who plundered
him of twelve hundred thousand livres. Though not many days passed
before he discovered the imposition, prudence prevented him from
denouncing the impostors; and this blunder would have remained a secret
between himself, Bonaparte, and Talleyrand, had not the unusual expenses
of Caumartin excited the suspicion of the Russian Police Minister, who
soon discovered the source from which they had flowed. De Gausac had the
imprudence to return to this capital last spring, and is now shut up in
the Temple, where he probably will be forgotten.

As this loss was more ascribed to the negligence of Madame Bonoeil than
to the mismanagement of Duroc, or his want of penetration, his reception
at the Tuileries, though not so gracious as on his return from Berlin,
nineteen months before, was, however, such as convinced him that if he
had not increased, he had at the same time not lessened, the confidence
of his master; and, indeed, shortly afterwards, Bonaparte created him
first prefect of his palace, and procured him for a wife the only
daughter of a rich Spanish banker. Rumour, however, says that Bonaparte
was not quite disinterested when he commanded and concluded this match,
and that the fortune of Madame Duroc has paid for the expensive supper of
her husband with Count de S-----tz at St. Petersburg.

LETTER II.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--Though the Treaty of Luneville will probably soon be buried in
the rubbish of the Treaty of Amiens, the influence of their parents in
the Cabinet of St. Cloud is as great as ever: I say their parents,
because the crafty ex-Bishop, Talleyrand, foreseeing the short existence
of these bastard diplomatic acts, took care to compliment the innocent
Joseph Bonaparte with a share in the parentage, although they were his
own exclusive offspring.

Joseph Bonaparte, who in 1797, from an attorney's clerk at Ajaccio, in
Corsica, was at once transformed into an Ambassador to the Court of Rome,
had hardly read a treaty, or seen a despatch written, before he was
himself to conclude the one, and to dictate the other. Had he not been
supported by able secretaries, Government would soon have been convinced
that it is as impossible to confer talents as it is easy to give places
to men to whom Nature has refused parts, and on whom a scanty or
neglected education has bestowed no improvements. Deep and reserved,
like a true Italian, but vain and ambitious, like his brothers, under t