encouraging the
assassination of Napoleon, while "England was no match for the
French police agents in a transaction of this description, for the
publication of Regular revealed the mortifying fact that the whole
correspondence both of Drake and Spencer Smith had been regularly
transmitted, as fast as it took place, to the police of Paris, and
that their principal corresponded in that city, M. Mehu de la
Tonche, was himself an agent of the police, employed to tempt the
British envoys into this perilous enterprise."]--

At the same time that Bonaparte communicated to the Senate the report of
the Grand Judge, the Minister for Foreign Affairs addressed the following
circular letter to the members of the Diplomatic Body:

The First Consul has commanded me to forward to your Excellency a
copy of a report which has been presented to him, respecting a
conspiracy formed in France by Mr. Drake, his Britannic Majesty's
Minister at the Court of Munich, which, by its object as well as its
date, is evidently connected with the infamous plot now in the
course of investigation.

The printed copy of Mr. Drake's letters and authentic documents is
annexed to the report. The originals will be immediately sent, by
order of the First Consul, to the Elector of Bavaria.

Such a prostitution of the most honourable function which can be
intrusted to a man is unexampled in the history of civilised
nations. It will astonish and afflict Europe as an unheard of
crime, which hitherto the most perverse Governments have not dared
to meditate. The First Consul is too well acquainted with
sentiments of the Diplomatic Body accredited to him not to be fully
convinced that every one of its members will behold, with profound
regret, the profanation of the sacred character of Ambassador,
basely transformed into a minister of plots, snares, and corruption.

All the ambassadors, ministers, plenipotentiaries, envoys, ordinary or
extraordinary, whatever might be their denomination, addressed answers to
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in which they expressed horror and
indignation at the conduct of England and Drake's machinations. These
answers were returned only five days after the Duc d'Enghien's death;
and here one cannot help admiring the adroitness of Bonaparte, who thus
compelled all the representatives of the European Governments to give
official testimonies of regard fo