ects and most sincere Christians. Such
is now his tender conscientiousness, that he was among those who were the
first to be married again by some Cardinal to their present wives, to
whom they had formerly been united only by the municipality. This new
marriage, however, took place before Madame Thuriot had introduced
herself to the acquaintance of the Imperial Grenadier Rabais.

LETTER XXX.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Regarding me as a connoisseur, though I have no pretensions but
that of being an amateur, Lucien Bonaparte, shortly before his disgrace,
invited me to pass some days with him in the country, and to assist him
in arranging his very valuable collection of pictures--next our public
ones, the most curious and most valuable in Europe, and, of course, in
the world. I found here, as at Joseph Bonaparte's, the same splendour,
the same etiquette, and the same liberty, which latter was much enhanced
by the really engaging and unassuming manners and conversation of the
host. At Joseph's, even in the midst of abundance and of liberty, in
seeing the person or meditating on the character of the host, you feel
both your inferiority of fortune and the humiliation of dependence, and
that you visit a master instead of a friend, who indirectly tells you,
"Eat, drink, and rejoice as long and as much as you like; but remember
that if you are happy, it is to my generosity you are indebted, and if
unhappy, that I do not care a pin about you." With Lucien it is the very
reverse. His conduct seems to indicate that by your company you confer
an obligation on him, and he is studious to remove, on all occasions,
that distance which fortune has placed between him and his guests; and as
he cannot compliment them upon being wealthier than himself, he seizes
with delicacy every opportunity to chew that he acknowledges their
superiority in talents and in genius as more than an equivalent for the
absence of riches.

He is, nevertheless, himself a young man of uncommon parts, and, as far
as I could judge from my short intercourse with the reserved Joseph and
with the haughty Napoleon, he is abler and better informed than either,
and much more open and sincere. His manners are also more elegant, and
his language more polished, which is the more creditable to him when it
is remembered how much his education has been neglected, how vitiated the
Revolution made him, and that but lately his principal associates were,
like hi