Je deteste le peuple anglais, Je deteste son ministere; J’aime l’Empereur des Francais, J’aime la paix, je hais la guerre; Mais puisqu’il faut la soutenir Contre une Nation Sauvage, Mon plus doux, mon plus grand desir Est de montrer tout mon courage.

But what arrested my attention, more than anything else which occurred in this circle on that evening, was a printed paper mysteriously handed about, and of which, thanks to the civility of a Counsellor of State, I at last got a sight.  It was a list of those persons, of different countries, whom the Emperor of the French has fixed upon, to replace all the ancient dynasties of Europe within twenty years to come.  From the names of these individuals, some of whom are known to me, I could perceive that Bonaparte had more difficulty to select proper Emperors, Kings, and Electors, than he would have had, some years ago, to choose directors or consuls.  Our inconsistency is, however, evident even here; I did not read a name that is not found in the annals of Jacobinism and republicanism.  We have, at the same time, taken care not to forget ourselves in this new distribution of supremacy.  France is to furnish the stock of the new dynasties for Austria, England, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden.  What would you think, were you to awake one morning the subject of King Arthur O’Connor the First?  You would, I dare say, be even more surprised than I am in being the subject of Napoleon Bonaparte the First.  You know, I suppose, that O’Connor is a general of division, and a commander of the Legion of Honour,—­the bosom friend of Talleyrand, and courting, at this moment, a young lady, a relation of our Empress, whose portion may one day be an Empire.  But I am told that, notwithstanding Talleyrand’s recommendations, and the approbation of Her Majesty, the lady prefers a colonel, her own countryman, to the Irish general.  Should, however, our Emperor announce his determination, she would be obliged to marry as he commands, were he even to give her his groom, or his horse, for a spouse.

You can form no idea how wretched and despised all the Irish rebels are here.  O’Connor alone is an exception; and this he owes to Talleyrand, to General Valence, and to Madame de Genlis; but even he is looked on with a sneer, and, if he ever was respected in England, must endure with poignancy the contempt to which he is frequently exposed in France.  When I was in your country I often heard it said that the Irish were generally considered as a debased and perfidious people, extremely addicted to profligacy and drunkenness, and, when once drunk, more cruelly ferocious than even our Jacobins.  I thought it then, and I still believe it, a national prejudice, because I am convinced that the vices or virtues of all civilized nations are relatively the same; but those Irish rebels we have seen here, and who must be, like our Jacobins, the very dregs of their country, have conducted themselves so as to inspire not only