ffords me an opportunity of
renewing the assurance of my regard for you."

Josephine's letter was dated from Fontainebleau, whither the Emperor used
to make journeys in imitation of the old Court of France. During these
excursions he sometimes partook of the pleasures of the chase, but merely
for the sake of reviving an old custom, for in that exercise he found as
little amusement as Montaigne did in the game of chess,

At Fontainebleau, as everywhere else, his mind was engaged with the means
of augmenting his greatness, but, unfortunately, the exactions he imposed
on distant countries were calculated to alienate the affections of the
people. Thus, for example, I received an order emanating from him, and
transmitted to me by M. Daru, the Intendant-General of the army, that the
pay of all the French troops stationed in the Hanse Towns should be
defrayed by these towns. I lamented the necessity of making such a
communication to the Senates of Bremen, Lubeck, and Hamburg; but my duty
compelled me to do so, and I had long been accustomed to fulfil duties
even more painful than this. I tried every possible means with the three
States, not collectively but separately, to induce them to comply with
the measure, in the hope that the assent of one would help me to obtain
that of the two others. But, as if they, had been all agreed, I only
received evasive expressions of regret.

Knowing as I did, and I may say better than any one else, the hopes and
designs of Bonaparte respecting the north of Germany, it was not without
pain, nor even without alarm, that I saw him doing everything calculated
to convert into enemies the inhabitants of a country which would always
have remained quiet had it only been permitted to preserve its
neutrality. Among the orders I received were often many which could only
have been the result of the profoundest ignorance. For example, I was
one day directed to press 3000 seamen in the Hanse Towns. Three thousand
seamen out of a population of 200,000! It was as absurd as to think of
raising 500,000 sailors in France. This project being impossible, it was
of course not executed; but I had some difficulty in persuading the
Emperor that a sixth of the number demanded was the utmost the Hanse
Towns could supply. Five hundred seamen were accordingly furnished, but
to make up that number it was necessary to include many men who were
totally unfit for war service.

CHAPTER--XIV.

1808.

Departure