licate post he contributed
equally to the success of both. After the Peace of Luneville he was
appointed a commander-in-chief for the Emperor in the ci-devant Venetian
States, where the troops composing the army under the Archduke Charles
were, last summer, received and inspected by him, before the arrival of
the Prince. He is considered by military men as greatly superior to most
of the generals now employed by the Emperor of Germany.

LETTER XXXVI.

PARIS, October, 1805.

MY LORD:--"I would give my brother, the Emperor of Germany, one further
piece of advice. Let him hasten to make peace. This is the crisis when,
he must recollect, all States must have an end. The idea of the
approaching extinction of the, dynasty of Lorraine must impress him with
horror." When Bonaparte ordered this paragraph to be inserted in the
Moniteur, he discovered an 'arriere pensee', long suspected by
politicians, but never before avowed by himself, or by his Ministers.
"That he has determined on the universal change of dynasties, because a
usurper can never reign with safety or honour as long as any legitimate
Prince may disturb his power, or reproach him for his rank." Elevated
with prosperity, or infatuated with vanity and pride, he spoke a language
which his placemen, courtiers, and even his brother Joseph at first
thought premature, if not indiscreet. If all lawful Sovereigns do not
read in these words their proscription, and the fate which the most
powerful usurper that ever desolated mankind has destined for them, it
may be ascribed to that blindness with which Providence, in its wrath,
sometimes strikes those doomed to be grand examples of the vicissitudes
of human life.

"Had Talleyrand," said Louis Bonaparte, in his wife's drawing-room, "been
by my brother's side, he would not have unnecessarily alarmed or awakened
those whom it should have been his policy to keep in a soft slumber,
until his blows had laid them down to rise no more; but his soldier-like
frankness frequently injures his political views." This I myself heard
Louis say to Abbe Sieyes, though several foreign Ambassadors were in the
saloon, near enough not to miss a word. If it was really meant as a
reflection on Napoleon, it was imprudent; if designed as a defiance to
other Princes, it was unbecoming and impertinent. I am inclined to
believe it, considering the individual to whom it was addressed, a
premeditated declaration that our Emperor expecte