when Mehee offered her his arm, and she exclaimed with indignation, "How
dare you, infamous wretch, approach me, when I have forbidden you ever to
speak to me? Had you been reduced to become a highwayman, or a
housebreaker, I might have pitied your infamy; but a spy is a villain who
aggravates guilt by cowardice and baseness, and can inspire no noble soul
with any other sentiment but abhorrence, and the most sovereign
contempt." Without being disconcerted, Mehee silently returned to the
company, amidst bursts of laughter from fifty servants, and as many
masters, waiting for their carriages. M. de Cetto was among the latter,
but, though we all fixed our eyes steadfastly upon him, no alteration
could be seen on his diplomatic countenance: his face must surely be made
of brass or his heart of marble.




LETTER VI.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--The day on which Madame Napoleon Bonaparte was elected an
Empress of the French, by the constitutional authorities of her husband's
Empire, was, contradictory as it may seem, one of the most uncomfortable
in her life. After the show and ceremony of the audience and of the
drawing-room were over, she passed it entirely in tears, in her library,
where her husband shut her up and confined her.

The discipline of the Court of St. Cloud is as singular as its
composition is unique. It is, by the regulation of Napoleon, entirely
military. From the Empress to her lowest chambermaid, from the Emperor's