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:—Bonaparte has been as profuse in his disposal of the Imperialdiadem of Germany, as in his promises of the papal tiara of Rome. TheHouses of Austria and Brandenburgh, the Electors of Bavaria and Baden,have by turns been cajoled into a belief of his exclusive support towardsobtaining it at the first vacancy. Those, however, who have paidattention to his machinations, and studied his actions; who remember hispedantic affectation of being considered a modern, or rather a secondCharlemagne; and who have traced his steps through the labyrinth of follyand wickedness, of meanness and greatness, of art, corruption, andpolicy, which have seated him on the present throne, can entertain littledoubt but that he is seriously bent on seizing and adding the sceptre ofGermany to the crowns of France and Italy.
During his stay last autumn at Mentz, all those German Electors who hadspirit and dignity enough to refuse to attend on him there in person wereobliged to send Extraordinary Ambassadors to wait on him, and tocompliment him on their part. Though hardly one corner of the veil thatcovered the intrigues going forward there is yet lifted up, enough isalready seen to warn Europe and alarm the world. The secret treaties heconcluded there with most of the petty Princes of Germany, against theChief of the German Empire which not only entirely detached them fromtheir country and its legitimate Sovereign, but made their individualinterests hostile and totally opposite to that of the GermanCommonwealth, transforming them also from independent Princes intovassals of France, both directly increased has already gigantic power,and indirectly encouraged him to extend it beyond what his most sanguineexpectation had induced him to hope. I do not make this assertion from amere supposition in consequence of ulterior occurrences. At a supperwith Madame Talleyrand last March, I heard her husband, in a gay,unguarded, or perhaps premeditated moment, say, when mentioning hisproposed journey to Italy:
"I prepared myself to pass the Alps last October at Mentz. The firstground-stone of the throne of Italy was, strange as it may seem, laid onthe banks of the Rhine: with such an extensive foundation, it must bedifficult to shake, and impossible to overturn it."
We were, in the whole, twenty-five persons at table when he spoke thus,many of whom, he well knew, were intimately acquainted both with theAustrian and Prussian Ambassadors, who by the bye, both on the next daysent couriers to their respective Courts.
The French Revolution is neither seen in Germany in that dangerous lightwhich might naturally be expected from the sufferings in which it hasinvolved both Princes and subjects, nor are its future effects dreadedfrom its past enormities. The cause of this impolitic and anti-patrioticapathy is to be looked for in the palaces of Sovereigns, and not in thedwellings of their people. There exists hardly a single German Princewhose Ministers, courtiers and counsellors are not numbered, and havelong been notorious among the anti-social conspirators, the Illuminati:most of them are knaves of abilities, who have usurped the easy directionof ignorance, or forced themselves as guides on weakness or folly, whichbow to their charlatanism as if it was sublimity, and hail theirsophistry and imposture as inspiration.
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