that, as soon as the war ceased, he should cross the Channel on a
literary mission, from which he hoped to derive more success than from
that which was undertaken three years ago by Fievee.

To these men of letters, who are themselves, with their writings, devoted
to Bonaparte, he certainly is very liberal. Some he has made tribunes,
prefects, or legislators; others he has appointed his Ministers in
foreign countries, and on those to whom he has not yet been able to given
places, he bestows much greater pensions than any former Sovereign of
this country allowed to a Corneille, a Racine, a Boileau, a Voltaire, a
De Crebillon, a D' Alembert, a Marmontel, and other heroes of our
literature and honours to our nation. This liberality is often carried
too far, and thrown away upon worthless subjects, whose very flattery
displays absence of taste and genius, as well as of modesty and shame. To
a fellow of the name of Dagee, who sang the coronation of Napoleon the
First in two hundred of the most disgusting and ill-digested lines that
ever were written, containing neither metre nor sense, was assigned a
place in the administration of the forest department, worth twelve
thousand livres in the year--besides a present, in ready money, of one
hundred napoleons d'or. Another poetaster, Barre, who has served and
sung the chiefs of all former factions, received, for an ode of forty
lines on Bonaparte's birthday, an office at Milan, worth twenty thousand
livres in the year--and one hundred napoleons d'or for his travelling
expenses.

The sums of money distributed yearly by Bonaparte's agents for
dedications to him by French and foreign authors, are still greater than
those fixed for regular literary pensions. Instead of discouraging these
foolish and impertinent contributions, which genius, ingenuity,
necessity, or intrusion, lay on his vanity, he rather encourages them.
His name is, therefore, found in more dedications published within these
last five years than those of all other Sovereign Princes in Europe taken
together for the last century. In a man whose name, unfortunately for
humanity, must always live in history, it is a childish and unpardonable
weakness to pay so profusely for the short and uncertain immortality
which some dull or obscure scribbler or poetaster confers on him.

During the last Christmas holidays I dined at Madame Remisatu's, in
company with Duroc. The question turned upon literary productions and
th