rence, and the most sovereign
contempt." Without being disconcerted, Mehee silently returned to the
company, amidst bursts of laughter from fifty servants, and as many
masters, waiting for their carriages. M. de Cetto was among the latter,
but, though we all fixed our eyes steadfastly upon him, no alteration
could be seen on his diplomatic countenance: his face must surely be made
of brass or his heart of marble.

LETTER VI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--The day on which Madame Napoleon Bonaparte was elected an
Empress of the French, by the constitutional authorities of her husband's
Empire, was, contradictory as it may seem, one of the most uncomfortable
in her life. After the show and ceremony of the audience and of the
drawing-room were over, she passed it entirely in tears, in her library,
where her husband shut her up and confined her.

The discipline of the Court of St. Cloud is as singular as its
composition is unique. It is, by the regulation of Napoleon, entirely
military. From the Empress to her lowest chambermaid, from the Emperor's
first aide-de-camp down to his youngest page, any slight offence or
negligence is punished with confinement, either public or private. In
the former case the culprits are shut up in their own apartments, but in
the latter they are ordered into one of the small rooms, constructed in
the dark galleries at the Tuileries and St. Cloud, near the kitchens,
where they are guarded day and night by sentries, who answer for their
persons, and that nobody visits them.

When, on the 28th of March, 1804, the Senate had determined on offering
Bonaparte the Imperial dignity, he immediately gave his wife full powers,
with order to form her household of persons who, from birth and from
their principles, might be worthy, and could be trusted to encompass the
Imperial couple. She consulted Madame Remusat, who, in her turn,
consulted her friend De Segur, who also consulted his bonne amie, Madame
de Montbrune. This lady determined that if Bonaparte and his wife were
desirous to be served, or waited on, by persons above them by ancestry
and honour, they should pay liberally for such sacrifices. She was not
therefore idle, but wishing to profit herself by the pride of upstart
vanity, she had at first merely reconnoitred the ground, or made distant
overtures to those families of the ancient French nobility who had been
ruined by the Revolution, and whose minds she expected to have