laxity of morals, without talent, but not without some smartness and information. She was first married to Le Clerc, whom she hated; and being ill, and refusing to follow her husband on his expedition to St. Domingo, she was carried, by Napoleon's orders, in a litter on board the admiral's ship. On Le Clerc's death she returned to Paris; and here her shameless and unmeasured profligacy for awhile impaired her health, but the remedies to which she was compelled to have recourse seemed to increase her beauty. The rest must be told by Fouché himself. It is a companion piece to the tale of Hortense.

"Desiring nothing but unrestrained and unlimited enjoyment, but dreading her brother and his rough severity, Pauline formed a project, in conjunction with one of her women, of subjecting Napoleon to the full dominion of her charms. She employed so much art, and so much refinement for the purpose, that her triumph was complete. Such was the intoxication of the despot, that more than once his familiars heard him exclaiming, on emerging from one of his fits of transport, that his sister was the most beautiful of the beautiful, and, in short, the Venus of the age. Her beauty, however, was only of a masculine description. But let us lay aside these portraits, which are more worthy of the pencil of Suetonius and Aretin, than of the graving tool of history. Voluptuous château de Neuilly! magnificent palace of the Faubourg St. Honore! if your walls, like those of the palaces of the kings of Babylon, could reveal the truth, what licentious scenes would you not depict in characters of exaggerated size!

"For more than a year the infatuation of the brother for the sister maintained its dominion, although unaccompanied by passion; in fact, no other passion but that of dominion and conquest could master that haughty and warlike spirit. When, after the battle of Wagram, and the peace of Vienna, Napoleon returned in triumph to Paris, preceded by the report of his approaching divorce with Josephine, he went that very day to his sister, who was in a state of agitation, and the most conscious anticipation of his return. Never had she displayed so much love and adoration for her brother. I heard her say on that very day, for she was not aware that there was any mystery to be preserved towards me, 'Why do we not rule in Egypt? We might then act like the Ptolemies; I might divorce my husband, and marry my brother.' I knew her to be too uninstructed to conceive such an idea herself, and immediately detected in it an ejaculation of Napoleon.

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"The bitter and concentrated disappointment which Pauline felt may be conceived, when some months after that time she saw Maria Louisa, adorned with all her native frankness, make her appearance at the nuptial ceremony, and take her seat on the throne by the side of Napoleon. The imperial court then underwent a thorough reform in its habits, its morals, and its etiquette; the reform was complete and rigorous. From that moment the licentious

court of Pauline was deserted; and that woman, who united all the weaknesses to all the graces of her sex, considering Maria Louisa in the light of a fortunate rival, conceived a mortal jealousy against her, and nourished the most intense resentment in the recesses of her heart. Her health was impaired by it. By the advice of her physician, she had recourse to the waters of Aix la Chapelle, as well for the purpose of recovery, as for that of escaping the ennui to which she was a prey. Having undertaken her journey, she passed the line of direction in which Napoleon and Maria Louisa were travelling towards the frontier of Holland. There compelled to appear at the court of the new empress, and eagerly seizing an opportunity of insulting her as much as possible, she went so far as to make, behind her back, while she was passing through the salon, a sign with her two fingers, and that accompanied by an indecent tittering, which the common people apply, in their gross stile of derision, to credulous and deluded husbands. Napoleon, who witnessed and was shocked by the impertinence, which the reflection of the mirrors had even revealed to Maria Louisa, never forgave his sister; she that day received an order to withdraw from court. From that time, disdaining submission, she preferred to live in exile and disgrace, till the period of the events of 1814, a period which restored her past affection, and proved her fidelity to the misfortunes of her brother." Vol. II. p. 34.

The forced abdication of the throne of Holland gave Fouché the first idea of the possibility of one day saving the Empire by means of an abdication imposed on him who might, by his extravagance, compromise its prosperity; and this was almost at the moment in which Buonaparte's power appeared to be most firmly rooted by the birth of a son. Fouché informs us respecting this event, that Maria Louisa's labour was horribly protracted, that the accoucheur was bewildered, that the child was concluded to be dead, and that he was only recovered from his lethargy by the effect of the repeated discharge of a hundred pieces of artillery. He does not appear to know, that there is the highest authority for believing that the lives both of the mother and the child would have been forfeited, had it not been for the presence of mind and the decision of Buonaparte himself.

On the eve of the war with Russia, in the autumn of 1812, Fouché, impatient of his exclusion from the theatre in which were framing the great events which his sagacity anticipated, obtained permission to reside on his own estate, the Chateau de Ferrières, about six leagues from Paris. Here he watched the coming storm with gloomy foreboding, and having drawn up a memorial, strongly representing the impolicy of the war, he requested an audience at the Thuilleries, and delivered it in person. He was received not ungraciously.

Buonaparte promised to read his memorial, with the previous composition of which he showed himself to be acquainted, to the astonishment of Fouché, who, for the first time, perceived that his system of espionage had been employed in turn, and successfully against himself. Buonaparte added a few characteristic sentences. How can I help it, if an excess of power leads me to assume the dictatorship of the world?" "My destiny is not accomplished: I must finish that which is but as yet sketched. We must have an European code, an European Court of cassation; the same coins, the same weights and measures, the same laws: I must amalgamate all the people of Europe into one, and Paris must be the Capital of the world."

The Russian agent, Prince Czernitscheff, appears to have been one of the most able diplomatists of his time. Handsome in his person, and winning in his address, he relied much upon his liaisons of gallantry as sources of information. By the treachery of a clerk of the Bureau des Mouvemens, who afterwards expiated his crime on the scaffold, Czernitscheff obtained a memorandum of the intended movements of the French army. Some suspicion arose, and the clerk was arrested. Czernitscheff left Paris with precipitation, and having five or six hours start, he passed the bridge of Kehl, just as the telegraphic order for his arrest reached Strasburgh. He had not time to destroy his papers, the discovery of which betrayed an extensive amatory-political correspondence. It also brought to light an unsuspected fact, that, even from the date of the interview at Erfurt, the Russian Cabinet had foreseen the possibility of a rupture: Romanzoff then justified his temporizing complaisance to Buonaparte by the pointed and remarkable words, Il faut l'user, We must wear him out.

It was not until the conclusion of the armistice which succeeded the battles of Bautzen and Wurtchen, that Fouché was again employed, and even then it was plain that Buonaparte's great object was to keep him at a distance from Paris, where he dreaded his intrigues. At Dresden, he had an interview with the Emperor, who was at the brink of a rupture with Austria, and, as Berthier described him, furious with a mania for war. Fouché then received his appointment of Governor-general of Illyria. At that time he plainly foresaw the headlong downfal of his master, and he wisely resolved" to turn his new situation to the advantage of the State." He therefore conceived the project of a Regency, of which himself was to be member. Buonaparte probably suspected his design, for when Illyria was lost, Fouché was U

VOL. XXIII. MARCH, 1825.

rapidly transferred to his former government of Rome, of which he had never taken possession. He lingered on his journey, in order to observe the course of the events which he confidently anticipated. At length, he was ordered to proceed to Naples, and there endeavour to secure the wavering fidelity of Murat. In this dissolute Capital, says Fouché, "I found myself nearly, if the comparison be not considered too flattering to myself, as Plato did at the Court of Dionysius." Would that a medal had been struck in commemoration of this act of diplomacy!

Then future ages with delight should see,

How Plato's and how Fouché's looks agree.

As events hastened to their climax, he suggested to Murat the proclamation, in which he formally avowed that he had separated his arms from those of Buonaparte, and he obtained in return, after Joachim had seized the Roman States, the arrears of his salary for the two Governor-generalships, from which he had been driven. These amounted to 170,000 francs; so that he congratulated himself upon being able to say, before leaving Italy, that he "had not lost his time there for nothing."

Before proceeding to France, he dissuaded Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy, from obeying Buonaparte's commands to march on the Vosges; he then kindly "gave him some advice," and set off for Lyons. As he learned the reverses of Soult at Orthes, and of Buonaparte at Laon, his regrets increased at his inability to be in Paris during the Revolution, which of necessity was to be expected. He dared not attempt the journey, for he had reason to think that secret instructions regarding himself were transmitted to each individual Præfect respectively.

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It was in 180g that Fouché admits he first conceived the design of dethroning Buonaparte, as the only means of reconciling France with Europe, and of bringing back a reasonable state of government. For this purpose he entered into secret negotiation with Prince Metternich, and the Marquis Wellesley, and obtained the co-operation of Talleyrand, and other men of intrigue. His sudden disgrace prevented the ripening of the plan, and " postponed for five years the subversion of the Imperial throne." With a recollection of these intentions, we can readily conceive that the feelings of the Duke of Otranto were most bitter, when he perceived that he was not allowed even a subordinate share of mischief when the catastrophe had really arrived.

But the return of the Bourbons changed the current of

these feelings, and he exclaims, in a burst of nascent Royalism

"What a position, just Heaven, was mine! Impelled by the consciousness of the many claims which I possessed to power, and withheld by a sentiment of remorse; impressed at the same time with the grandeur of a spectacle perfectly new to the generation which surveyed it-the public entrance of a son of France, who, after being the sport of fortune for twenty-five years, reviewed, in the midst of acclamations and universal rejoicing, the capital of his ancestors, adorned with the standards and emblems of royalty. Moved, I confess, by the affecting picture of royal affability, intermingling with royalist intoxication, I was subjugated by the feeling. I neither dissembled my regret nor my repentance; I revealed them in full senate, while I urged the senators to send a deputation to S. A. R. Monsieur; at the same time declaring myself unworthy to form a part of it, and of appearing in my own person before the representative of monarchy; and withstanding, to the utmost of my influence, such of my colleagues as wished to impose restraints upon the Bourbons." Vol. II. p. 240.

He then wrote two letters, one to Buonaparte, acquainting him with the geographical position and political relation of Elba, on which island the ex-Emperor at that time resided, and strongly urging him to emigrate, as a private individual, to the United States. The other was addressed to the Comte d'Artois, informing him that he had so written to Buonaparte, and trusting to the unquestionable sagacity of that Prince, to determine therefrom that he was no longer to be reckoned among the adherents of Napoleon. Whether, on account of this letter, or from some other reason, he does not state, but the King ordered M. de Blacas to have a conference with him. Fouché talked but coldly with this agent, not knowing how much of his conversation might be "dispersed in empty air;" but on the following day he sent him a long letter, very shrewdly believing that the litera scripta must meet the King's eyes. The furnace of the Revolution through which Fouché had passed, in all its degrees of heat and activity, had not been able to dissipate the whole of that courtly flattery which seems inherent in the composition of a Frenchman; and the same voice which had voted for the death of Louis XVI. and had shouted Vive l'Empereur to Buonaparte, now whispered to the Monarch of the day, that the XIXth century ought to bear the name of Louis XVIII. as the XVIIth bore that of Louis XIV. Having made this statement, his immediate steps were to decline forming one of a counter-revolutionary committee, solely because he would not do any thing incapable of assuming a dignified air;" all but to give his co-operation to the adherents of

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