Imperial aristocracy is now become the order of the day, he is as insupportable for his pride and vanity as he, some years ago, was contemptible for his meanness.  He married, in 1803, Madame Leclerc, who, between the death of a first and a wedding with a second husband—­a space of twelve months—­had twice been in a fair way to become a mother.  Her portion was estimated at eighteen millions of livres—­a sum sufficient to palliate many ‘faux pas’ in the eyes of a husband more sensible and more delicate than her present Serene Idiot, as she styles the Prince Borghese.

The lady is the favourite sister of Napoleon, the ablest, but also the most wicked of the female Bonapartes.  She had, almost from her infancy, passed through all the filth of prostitution, debauchery, and profligacy before she attained her present elevation; rank, however, has not altered her morals, but only procured her the means of indulging in new excesses.  Ever since the wedding night the Prince Borghese has been excluded from her bed; for she declared frankly to him, as well as to her brother, that she would never endure the approach of a man with a bad breath; though many who, from the opportunities they have had of judging, certainly ought to know, pretend that her own breath is not the sweetest in the world.  When her husband had marched towards the Rhine, she asked her brother, as a favour, to procure the Prince Borghese, after a useless life, a glorious death.  This curious demand of a wife was, made in Madame Bonaparte’s drawing-room, in the presence of fifty persons.  “You are always ’etourdie’,” replied Napoleon, smiling.

If Bonaparte, however, overlooks the intrigues of his sisters, he is not so easily pacified when any reports reach him inculpating the virtues of his sisters-in-law.  Some gallants of Madame Joseph Bonaparte have already disappeared to return no more, or are wandering in the wilds of Cayenne; but the Emperor is particularly attentive to everything concerning the morality of Madame Louis, whose descendants are destined to continue the Bonaparte dynasty.  Two officers, after being cashiered, were, with two of Madame Louis’s maids, shut up last month in the Temple, and have not since been heard of, upon suspicion that the Princess preferred their society to that of her husband.

Louis Bonaparte, whose constitution has been much impaired by his debaucheries, was, last July, advised by his physicians to use the baths at St. Amand.  After his wife had accompanied him as far as Lille, she went to visit one of her friends, Madame Ney, the wife of General Ney, who commanded the camp near Montreuil.  This lady resided in a castle called Leek, in the vicinity, where dinners, concerts, balls, and other festivities celebrated the arrival of the Princess; and to these the principal officers of the camp were invited.  One morning, about an hour after the company had retired to bed, the whole castle was disturbed and alarmed by an uproar in the anteroom