ause she was
not dressed in time to take a walk with him on the ramparts, one is apt
to believe that military despotism has erased from his bosom all
connubial affection, and that a momentary effusion of kindness and
generosity can but little alleviate the frequent pangs caused by repeated
insults and oppression. Fortunately, Madame Napoleon's disposition is
proof against rudeness as well as against brutality. If what her friend
and consoler, Madame Delucay, reports of her is not exaggerated, her
tranquillity is not much disturbed nor her happiness affected by these
explosions of passionate authority, and she prefers admiring, in
undisturbed solitude, her diamond box to the most beautiful prospects in
the most agreeable company; and she inspects with more pleasure in
confinement, her rich wardrobe, her beautiful china, and her heavy plate,
than she would find satisfaction, surrounded with crowds, in
comtemplating Nature, even in its utmost perfection. "The paradise of
Madame Napoleon," says her friend, "must be of metal, and lighted by the
lustre of brilliants, else she would decline it for a hell and accept
Lucifer himself for a spouse, provided gold flowed in his infernal
domains, though she were even to be scorched by its heat."

LETTER XIV.

LETTER XIV.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--I believe that I have mentioned to you, when in England, that I
was an old acquaintance of Madame Napoleon, and a visitor at the house of
her first husband. When introduced to her after some years' absence,
during which fortune had treated us very differently, she received me
with more civility than I was prepared to expect, and would, perhaps,
have spoken to me more than she did, had not a look of her husband
silenced her. Madame Louis Bonaparte was still more condescending, and
recalled to my memory what I had not forgotten how often she had been
seated, when a child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll.
Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their
present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at
their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much
surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension
to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or
borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of their
neglect and their breach of promises. I continued, however, as much as
etiquette and dec