Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Volume 5 by Stewarton
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page 3 of 56 (05%)
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prevent these tyrants from capturing or destroying them. Such changes,
in so short a period of time as three months, might irritate a temper less patient than that of Napoleon the First. At his grand audience here, even after the army, of England had moved towards Germany, when the die was cast, and his mind should, therefore, have been made up, he was almost insupportable. The low bows, and the still humbler expressions of the Prussian Ambassador, the Marquis da Lucchesini, were hardly noticed; and the Saxon Ambassador, Count von Buneau, was addressed in a language that no well-bred master ever uses in speaking to a menial servant. He did not cast a look, or utter a word, that was not an insult to the audience and a disgrace to his rank. I never before saw him vent his rage and disappointment so indiscriminately. We were, indeed (if I may use the term), humbled and trampled upon en masse. Some he put out of countenance by staring angrily at them; others he shocked by his hoarse voice and harsh words; and all--all of us--were afraid, in our turn, of experiencing something worse than our neighbours. I observed more than one Minister, and more than one general, change colour, and even perspire, at His Majesty's approach. I believe the members of the foreign diplomatic corps here will all agree with me that, at a future congress, the restoration of the ancient and becoming etiquette of the Kings of France would be as desirable a point to demand from the Emperor of the French as the restoration of the balance of power. Before his army of England quitted its old quarters on the coast, the officers and men often felt the effects of his ungovernable temper. When several regiments of grenadiers, of the division of Oudinot, were |
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