secure for an instant of not being seized,
imprisoned, plundered, tortured, or exterminated by the orders of Fouche
and by the hands of his agents.

You will no doubt exclaim, "How can Bonaparte employ, how dares he
confide, in such a man?" Fouche is as able as unprincipled, and, with
the most unfeeling and perverse heart, possesses great talents. There is
no infamy he will not stoop to, and no crime, however execrable, that he
will hesitate to commit, if his Sovereign orders it. He is, therefore, a
most useful instrument in the hand of a despot who, notwithstanding what
is said to the contrary in France, and believed abroad, would cease to
rule the day he became just, and the reign of laws and of humanity
banished terror and tyranny.

It is reported that some person, pious or revengeful, presented some time
ago to the devout mother of Napoleon a long memorial containing some
particulars of the crimes and vices of Fouche and Talleyrand, and
required of her, if she wished to prevent the curses of Heaven from
falling on her son, to inform him of them, that he might cease to employ
men so unworthy of him, and so repugnant to a Divinity. Napoleon, after
reading through the memorial, is stated to have answered his mother, who
was always pressing him to dismiss these Ministers: The memorial, Madame,
contains nothing of what I was not previously informed. Louis XVI. did
not select any but those whom he thought the most virtuous and moral of
men for his Ministers and counsellors; and where did their virtues and
morality bring him? If the writer of the memorial will mention two
honest and irreproachable characters, with equal talents and zeal to
serve me, neither Fouche nor Talleyrand shall again be admitted into my
presence.

LETTER XV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--You have with some reason in England complained of the conduct
of the members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, when the
pretended correspondence between Mr. Drake and Mehee de la Touche was
published in our official gazette. Had you, however, like myself, been
in a situation to study the characters and appreciate the worth of most
of them, this conduct would have excited no surprise, and pity would have
taken the place both of accusation and reproach. Hardly one of them,
except Count Philipp von Cobenzl, the Austrian Ambassador (and even he is
considerably involved), possesses any property, or has anything else but
his salary to depend upon