e comparative merit of the compositions of modern French and foreign
authors. "As to the merits or the quality," said Duroc, "I will not take
upon me to judge, as I profess myself totally incompetent; but as to
their size and quantity I have tolerably good information, and it will
not, therefore, be very improper in me to deliver my opinion. I am
convinced that the German and Italian authors are more numerous than
those of my own country, for the following reasons: I suppose, from what
I have witnessed and experienced for some years past, that of every book
or publication printed in France, Italy, and Germany, each tenth is
dedicated to the Emperor. Now, since last Christmas ninety-six German
and seventy-one Italian authors have inscribed their works to His
Majesty, and been rewarded for it; while during the same period only
sixty-six Frenchmen have presented their offerings to their Sovereign."
For my part I think Duroc's conclusion tolerably just.

Among all the numerous hordes of authors who have been paid, recompensed,
or encouraged by Bonaparte, none have experienced his munificence more
than the Italian Spanicetti and the German Ritterstein. The former
presented him a genealogical table in which he proved that the Bonaparte
family, before their emigration from Tuscany to Corsica, four hundred
years ago, were allied to the most ancient Tuscany families, even to that
of the House of Medicis; and as this house has given two queens to the
Bourbons when Sovereigns of France, the Bonapartes are, therefore,
relatives of the Bourbons; and the sceptre of the French Empire is still
in the same family, though in a more worthy branch. Spanicetti received
one thousand louis--in gold, a pension of six thousand livres--for life,
and the place of a chef du bureau in the ministry of the home department
of the Kingdom of Italy, producing eighteen thousand livres yearly.

Ritterstein, a Bavarian genealogist, proved the pedigree of the
Bonapartes as far back as the first crusades, and that the name of the
friend of Richard Coeur de Lion was not Blondel, but Bonaparte; that he
exchanged the latter for the former only to marry into the Plantagenet
family, the last branch of which has since been extinguished by its
intermarriage and incorporation with the House of Stuart, and that,
therefore, Napoleon Bonaparte is not only related to most Sovereign
Princes of Europe, but has more right to the throne of Great Britain than
George the