it by his reserve. Being liberated from
confinement shortly after, he communicated what had happened to a
friend, a member of the French Senate, who traced the matter home to
some of Fouche's creatures, and congratulated Lord Elgin on having
avoided very narrowly the fate of Pichegru.

Sir George Rumbold, the British minister at Hamburg, escaped that
consummation still more narrowly. During the night of the 23rd October a
party of French soldiers passed the Elbe, as Ordonner and his gang had
crossed the Rhine on the 14th of March, and boldly seized Rumbold within
the territory of an independent and friendly state. He was hurried to
Paris, and confined in the fated dungeons of the Temple: but none of his
papers afforded any plausible pretext for resisting the powerful
remonstrance which the King of Prussia thought fit to make against an
outrage perpetrated almost within sight of his dominions; and, after a
few days, Sir George was set at liberty.

Meantime, while all the princes of Europe regarded with indignation
(though few of them, indeed, cared to express the feeling openly) the
cruel tragedies which had been acted in France, the death of Pichegru
had suppressed effectually the hopes of the royalists in that country,
and the exile of Moreau deprived the republicans of the only leader
under whom there was any likelihood of their taking arms against the
Chief Consul. He resolved to profit by the favourable moment for
completing a purpose which he had long meditated; and, on the 30th of
April, little more than a month after the Duke d'Enghien died, one
Curee was employed to move, in the Tribunate, "that it was time to bid
adieu to political illusions--that victory had brought back
tranquillity--the finances of the country had been restored, and the
laws renovated--and that it was a matter of duty to secure those
blessings to the nation in future, by rendering the supreme power
hereditary in the person and family of Napoleon."--"Such," he said, "was
the universal desire of the army and of the people. The title of
Emperor, in his opinion, was that by which Napoleon should be hailed, as
best corresponding to the dignity of the nation."

This motion was carried in the Tribunate, with one dissenting voice,
that of Carnot; who, in a speech of great eloquence, resisted the
principle of hereditary monarchy altogether. He admitted the merits in
war and in policy of the Chief Consul--he was at present the Dictator of
the Repu