Beurnonville, our present Ambassador at Madrid, is the son of a porter, and was a porter himself when, in 1770, he enlisted as a soldier in one of our regiments serving in the East Indies.  Having there collected some pillage, he purchased the place of a major in the militia of the Island of Bourbon, but was, for his immorality, broken by the governor.  Returning to France, he bitterly complained of this injustice, and, after much cringing in the antechambers of Ministers, he obtained at last the Cross of St. Louis as a kind of indemnity.  About the same time he also bought with his Indian wealth the place of an officer in the Swiss Guard of Monsieur, the present Louis XVIII.  Being refused admittance into any genteel societies, he resorted with Barras and other disgraced nobles to gambling-houses, and he even kept to himself when the Revolution took place.  He had at the same time, and for a certain interest, advanced Madame d’Estainville money to establish her famous, or rather infamous, house in the Rue de Bonnes Enfants, near the Palais Royal,—­a house that soon became the fashionable resort of our friends of Liberty and Equality.

In 1790, Beurnonville offered his services as aide-de-camp to our then hero of great ambition and small capacity, La Fayette, who declined the honour.  The Jacobins were not so nice.  In 1792, they appointed him a general under Dumouriez, who baptized him his Ajax.  This modern Ajax, having obtained a separate command, attacked Treves in a most ignorant manner, and was worsted with great loss.  The official reports of our revolutionary generals have long been admired for their modesty as well as veracity; but Beurnonville has almost outdone them all, not excepting our great Bonaparte.  In a report to the National Convention concerning a terrible engagement of three hours near Grewenmacker, Beurnonville declares that, though the number of the enemy killed was immense, his troops got out of the scrape with the loss of only the little finger of 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.