of character nor
consistency of conduct. He is so much accustomed, and wants so much to
be governed, that in 1796, at Hamburg, even the then emigrants, Madame de
Genlis and General Valence, directed him, when he was not ruled or
dictated to by his wife or brother-in-law.

In 1800 Bonaparte sent him as a representative to the Helvetian Republic,
and in 1802, again to Hamburg, where he was last winter superseded by
Bourrienne, and ordered to an inferior station at the: Electoral Court at
Dresden. Rheinhard will never become one of those daring diplomatic
banditti whom revolutionary Governments always employ in preference. He
has some moral principles, and, though not religious, is rather
scrupulous. He would certainly sooner resign than undertake to remove by
poison, or by the steel of a bravo, a rival of his own or a person
obnoxious to his employers. He would never, indeed, betray the secrets
of his Government if he understood they intended to rob a despatch or to
atop a messenger; but no allurements whatever would induce him to head
the parties perpetrating these acts of our modern diplomacy.

Our present Minister at Hamburg (Bourrienne) is far from being so nice. A
revolutionist from the beginning of the Revolution, he shared, with the
partisans of La Fayette, imprisonment under Robespierre, and escaped
death only by emigration. Recalled afterwards by his friend, the late
Director (Barras), he acted as a kind of secretary to him until 1796,
when Bonaparte demanded him, having known him at the military college.
During all Bonaparte's campaigns in Italy, Egypt, and Syria, he was his
sole and confidential secretary--a situation which he lost in 1802, when
Talleyrand denounced his corruption and cupidity because he had rivalled
him in speculating in the funds and profiting by the information which
his place afforded him. He was then made a Counsellor of State, but in
1803 he was involved in the fraudulent bankruptcy of one of our principal
houses to the amount of a million of livres--and, from his correspondence
with it, some reasons appeared for the suspicion that he frequently had
committed a breach of confidence against his master, who, after erasing
his name from among the Counsellors of State, had him conveyed a prisoner
to the Temple, where he remained six months. A small volume, called Le
Livre Rouge of the Consular Court, made its appearance about that time,
and contained some articles which gave Bonaparte