LETTER XIII.

PARIS, August, 1805.

MY LORD:--No Queen of France ever saw so many foreign Princes and
Princesses in her drawing-rooms as the first Empress of the French did
last year at Mentz; and no Sovereign was ever before so well paid, or
accepted with less difficulty donations and presents for her gracious
protection. Madame Napoleon herself, on her return to this capital last
October, boasted that she was ten millions of livres--richer in diamonds;
two millions of livres richer in pearls, and three million of livres
richer in plate and china, than in the June before, when she quitted it.
She acknowledged that she left behind her some creditors and some money
at Aix-la-Chapelle; but at Mentz she did not want to borrow, nor had she
time to gamble. The gallant ultra Romans provided everything, even to
the utmost extent of her wishes; and she, on her part, could not but
honour those with her company as much as possible, particularly as they
required nothing else for their civilities. Such was the Empress's
expression to her lady in waiting, the handsome Madame Seran, with whom
no confidence, no tale, no story, and no scandal expires; and who was in
a great hurry to inform, the same evening, the tea-party at Madame de
Beauvais's of this good news, complaining at the same time of not having
had the least share in this rich harvest.

Nowhere, indeed, were bribery and corruption carried to a greater extent,
or practised with more effrontery, than at Mentz. Madame Napoleon had as
much her fixed price for every favourable word she spoke, as Talleyrand
had for every line he wrote. Even the attendants of the former, and the
clerks of the latter, demanded, or rather extorted, douceurs from the