political utility, gives greater
satisfaction, and leaves behind a more useful terror and awe, than
Bonaparte's grand military reviews. In the beginning of his consulate,
they regularly occurred three times in the month; after his victory of
Marengo, they were reduced to once in a fortnight, and since he has been
proclaimed Emperor, to once only in the month. This ostentatious
exhibition of usurped power is always closed with a diplomatic review of
the representatives of lawful Princes, who introduce on those occasions
their fellow-subjects to another subject, who successfully has seized,
and continues to usurp, the authority of his own Sovereign. What an
example for ambition! what a lesson to treachery!

Besides the household troops, this capital and its vicinity have, for
these three years past, never contained less than from fifteen to twenty
thousand men of the regiments of the line, belonging to what is called
the first military division of the Army of the Interior. These troops
are selected from among the brigades that served under Bonaparte in Italy
and Egypt with the greatest eclat, and constitute a kind of depot for
recruiting his household troops with tried and trusty men. They are also
regularly paid, and generally better accoutred than their comrades
encamped on the coast, or quartered in Italy or Holland.

But a standing army, upon which all revolutionary rulers can depend, and
that always will continue their faithful support, unique in its sort and
composition, exists in the bosom as well as in the extremities of this
country. I mean, one hundred and twenty thousand invalids, mostly young
men under thirty, forced by conscription against their will into the
field, quartered and taken care of by our Government, and all possessed
with the absurd prejudice that, as they have been maimed in fighting the
battles of rebellion, the restoration of legitimate sovereignty would to
them be an epoch of destruction, or at least of misery and want; and this
prejudice is kept alive by emissaries employed on purpose to mislead
them. Of these, eight thousand are lodged and provided for in this city;
ten thousand at Versailles, and the remainder in Piedmont, Brabant, and
in the conquered departments on the left bank of the Abine; countries
where the inhabitants are discontented and disaffected, and require,
therefore, to be watched, and to have a better spirit infused.

Those whose wounds permit it are also employed