rdinal
demanded, and obtained, a process verbal of what had occurred, and of the
sentence on the culprits, to be laid before his Sovereign. As Eugene de
Beauharnais interested himself so much for the individuals involved in
this affair as both to implore Bonaparte's pardon and the Cardinal's
interference for them, many were inclined to believe that he was in the
secret, if not the contriver of this unfortunate joke. This supposition
gained credit when, after all his endeavours to save them proved vain, he
sent them seventy-two livres L 3,000--to Rochefort, that they might, on
their arrival at Cayenne, be able to buy a plantation. He procured them
also letters to the Governor, Victor Hughes, recommending that they
should be treated differently from other transported persons.

LETTER VIII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--I was particularly attentive in observing the countenances and
demeanour of the company at the last levee which Madame Napoleon
Bonaparte held, previous to her departure with her husband to meet the
Pope at Fontainebleau. I had heard from good authority that "to those
whose propensities were known, Duroc's information that the Empress was
visible was accompanied with a kind of admonitory or courtly hint, that
the strictest decency in dress and manners, and a conversation chaste,
and rather of an unusually modest turn, would be highly agreeable to
their Sovereigns, in consideration of the solemn occasion of a Sovereign
Pontiff's arrival in France,--an occurrence that had not happened for
centuries, and probably would not happen for centuries to come." I went
early, and was well rewarded for my punctuality.

There came the Senator Fouche, handing his amiable and chaste spouse,
walking with as much gravity as formerly, when a friar, he marched in a
procession. Then presented themselves the Senators Sieyes and Roederer,
with an air as composed as if the former had still been an Abbe and the
confessor of the latter. Next came Madame Murat, whom three hours before
I had seen in the Bois de Boulogne in all the disgusting display of
fashionable nakedness, now clothed and covered to her chin. She was
followed by the pious Madame Le Clerc, now Princesse Borghese, who was
sighing deeply and loudly. After her came limping the godly Talleyrand,
dragging his pure moiety by his side, both with downcast and edifying
looks. The Christian patriots, Gravina and Lima, Dreyer and Beust,
Dalberg and Cetto,