n Ministers and Generals, "his
leading-strings." It is to be hoped that Frederick William III. is
sufficiently upon his guard to prevent these strings from strangling the
Prussian Monarchy and the Brandenburgh dynasty.

LETTER XVI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Upwards of two months after my visit to General Murat, I was
surprised at the appearance of M. Darjuson, the chamberlain of Princesse
Louis Bonaparte. He told me that he came on the part of Prince Louis,
who honoured me with an invitation to dine with him the day after. Upon
my inquiry whether he knew if the party would be very numerous, he
answered, between forty and fifty; and that it was a kind of farewell
dinner, because the Prince intended shortly to set out for Compiegne to
assume the command of the camp, formed in its vicinity, of the dragoons
and other light troops of the army of England.

The principal personages present at this dinner were Joseph Bonaparte and
his wife, General and Madame Murat, the Ministers Berthier, Talleyrand,
Fouche, Chaptal, and Portalis. The conversation was entirely military,
and chiefly related to the probable conquest or subjugation of Great
Britain, and the probable consequence to mankind in general of such a
great event. No difference of opinion was heard with regard to its
immediate benefit to France and gradual utility to all other nations; but
Berthier seemed to apprehend that, before France could have time to
organize this valuable conquest, she would be obliged to support another
war, with a formidable league, perhaps, of all other European nations.
The issue, however, he said, would be glorious to France, who, by her
achievements, would force all people to acknowledge her their mother
country; and then, first, Europe would constitute but one family.

Chaptal was as certain as everybody else of the destruction of the
tyrants of the seas; but he thought France would never be secure against
the treachery of modern Carthage until she followed the example of Rome
towards ancient Carthage; and therefore, after reducing London to ashes,
it would be proper to disperse round the universe all the inhabitants of
the British Islands, and to re-people them with nations less
evil-disposed and less corrupted. Portalis observed that it was more
easy to conceive than to execute such a vast plan. It would not be an
undertaking of five, of ten, nor of twenty years, to transplant these
nations; that misfortunes and pr