ege, with two prostitutes, in the chapel of the
Holy Virgin; and, on the next morning, placed one of them, naked, on the
pedestal where the statue of the Virgin had formerly stood, and ordered
all the devotees at Loretto, and two leagues round, to prostrate
themselves before her. This shocking command occasioned the premature
death of fifteen ladies, two of whom, who were nuns, died on the spot on
beholding the horrid outrage; and many more were deprived of their
reason. How barbarously unfeeling must that wretch be who, in bereaving
the religious, the pious, and the conscientious of their consolation and
hope, adds the tormenting reproach of apostasy, by forcing virtue upon
its knees to bow before what it knows to be guilt and infamy.

A traitor to his associates as to his God, it was he who, in November,
1799, presented at St. Cloud the decree which excluded all those who
opposed Bonaparte's authority from the Council of Five Hundred, and
appointed the two committees which made him a First Consul. In reward
for this act of treachery, he was nominated to a place in the
Conservative Senate. He has now ranked himself among our modern saints,
goes regularly to Mass and confesses; has made a brother of his, who was
a drummer, an Abbe; and his assiduity about the Cardinal was probably
with a view to obtain advancement for this edifying priest.

The Cardinal de Belloy is now ninety-six years of age, being born in
1709, and has been a Bishop for fifty-three years, but, during the
Revolution, was proscribed, with all other prelates. He remained,
however, in France, where his age saved him from the guillotine, but not
from being reduced to the greatest want. A descendant of a noble family,
and possessing an unpolluted character, Bonaparte fixed upon him as one
of the pillars for the reestablishment of the Catholic worship, made him
an Archbishop of Paris, and procured him the rank of a Cardinal from
Rome. But he is now in his second childhood, entirely directed by his
grand vicaries, Malaret, De Mons, and Legeas, who are in the pay of, and
absolutely devoted to, Bonaparte. An innocent instrument in their hands,
of those impious compliments pronounced by him to the Emperor and the
Empress, he did not, perhaps, even understand the meaning. From such a
man the vile and artful Villetard might extort any promise. I observed,
however, with pleasure, that he was watched by the grand vicar, Malaret,
who seldom loses sight of