Produced by David Widger
By Lewis Goldsmith
Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:—The Italian subjects of Napoleon the First were far fromdisplaying the same zeal and the same gratitude for his paternal care andkindness in taking upon himself the trouble of governing them, as we goodParisians have done. Notwithstanding that a brigade of our police agentsand spies, drilled for years to applaud and to excite enthusiasm,proceeded as his advanced guard to raise the public spirit, the receptionat Milan was cold and everything else but cordial and pleasing. Theabsence of duty did not escape his observation and resentment. Convinced,in his own mind, of the great blessing, prosperity, and liberty hisvictories and sovereignty have conferred on the inhabitants of the otherside of the Alps, he ascribed their present passive or mutinous behaviourto the effect of foreign emissaries from Courts envious of his glory andjealous of his authority.
He suspected particularly England and Russia of having selected thisoccasion of a solemnity that would complete his grandeur to humble hisjust pride. He also had some idea within himself that even Austria mightindirectly have dared to influence the sentiments and conduct of herci-devant subjects of Lombardy; but his own high opinion of the awe whichhis very name inspired at Vienna dispersed these thoughts, and his wrathfell entirely on the audacity of Pitt and Markof. Strict orders weretherefore issued to the prefects and commissaries of police to watchvigilantly all foreigners and strangers, who might have arrived, or whoshould arrive, to witness the ceremony of the coronation, and to arrestinstantly any one who should give the least reason to suppose that he wasan enemy instead of an admirer of His Imperial and Royal Majesty. Healso commanded the prefects of his palace not to permit any persons toapproach his sacred person, of whose morality and politics they had notpreviously obtained a good account.
These great measures of security were not entirely unnecessary.Individual vengeance and individual patriotism sharpened their daggers,and, to use Senator Roederer's language, "were near transforming the mostglorious day of rejoicing into a day of universal mourning."
All our writers on the Revolution agree that in France, within the firsttwelve years after we had reconquered our lost liberty, more conspiracieshave been denounced than during the six centuries of the most brilliantepoch of ancient and free Rome. These facts and avowals are speakingevidences of the eternal tranquillity of our unfortunate country, of ouraffection to our rulers, and of the unanimity with which all the changesof Government have been, notwithstanding our printed votes, received andapproved.
The frequency of conspiracies not only shows the discontent of thegoverned, but the insecurity and instability of the governors. Thistruth has not escaped Napoleon, who has, therefore, ordered anexpeditious and secret justice to despatch instantly the conspirators,and to bury the conspiracy in oblivion, except when any grand coup d'etatis to be struck; or, to excite the passions of hatred, any proofs can befound, or must be fabricated, involving an inimical or rival foreignGovernment in an odious plot. Since the farce which Mehee de la Toucheexhibited, you have, therefore, not read in the Moniteur either of thedanger our Emperor has incurred several times since from the machinationso