t Beurnonville has almost outdone them all, not excepting
our great Bonaparte. In a report to the National Convention concerning a
terrible engagement of three hours near Grewenmacker, Beurnonville
declares that, though the number of the enemy killed was immense, his
troops got out of the scrape with the loss of only the little finger of
one of his riflemen. On the 4th of February, 1793, a fortnight after the
execution of Louis XVI., he was nominated Minister of the War
Department--a place which he refused, under a pretence that he was better
able to serve his country with his sword than with his pen, having
already been in one hundred and twenty battles (where, he did not
enumerate or state). On the 14th of the following March, however, he
accepted the ministerial portfolio, which he did not keep long, being
delivered up by his Hector, Dumouriez, to the Austrians. He remained a
prisoner at Olmutz until the 22d of November, 1795, when he was included
among the persons exchanged for the daughter of Louis XVI., Her present
Royal Highness, the Duchess of Angouleme.

In the autumn of 1796 he had a temporary, command of the dispersed
remnants of Jourdan's army, and in 1797 he was sent as a French commander
to Holland. In 1799, Bonaparte appointed him an Ambassador to the Court
of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of
Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his
personal qualities make him esteemed. In France, he is laughed at as a
boaster, but not trusted as a warrior. In Spain, he is neither dreaded
nor esteemed, neither laughed at nor courted; he is there universally
despised. He studies to be thought a gentleman; but the native porter
breaks through the veil of a ridiculously affected and outre politeness.
Notwithstanding the complacent grimaces of his face, the self-sufficiency
of his looks, his systematically powdered and dressed hair, his showy
dress, his counted and short bows, and his presumptuous conversation,
teeming with ignorance, vulgarity, and obscenity, he cannot escape even
the most inattentive observer.

The Ambassador, Beurnonville, is now between fifty and sixty years of
age; is a grand officer of our Imperial Legion of Honour; has a brother
who is a turnkey, and two sisters, one married to a tailor, and another
to a merchant who cries dogs' and cats' meat in our streets.

LETTER IX.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Bonaparte