Your country, more than any other upon earth, has to be alarmed at this revolution of property.  Richer than any other nation, you have more to apprehend; besides, it threatens you more, both as our frequent enemies and as our national rivals; as a barrier against our plans of universal dominion, and as our superiors in pecuniary resources.  May we never live to see the day when the mandates of Bonaparte or Talleyrand are honoured at London, as at Amsterdam, Madrid, Milan, and Rome.  The misery of ages to come will then be certain, and posterity will regard as comparative happiness, the sufferings of their forefathers.  It is not probable that those who have so successfully pillaged all surrounding States will rest contented until you are involved in the same ruin.  Union among yourselves only can preserve you from perishing in the universal wreck; by this you will at least gain time, and may hope to profit by probable changes and unexpected accidents.

LETTER XXI.

Paris, October, 1805.

My Lord:—­The Counsellor of State and intendant of the Imperial civil list, Daru, paid for the place of a commissary-general of our army in Germany the immense sum of six millions of livres—­which was divided between Madame Bonaparte (the mother), Madame Napoleon Bonaparte, Princesse Louis Bonaparte, Princesse Murat and the Princesse Borghese.  By this you may conclude in what manner we intend to treat the wretched inhabitants of the other side of the Rhine.  This Daru is too good a calculator and too fond of money to throw away his expenses; he is master of a great fortune, made entirely by his arithmetical talents, which have enabled him for years to break all the principal gambling-banks on the Continent, where he has travelled for no other purpose.  On his return here, he became the terror of all our gamesters, who offered him an annuity of one hundred thousand livres—­not to play; but as this sum would have been deducted from what is weekly paid to Fouche, this Minister sent him an order not to approach a gambling-table, under pain of being transported to Cayenne.  He obeyed, but the bankers soon experienced that he had deputies, and for fear that even from the other side of the Atlantic he might forward his calculations hither, Fouche recommended him, for a small douceur, to the office of an intendant of Bonaparte’s civil list, upon condition of never, directly or indirectly, injuring our gambling-banks.  He has kept his promise with regard to France, but made, last spring, a gambling tour in Italy and Germany, which, he avows, produced him nine millions of livres.  He always points, but never keeps a bank.  He begins to be so well known in many parts of the Continent, that the instant he arrives all banks are shut up, and remain so until his departure.  This was the case at Florence last April.  He travels always in style, accompanied by two mistresses and four servants.  He is a chevalier of the Legion of Honour.