to take hold of his stirrup. The marshals and the staff dismounted, except count Lobau. A grenadier of the guard, without arms, stood at the Emperor's left hand, a little behind; some spectators were close to his right. The gendarmerie on horseback took but little pains to keep them at a respectful distance. The troops were two hours passing before him; during the whole of which time, any assassin, unless disarmed by his face of fascination, might have shot or even stabbed him. Sir Neil Campbell, who found him so ordinary a being, would hardly forgive me for being thus particular in the description of my first sight of the man, who, without my taking into consideration whether he be "a spirit of health or goblin damned," fixed my eyes, and filled my imagination. The vast palace of kings; the moving array before me; the deep mass of flashing arms in the distance; the crowd around, the apparatus of war and empire, all disappeared, and, in the first gaze of admiration, I saw nothing but Napoleon-the single individual, to destroy whom the earth was rising in arms from the Tanais to the Thames. I know that I never should have beheld him with delight in the days of his despotism, and that the principal charm of the spectacle arose from the contemplation of the great peril to be encountered by the one undaunted mortal before my eyes. Let me say also that the persuasion, that the right of a powerful and great nation to choose their own sovereign was to be tried in his person, and the remembrance of the wonderful achievement, by which he had given an opportunity to decide that choice, contributed

Finally, you swear to sacrifice every thing to the honour and the independence of France.

C