from the plunderers who have laid waste provinces, republics, and
kingdoms, down to the assassins who shot, drowned, or guillotined their
countrymen en masse. For my part, I never had but one opinion, and,
unfortunately, it has turned out a just one. I always was convinced that
those Princes who received other presents from Bonaparte could have no
plausible excuse to decline his ribands, crosses, and stars. But who
could have presumed to think that, in return for these blood-stained
baubles, they would have sacrificed those honourable and dignified
ornaments which, for ages past, have been the exclusive distinction of
what birth had exalted, virtue made eminent, talents conspicuous, honour
illustrious, or valour meritorious? Who would have dared to say that the
Prussian Eagle and the Spanish Golden Fleece should thus be prostituted,
thus polluted? I do not mean by this remark to throw any blame on the
conferring those and other orders on Napoleon Bonaparte, or even on his
brothers; I know it is usual, between legitimate Sovereigns in alliance,
sometimes to exchange their knighthoods; but to debase royal orders so
much as to present them to a Cambaceres, a Talleyrand, a Fouche, a
Bernadotte, a Fesch, and other vile and criminal wretches, I do not deny
to have excited my astonishment as well as my indignation. What
honest--I do not say what noble--subjects of Prussia, or of Spain, will
hereafter think themselves rewarded for their loyalty, industry,
patriotism, or zeal, when they remember that their Sovereigns have
nothing to give but what the rebel has obtained, the robber worn, the
murderer vilified, and the regicide debased?

The number of grand officers of the Legion of Honour does not yet amount
to more than eighty, according to a list circulated at Milan last spring,
of which I have seen a copy. Of these grand officers, three had been
shoemakers, two tailors, four bakers, four barbers, six friars, eight
abbes, six officers, three pedlers, three chandlers, seven drummers,