his King, for whose death he
voted. On the 25th of May, 1792, in declaiming against Christianity and
priesthood, he wished them both, for the welfare of mankind, at the
bottom of the sea; and on the 18th of December the same year, he declared
in the Jacobin Club that, if the National Convention evinced any signs of
clemency towards Louis XVI., he would go himself to the Temple and blow
out the brains of this unfortunate King. He defended in the tribune the
massacres of the prisoners, affirming that the tree of liberty could
never flourish without being inundated with the blood of aristocrats and
other enemies of the Revolution. He has been convicted by rival factions
of the most shameful robberies, and his infamy and depravity were so
notorious that neither Murat, Brissot, Robespierre, nor the Directory
would or could employ him. After the Revolution of the 9th of November,
1799, Bonaparte gave him the office of judge of the criminal tribunal,
and in 1804 made him a Commander of his Legion of Honour. He is now one
of our Emperor's most faithful subjects and most sincere Christians. Such
is now his tender conscientiousness, that he was among those who were the
first to be married again by some Cardinal to their present wives, to
whom they had formerly been united only by the municipality. This new
marriage, however, took place before Madame Thuriot had introduced
herself to the acquaintance of the Imperial Grenadier Rabais.

LETTER XXX.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Regarding me as a connoisseur, though I have no pretensions but
that of being an amateur, Lucien Bonaparte, shortly before his disgrace,
invited me to pass some days with him in the country, and to assist him
in arranging his very valuable collection of pictures--next our public
ones, the most curious and most valuable in Europe, and, of course, in
the world. I found here, as at Joseph Bonaparte's, the same splendour,
the same etiquette, and the same liberty, which latter was much enhanced
by the really engaging and unassuming manners and conversation of the
host. At Joseph's, even in the midst of abundance and of liberty, in
seeing the person or meditating on the character of the host, you feel
both your inferiority of fortune and the humiliation of dependence, and
that you visit a master instead of a friend, who indirectly tells you,
"Eat, drink, and rejoice as long and as much as you like; but remember
that if you are happy, it is to my generosi