dience of the absurdity of
true republicans not being on a level, even under an Emperor, and putting
on, like him, all his ridiculous ornaments. "We are here," said he,
"either all grand officers, or there exist no grand officers at all; we
have all fought and paid for liberty, and for the Revolution, as much as
Bonaparte, and have, therefore, the same right and claim with him." Here
a police agent and some gendarmes interrupted his eloquence by taking him
into custody. When Fouche asked him what he meant by such rebellious
behaviour, he replied that it was only a trial to see whether destiny had
intended him to become an Emperor or to remain a cobbler. On the next
day he was shot as a conspirator. I saw the unfortunate man in the
Palais Royal; his eyes looked wild, and his words were often incoherent.
He was certainly a subject more deserving a place in a madhouse than in a
tomb.

Cambaceres has been severely reprimanded by the Emperor for showing too
much partiality for the Royal Prussian Black Eagle, by wearing it in
preference to the Imperial Legion of Honour. He was given to understand
that, except for four days in the year, the Imperial etiquette did not
permit any subjects to display their knighthood of the Prussian Order. In
Madame Bonaparte's last drawing-room, before His Imperial Majesty set out
for the Rhine, he was ornamented with the Spanish, Neapolitan, Prussian,
and Portuguese orders, together with those of the French Legion of Honour
and of the Italian Iron Crown. I have seen the Emperor Paul, who was
also an amateur of ribands and stars, but never with so many at once. I
have just heard that the Grand Master of Malta has presented Napoleon
with the Grand Cross of the Maltese Order. This is certainly a negative
compliment to him, who, in July, 1798, officially declared to his then
sectaries, the Turks and Mussulmans, "that the Grand Master, Commanders,
Knights, and Order of Malta existed no more."

I have heard it related for a certainty among our fashionable ladies,
that the Empress of the French also intends to institute a new order of
female knighthood, not of honour, but of confidence; of which all our
Court ladies, all the wives of our generals, public functionaries, etc.,
are to be members. The Imperial Princesses of the Bonaparte family are
to be hereditary grand officers, together with as many foreign Empresses,
Queens, Princesses, Countesses, and Baronesses as can be bayoneted into
th