ow so vain of his
wealth and proud of his rank, that he not only disregards all former
acquaintances, but denies his own brothers and sisters,--telling them
frankly that the Fieldmarshal Brune can have no shoemaker for a brother,
nor a sister married to a chandler; that he knows of no parents, and of
no relatives, being the maker of his own fortune, and of what he is; that
his children will look no further back for ancestry than their father.
One of his first cousins, a postilion, who insisted, rather obstinately,
on his family alliance, was recommended by Brune to his friend Fouche,
who sent him on a voyage of discovery to Cayenne, from which he probably
will not return very soon.

LETTER XL.

PARIS, September, 1805.

My LORD:--Madame de C------n is now one of our most fashionable ladies.
Once in the week she has a grand tea-party; once in a fortnight a grand
dinner; and once in the month a grand ball. Foreign gentlemen are
particularly well received at her house, which, of course, is much
frequented by them. As you intend to visit this country after a peace,
it may be of some service to you not to be unacquainted with the portrait
of a lady whose invitation to see the original you may depend upon the
day after your arrival.

Madame de C----n is the widow of the great and useless traveller, Comte
de C----n, to whom his relatives pretend that she was never married. Upon
his death-bed he acknowledged her, however, for his wife, and left her
mistress of a fortune of three hundred thousand livres a year. The first
four years of her widowhood she passed in lawsuits before the tribunals,
where the plaintiffs could not prove that she was unmarried, nor she
herself that she was married. But Madame Napoleon Bonaparte, for a small
douceur, speaking in her favour, the consciences of the juries, and the
understanding of the judges, were all convinced at once that she had been
the lawful wife, and was the lawful heiress, of Comte de C----n, who had
no children, or nearer relatives than third cousins.

Comte de C----n was travelling in the East Indies when the Revolution
broke out. His occupation there was a very innocent one; he drew
countenances, being one of the most enthusiastic sectaries of Lavater,
and modestly called himself the first physiognomist in the world. Indeed,
he had been at least the most laborious one; for he left behind him a
collection of six thousand two hundred portraits, drawn by himself in the