last penalty.

By the means of these persons, then, a close and compact correspondence
was maintained,--a tone of familiarity, and even frankness, was, I am
assured, paraded in it; while, in reality, the object of each side was
purely treacherous. At one time it was a proposition to some high
and leading individual to desert his party and espouse that of its
opponents; at another, it was an artful description of the decline of
revolutionary doctrines, made purposely to draw from the Royalists some
confession of their own future intentions; while, more important than
all, there came a letter in Bonaparte's own hand, offering to Louis a
sum of several millions of francs, in return for a formal renunciation
of all right to that throne from which his destiny seemed sufficiently
to exclude him. What a curious page of history will it fill when this
secret correspondence shall one day see the light! I know, of my own
knowledge, that a great part of it is still in existence, though in the
hands of those who have solid reasons for not revealing it.

At the time when I first joined this secret service, the interchange of
letters was more than ordinarily great. The momentous change which had
taken place in France by the ascendancy of Bonaparte had imparted new
hopes to the Royalist party; and they were profuse in their expressions
of admiration for the man who of all the world was fated to be
the deadliest enemy of their race. Their gratitude was, indeed,
boundless,--at least, it transcended the usual limits of the virtue,
since it went so far as to betray the cause of the very nation to which
they were at the very same moment beholden for a refuge and an asylum!
Secret information of the views of the English cabinet; the opinions of
statesmen about the policy of the war; the resources, the plans, even
the discontents, of the country were all commented on and detailed;
while carefully drawn-up statistics were forwarded, setting forth the
ships in commission or in readiness for sea, with every circumstance
that could render the information valuable.

I know not if the English Government looked with contempt on these
intrigues, or whether they themselves did not acquire information more
valuable than that they connived at; for assuredly every secret agent
was well known to them, and more than one actually in their pay.
Of myself, I can boldly say such was not the case. I traversed the
Continent, from Hamburg to Naples; I passed f