s action that of a man of
honour, which a stanch republican of ancient Rome would have been proud
of? Who can explain this contradiction?

This anecdote about Fournois I heard General Savary relate at Madame
Duchatel's, as a proof of Bonaparte's generosity and clemency, which, he
affirmed, excited the admiration of the whole camp at Boulogne. I do not
suppose this officer to be above thirty years of age, of which he has
passed the first twenty-five in orphan-houses or in watch-houses; but no
tyrant ever had a more cringing slave, or a more abject courtier. His
affectation to extol everything that Bonaparte does, right or wrong, is
at last become so habitual that it is naturalized, and you may mistake
for sincerity that which is nothing but imposture or flattery. This son
of a Swiss porter is now one of Bonaparte's adjutants-general, a colonel
of the Gendarmes d'Elite, a general of brigade in the army, and a
commander of the Legion of Honour; all these places he owes, not to
valour or merit, but to abjectness, immorality, and servility. When an
aide-de-camp with Bonaparte in Egypt, he served him as a spy on his
comrades and on the officers of the staff, and was so much detested that,
near Aboukir, several shots were fired at him in his tent by his own
countrymen. He is supposed still to continue the same espionage; and as
a colonel of the Gendarmes d'Elite, he is charged with the secret
execution of all proscribed persons or State prisoners, who have been
secretly condemned,--a commission that a despot gives to a man he trusts,
but dares not offer to a man he esteems. He is so well known that the
instant he enters a society silence follows, and he has the whole
conversation to himself. This he is stupid enough to take for a
compliment, or for a mark of respect, or an acknowledgment of his
superior parts and intelligence, when, in fact, it is a direct reproach
with which prudence arms itself against suspected or known dishonesty.
Besides his wife, he has to support six other women whom he has seduced
and ruined; and, notwithstanding the numerous opportunities his master
has procured him of pillaging and enriching himself, he is still much in
debt; but woe to his creditors were they indiscreet enough to ask for
their payments! The Secret Tribunal would soon seize them and transport
them, or deliver them over to the hands of their debtor, to be shot as
traitors or conspirators.

LETTER II.

PARIS, September