rate of Bavaria.

Within six months after the Treaty of Lundville, Montgelas began in that
country his political and religious innovations. The nobility and the
clergy were equally attacked; the privileges of the former were invaded,
and the property of the latter confiscated; and had not his zeal carried
him too far, so as to alarm our new nobles, our new men of property, and
new Christians, it is very probable that atheism would have already,
without opposition, reared its head in the midst of Germany, and
proclaimed there the rights of man, and the code of liberty and equality.

The inhabitants of Bavaria are, as you know, all Roman Catholics, and the
most superstitious and ignorant Catholics of Germany. The step is but
short from superstition to infidelity; and ignorance has furnished in
France more sectaries of atheism than perversity. The Illuminati,
brothers and friends of Montgelas, have not been idle in that country.
Their writings have perverted those who had no opportunity to hear their
speeches, or to witness their example; and I am assured by Count von
Beust, who travelled in Bavaria last year, that their progress among the
lower classes is astonishing, considering the short period these
emissaries have laboured. To any one looking on the map of the
Continent, and acquainted with the spirit of our times, this impious
focus of illumination must be ominous.

Among the members of the foreign diplomatic corps, there exists not the
least doubt but that this Montgelas, as well as Bonaparte's Minister at
Munich, Otto, was acquainted with the treacherous part Mehde de la Touche
played against your Minister, Drake; and that it was planned between him
and Talleyrand as the surest means to break off all political connections
between your country and Bavaria. Mr. Drake was personally liked by the
Elector, and was not inattentive either to the plans and views of
Montgelas or to the intrigues of Otto. They were, therefore, both doubly
interested to remove such a troublesome witness.

M. de Montgelas is now a grand officer of Bonaparte's Legion of Honour,
and he is one of the few foreigners nominated the most worthy of such a
distinction. In France he would have been an acquisition either to the
factions of a Murat, of a Brissot, or of a Robespierre; and the Goddess
of Reason, as well as the God of the Theophilanthropists, might have been
sure of counting him among their adorers. At the clubs of the Jacobins
or