First Consul were you to write
as near as possible according to the formula which my secretary has drawn
up. It states nothing either against convenance, or against the customs
of Sovereigns, or etiquettes of Courts, and I am certain is also
perfectly congenial with your individual feelings."

A silence of some moments now followed (as all the diplomatists were
rather taken by surprise with regard to a written declaration), which the
Swedish Ambassador, Baron Ehrensward, interrupted by saying that, "though
he personally might have no objection to sign such a declaration, he must
demand some time to consider whether he had a right to, write in the name
of his Sovereign, without his orders, on a subject still unknown to him."

This remark made the Austrian Ambassador, Count von Cobenzl, propose a
private consultation among the members of the foreign diplomatic corps at
one of their hotels, at which the Russian charge d'affaires, D'Oubril,
who was not at the dinner--party, was invited to assist. They met
accordingly, at the Hotel de Montmorency, Rue de Lille, occupied by Count
von Cobenzl; but they came to no other unanimous determination than that
of answering a written communication of Talleyrand by a written note,
according as every one judged most proper and prudent, and corresponding
with the supposed sentiments of his Sovereign.

As all this official correspondence has been published in England, you
may, upon reading the notes presented by Baron de Dreyer, and Mr.
Livingstone,

[In consequence of this conduct, Livingstone was recalled by his
Government, and lives now in obscurity and disgrace in America. To
console him, however, in his misfortune, Bonaparte, on his departure,
presented him with his portrait, enamelled on the lid of a snuff-box, set
round with diamonds, and valued at one thousand louis d'or.]

the neutral Ambassadors of Denmark and America, form some tolerably just
idea of Talleyrand's formula. Their impolitic servility was blamed even
by the other members of the diplomatic corps.

Livingstone you know, and perhaps have not to learn that, though a stanch
republican in America, he was the most abject courtier in France; and
though a violent defender of liberty and equality on the other side of
the Atlantic, no man bowed lower to usurpation, or revered despotism
more, in Europe. Without talents, and almost without education, he
thinks intrigues negotiations, and conceives that policy and duplicity