Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Volume 5 by Stewarton
page 47 of 56 (83%)
page 47 of 56 (83%)
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one of his riflemen. On the 4th of February, 1793, a fortnight after the
execution of Louis XVI., he was nominated Minister of the War Department--a place which he refused, under a pretence that he was better able to serve his country with his sword than with his pen, having already been in one hundred and twenty battles (where, he did not enumerate or state). On the 14th of the following March, however, he accepted the ministerial portfolio, which he did not keep long, being delivered up by his Hector, Dumouriez, to the Austrians. He remained a prisoner at Olmutz until the 22d of November, 1795, when he was included among the persons exchanged for the daughter of Louis XVI., Her present Royal Highness, the Duchess of Angouleme. In the autumn of 1796 he had a temporary, command of the dispersed remnants of Jourdan's army, and in 1797 he was sent as a French commander to Holland. In 1799, Bonaparte appointed him an Ambassador to the Court of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his personal qualities make him esteemed. In France, he is laughed at as a boaster, but not trusted as a warrior. In Spain, he is neither dreaded nor esteemed, neither laughed at nor courted; he is there universally despised. He studies to be thought a gentleman; but the native porter breaks through the veil of a ridiculously affected and outre politeness. Notwithstanding the complacent grimaces of his face, the self-sufficiency of his looks, his systematically powdered and dressed hair, his showy dress, his counted and short bows, and his presumptuous conversation, teeming with ignorance, vulgarity, and obscenity, he cannot escape even the most inattentive observer. The Ambassador, Beurnonville, is now between fifty and sixty years of age; is a grand officer of our Imperial Legion of Honour; has a brother |
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