policy to puff a brother villain, it is not difficult for a stander-by to decipher the sneer of jealousy and mental reservation distorting the muscles of the speaker's countenance, and involuntarily disclosing the very feeling which he was perhaps desirous to conceal.

Thus was it with the various tools of the treacherous minister; and in his own countenance were engraven distinctly the characteristics of cunning and insincerity. From the first moment I saw Fouché, and more particularly when I heard him falsely swear fidelity to his imperial master, I involuntarily imbibed a strong sensation of dislike. His features held out no inducement to you to place confidence in their owner: on the contrary, they could not but tend to beget distrust and disesteem. The suspicions which they generated in me, I never could overcome, and the sequel proved how just they

were.

After awhile, I began slightly to suspect the species of society I was associating with, and it occurred to me to request that Lady Barrington would pay a visit to the lady we had met at Doctor Marshall's, and whom we had understood from Mrs. Marshall to be on a visit to Fouché, her relative. I proposed to go also, and leave my card for her husband, whom we had not yet seen. We accordingly waited on them at Fouché's hotel, and asked the Swiss if Madame was at home.

"Madame!" said the porter; "Madame! quelle Madame?" as if he had heard us fmperfectly. We had forgotten her name, and could therefore only reply, "Madame la parente de Monsieur le Ministre."

"There is no such person here, Monsieur," replied the Swiss, with a half-saucy shrug.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed I: "she is on a visit to the Duc D'Otrante."

Non, non, Monsieur et Madame," repeated the pertinacious Swiss "point du tout!" and he seemed impatient to send us away; but after a moment's pause, the fellow burst out into a violent fit of laughter. "I beg your pardon, Monsieur et Madame," said he, "I begin to understand whom you mean. Your friend undoubtedly resides in the hotel, but she is just now from home."

I handed him our cards for her and her husband. On reading "Le Chivalier et Milady," the man looked more respectful, but apparently could not control his laughter. When, however, he at length recovered himself, he bowed very low, VOL. II.

22

THE ENGLISH IN PARIS.

begged pardon again, and said he thought we had been inquir ing for some vraie Madame. The word stimulated my curiosity, and I hastily demanded its meaning; when it turned out that Monsieur was the maitre d'hotel, and Madame, his wife, looked to the linen, china, &c. in quality of confidential housekeeper!

We waited to hear no more. we went; and my suspicions as to that lady's rank were thus I took up our cards and away set at rest. I did not say one word of the matter at Dr. Marshall's, but I suppose the porter told the lady, as we never saw her afterward, nor her husband at all.

I now began to perceive my way more clearly, and redoubled my assiduity to decipher the events which passed around me. In this I was aided by an increased intimacy with Colonel Macirone, whom closer acquaintance confirmed as an agreeable and gentlemanly man, and who in my opinion was very badly selected as an espion: I believe his heart was above his degrading occupation.

I perceived that there was some plot going forward, the circumstances of which it was beyond my power to develope. The manner of the persons I lived amongst was perpetually undergoing some shade of variation; the mystery thickened; and my curiosity increased with it.

In the end this curiosity was most completely gratified; but all I could determine on at the moment was, that there existed an extensive organised system of deception and treachery, at the bottom of which was undoubtedly Fouché himself: whether, however, my employé acquaintances would ultimately betray the Emperor or his minister, seemed, from their evidently loose political principles, quite problematical. I meanwhile dreaded every body, yet affected to fear none, and listened with an air of unconcern to the stories of my valet, Henry Thevenot, though at that time I gave them no credit: subsequent occurrences, however, rendered it manifest that this man procured, somehow or other, sure information.

Amongst other matters, Thevenot said he knew well that there was an intention, if opportunity occurred, of assassinating Napoleon on his road to join the army in Belgium.* I did not much relish being made the depository of such dan

*I have often thought that the ultimate desertion of the Mameluke who had always been retained by Napoleon about his person had some very deep reason for it; and to this moment, that circumstance appears to require clearing up.

gerous secrets, and ordered my servant never to mention before me again any such ridiculous stories," otherwise I should discharge him as an unsafe person. Yet I could not keep his tongue from wagging, and I really dreaded dismissing him. He said "that Fouché was a traitor to his master; that several of the cannon at Mont-martre were rendered unserviceable; and that mines had been charged with gunpowder under various parts of the city, preparatory to some attempt at counter-revolution."

INAUGURATION OF THE EMPEROR.

The peers and deputies summoned for the 8th of June-Abduction of the regalia by the royalists-Author obtains a ticket of admission to the gallery of the Chamber of Deputies, to witness the ceremony-Grenadiers of the Old Guard -Enthusiasm of the military, and comparative quiesence of the other ranksEntrance of Napoleon into the Chamber-Sketch of his appearance and that of Madame Mère-Administration of the oath of allegiance-The Duke of Otranto and Count Thibaudeau-The imperial speech and its ineffective delivery.

THE days rolled on, and in their train brought summer and the month of June-on the 8th day of which, the peers and deputies of the legislative body were summoned to attend collectively at two o'clock in the Chamber of Deputies, to receive the emperor, and take the oath of fidelity to him and to the constitution, in the midst of all the splendor which the brilliant metropolis of France could supply. The abduction of the regalia by some friends of King Louis, when they ran away to Ghent, had left Napoleon without any crown wherewith to gratify the vanity of a people at all times devoted to every species of spectacle; he had only a button and loop of brilliants which fastened up his Spanish hat, over the sides whereof an immense plumage hung nodding. But this was such a scene, and such an occasion, that a wreath of laurel would have be. come the brow of Napoleon far better than all the diamonds in the universe!-The whole of the imperial family were to be present.

The number of persons who could be admitted as spectators into the gallery was necessarily very limited: and in a great metropolis where every body is devoted to show, the difficulty of procuring admission would, I conceived, be of course proportionably great. It may be well imagined that I was indefatigable in seeking to obtain tickets, as this spectacle was calculated to throw every thing besides that I had witnessed in Paris completely into the back-ground;-and what tended still more to whet the edge of my curiosity, was the reflection that it would, in all probability, be the last opportunity I should have of deliberately viewing the Emperor, whose departure from Paris to join the army was immediately contemplated.

I therefore made interest with every body I knew; I even wrote to the authorities; and, in short, left no means whatever untried which suggested themselves to me. At length, when I began to think my chance but a very poor one, on the day actually preceding the ceremony, to my unspeakable gratification, I received a note from the Chamberlain, enclosing an admission for one, which the difficulty I had every where encountered led me to esteem a great favour. I did not think that, at my age, I could possibly be so anxious about any thing; but I believe there are few persons who will not admit that the excitement was great, occasioned by the prospect of contemplating, for a length of time and in a convenient situation, the bodily presence of a man to whom posterity is likely to award greater honours than can be conceded to him by the prejudices of the present race.

The programme announced that all Napoleon's marshals and generals, together with the veterans of his staff and the male branches of his family, were to be grouped around him; as were likewise several of those statesmen whose talents had helped originally to raise him to the throne, and whose treachery afterwards succeeded in hurling him a second time from it. The peers and deputies, in their several ranks and costumes, were each, individually and distinctly, on that day, to swear new allegiance to their Emperor, and a lasting obedience to the constitution.

The solemnity of Napoleon's inauguration, and that of his promulgating the new constitution at the Champ de Mars, made by far the greatest impression on my mind of all the remarkable public or private occurrences I had ever witnessed. The intense interest-the incalculable importance, not only to France but to the world, of those two great events, generated reflections within me more weighty and profound than any I had hitherto entertained: whilst the variety of glittering dresses, the novelty and the ever-changing nature of the objects around me, combined to cheat me almost into a belief that I had migrated to fairy-land, and in fact to prevent me from fixing my regards on any thing.

The first of those days was the more interesting to Francethe second to Europe at large. Though totally unparalleled in all their bearings, and dissimilar from every other historical incident ancient or modern, yet these solemnities seem to have been considered by most who have written upon the subject as little more than ordinary transactions. Were I to give my feelings full play in reciting their effect on myself, I should at