elated; and foreigners who visit
us continue, nevertheless, to be off their guard. They would be less
punished had they with them forged bills than, printed books or
newspapers, in which our Imperial Family and public functionaries are not
treated with due respect. Bonaparte is convinced that in every book
where he is not spoken of with praise, the intent is to blame him; and
such intents or negative guilt never escape with impunity.

As, notwithstanding the endeavours of our Government, we are more fond of
foreign prints, and have more confidence in them than in our own,
official presses have lately been established at Antwerp, at Cologne, and
at Mentz, where the 'Gazette de Leyden', 'Hamburg Correspondenten', and
'Journal de Frankfort' are reprinted; some articles left out, and others
inserted in their room. It was intended to reprint also the 'Courier de
Londres', but our types, and particularly, our paper, would detect the
fraud. I have read one of our own Journal de Frankfort, in which were
extracts from this French paper, printed in your country, which I
strongly suspect are of our own manufacture. I am told that several new
books, written by foreigners, in praise of our present brilliant
Government, are now in the presses of those our frontier towns, and will
soon be laid before the public as foreign productions.

A clerk of a banking-house had lately the imprudence to mention, during
his dinner at the restaurateur's of 'Cadran Vert', on the Boulevards,
some doubt of the veracity of an official article in the 'Moniteur'. As
he left the house he was arrested, carried before Fouche, accused of
being an English agent, and before supper-time he was on the road to
Rochefort on his way to Cayenne. As soon as the banker Tournon was
informed of this expeditious justice, as it is called here, he waited on
Fouche, who threatened even to transport him if he dared to interfere
with the transactions of the police. This banker was himself seized in
the spring of last year by a police agent and some gendarmes, and carried
into exile forty leagues from this capital, where he remained six.
months, until a pecuniary douceur procured him a recall. His crime was
having inquired after General Moreau when in the Temple, and of having
left his card there.

LETTER XVI.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--The Prince Borghese has lately been appointed a captain of the
Imperial Guard of his Imperial brother-in-law, Napoleon the