te to the idea, which had once
appeared so humiliating, of writing to a man so much inferior in
everything, "Great and dear Friend!" and therefore said to the Minister:

"Well! let us then make him a grand pensionary and a locum tenens for
five years; or until Jerome, when he repents, returns to his duty, and is
pardoned."

"Is he, then, not to be a grand pensionary for life?" asked Talleyrand;
"whether for one month or for life, he would be equally obedient to
resign when, commanded; but the latter would be more popular in Holland,
where they were tired of so many changes."

"Let them complain, if they dare," replied Bonaparte. "Schimmelpenninck
is their chief magistrate only for five years, if so long; but you may
add that they may reelect him."

It was not before Talleyrand had compared the pecuniary proposal made to
his agents by foreign Princes with those of Schimmelpenninck to himself,
that the latter obtained the preference. The exact amount of the
purchase-money for the supreme magistracy in Holland is not well known to
any but the contracting parties. Some pretended that the whole was paid
down beforehand, being advanced by a society of merchants at Amsterdam,
the friends or relatives of the grand pensionary; others, that it is to
be paid by annual instalments of two millions of livres--for a certain
number of years. Certain it is, that this high office was sold and
bought; and that, had it been given for life, its value would have been
proportionately enhanced; which was the reason that Talleyrand
endeavoured to have it thus established.

Talleyrand well knew the precarious state of Schimmelpenninck's grandeur;
that it not only depended upon the whim of Napoleon, but had long been
intended as an hereditary sovereignty for Jerome. Another Dutchman asked
him not to ruin his friend and his family for what he was well aware
could never be called a sinecure place, and was so precarious in its
tenure. "Foolish vanity," answered the Minister, "can never pay enough
for the gratification of its desires. All the Schimmelpennincks in the
world do not possess property enough to recompense me for the sovereign
honours which I have procured for one of their name and family, were he
deposed within twenty-four hours. What treasures can indemnify me for
connecting such a name and such a personage with the great name of the
First Emperor of the French?"

I have only twice in my life been in Schimmelpenninck's c