ample of firmness and energy most honourable to a military

man.

"I salute you,

"BUONAPARTE."

All men, doubtless, are liable to err; but the eagerness of the Consul to attach blame to the conduct of a military and political commander, charged with the maintenance of discipline and obedience to the laws, appears evidently to have proceeded more from private hatred than from any duty which the government had to perform; for there was no occasion to give his judgment so precipitately, and he might have waited the final result of the measures he censured, more especially as the scene had taken place in a district agitated by faction and civil war. Bernadotte's friends, who were still in the ministry of war, and even frequented the saloons of the Consul, were anxious to make him acquainted with Buonaparte's evil intentions towards him. Every dispatch which he received informed him that the police were forming secret intrigues and conspiracies; that agents were scattered among the army of the West and the army of the Rhine, to endeavour to make the staffs of those armies commit themselves, in order to have a pretext for disgracing the generals who commanded them. Reports were circulated among the members of these staffs; one day the Consul was dying; next day the population of Paris had risen, and the constitution of the year IV. was re-established with the necessary modifications. The persons employed in raising these reports, watched the looks of the generals, and reported their slightest expressions. These snares roused the indignation of General Bernadotte, and the army he commanded; and it is not going too far to say, that it was in the army of the West and the army of the Rhine, that plans for the preservation and security of constitutional freedom originated. Men, who were obliged by profession and duty, to yield to the force of military discipline, and who neither had, nor wished to have, anything to do with the in

tricacies of civil policy, were all at once inspired with a new spirit, and tacitly formed an association guided by their opinions; so much so, that, during the course of the year 1801, the Consul perceived, from the reserve and behaviour of many of the generals towards him, that a change had taken place in the confidence entertained as to his intentions on the subject of public liberty and individual security.

This reserve, the cause of which he penetrated, determined him to make a set of new creatures, and bring around him men from whom he was sure, as he said, to meet with no contradiction. His having laid down this principle of action, and his well-known system of degrading everything, were the cause of the entry of foreign armies into France, and the fall of his dynasty.

No. IV.

INSTRUCTIONS BY NAPOLEON TO TALLEYRAND, PRINCE OF BENEVENTUM.

Volume V. page 57.

This very singular memorandum contains the instructions given by Napoleon to Talleyrand, concerning the manner in which he wished him to receive Lord Whitworth, then about to quit Paris, under the immediate prospect of the war again breaking out. He did not trust, it seems, to that accomplished statesman the slightest circumstance of the conference; 66 although," as Talleyrand himself observed, as he gave to the Duke of Wellington the interesting document, in Napoleon's own hand-writing, "if I could be trusted with anything, it must have been the mode of receiving and negotiating with an Ambassador." From the style of the note, it seems that the warmth, or rather violence, which the First Consul had thrown into the discussion at the levee, did not actually

flow from Napoleon's irritated feelings, but was a calculated burst of passion, designed to confound and overwhelm the English nobleman, who proved by no means the kind of person to be shaken with the utmost vehemence. It may be also remarked, that Napoleon, while he was desirous to try the effect of a cold, stern, and indifferent mode of conduct towards the English Minister, was yet desirous, if that should not shake Lord Whitworth's firmness, that Talleyrand, by reference to the pleasure of the First Consul, should take care to keep open the door for reconciliation.

The various errors in orthography, as fait for fais or fuites, dit for dis or dites, are taken from the original.

"St Cloud, à 4.

"Je reçois votre lettre qui m'a été remise à la Malmaison. Je desire que la conference ne se tourne pas en partage. Montez-vous y froid, altier, et même un peu fier.

"Si la notte comtient le mot ultimatum, fait* lui sentir que ce mot renferme celui de guerre, que cette manière de negocier et d'un supérieur à un inférieur. Si la notte ne comtient pas ce mot, fait † qu'il le mette, en lui observant qu'il faut enfin savoir à quoi nous en tenir que nous sommes las de cet état d'anxiété que jamais on n'obtiendra de nous ce que l'on a obtenu des dernières années des Bourbons,—que nous ne sommes plus ce peuple qui recevra un Commissaire à Dunquerque; que, l'ultimatum remis, tout deviendra rompût.

lable, accompagnez le dans votre salon

Effrayez le sur les suites de cette remise. S'il est inebran+ de vous quitter dit lui, mais le Cap et l'Isle de Gorée, sont ils évacués ? -radoucissez un peu la fin de la conference, et invitez le à revenir avant d'écrire à sa cour, enfin que vous puissiez lui dire l'impression qu'elle a fait sur moi, qu'elle pourrait être diminué par les mesures de ces evacuations du Cap et de l'Isle de Gorée."

TRANSLATION.

St Cloud, half past four.

I received your letter, which was brought to me at Malmaison. I request that the conference do not go into dialogue. Show yourself cold, lofty, even a little haughty.

If his note contains the word ultimatum, make him sensible that that word imports war, since such a manner of negotiating only takes place betwixt a superior and an inferior. If the note does not contain that word, contrive to make him insert it, by observing to him that it is necessary at length we should know upon what footing we are to stand with respect to each other; that we are weary of this state of anxiety; that they will never obtain from us those advantages which they extorted during the latter part of the reign of the Bourbons; that we are no longer the same people who received an English Commissary at Dunkirk; that the ultimatum being rejected, all treaty will be broken off.

Alarm him upon the consequences of that rejection. If he remains still immovable, accompany him into your saloon

• and at the moment of his departure, ask him incidentally, "By the way, the Cape and the Island of Goree, are they evacuated ?” Soften your tone a little towards the end of the conference, and invite him to return before writing to his court. At last, you may hint that the unfavourable impression he has made on me may possibly be diminished by the evacuation of the Cape and the Isle of Goree.

'No. V.

Volume V. page 102.

FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE ARREST, TRIAL, AND DEATH OF THE DUKE D'ENGHIEN.

THIS most melancholy history appears to deserve farther notice than we had it in our power to bestow, without too long interrupting the course of our narrative. It has been, and must for ever remain, the most marked and indelible blot upon the character of Napoleon Buonaparte. “A young prince," says the author of a well-reasoned dissertation on this subject," in the flower of his age, treacherously seized in a neutral country, where he reposed under the protection of the law of nations, dragged into France, brought before judges, who had no pretension to assume that character, accused of supposed crimes, deprived of the assistance of a legal advocate or defender, put to death by night in the ditches of a state-prison ;—so many virtues misconstrued, so many fond hopes crushed in the bud, will always render that catastrophe one of the most revolting acts which absolute power has been tempted to consummate.'

The Duke d'Enghien was one of the most active and determined of the exiled princes of the House of Bourbon, to whom the emigrants and the royalists who remained within France were alike devotedly attached. He was master of many of their secrets; and in July 1799, when the affairs of the Republic were in a very perilous state, and the royalists were adjusting a general rising through all the South of France, his name was used upon the following extraordinary occasion.

A former member of the Representation, known as much by his character as a royalist, as by his worth and probity,