of nine thousand livres--in the year, until he could be better provided
for. He was, besides, nominated a Knight of the Legion of Honour. It
cannot be denied but that Bonaparte rewards like a real Emperor.

But artists as well as authors obtain from him the same encouragement,
and experience the same liberality. In our different museums we,
therefore, already, see and admire upwards of two hundred pictures,
representing the different actions, scenes, and achievements of
Bonaparte's public life. It is true they are not all highly finished or
well composed or delineated, but they all strike the spectators more or
less with surprise or admiration; and it is with us, as, I suppose, with
you, and everywhere else, the multitude decide: for one competent judge
or real connoisseur, hundreds pass, who stare, gape, are charmed, and
inspire thousands of their acquaintance, friends, and neighbours with
their own satisfaction. Believe me, Napoleon the First well knows the
age, his contemporaries, and, I fear, even posterity.

That statuaries and sculptors consider him also as a generous patron, the
numerous productions of their chisels in France, Italy, and Germany,
having him for their object, seem to evince. Ten sculptors have already
represented his passage over the Mount St. Bernard, eighteen his passage
over Pont de Lodi, and twenty-two that over Pont d' Arcole. At Rome,
Milan, Turin, Lyons, and Paris are statues of him representing his
natural size; and our ten thousand municipalities have each one of his
busts; without mentioning the thousands of busts all over Europe, not
excepting even your own country. When Bonaparte sees under the windows
of the Tuileries the statue of Caesar placed in the garden of that
palace, he cannot help saying to himself: "Marble lives longer than man."
Have you any doubt that his ambition and vanity extend beyond the grave?