Treilhard had, before the Revolution, the reputation of being an honest man and an able advocate; but has since joined the criminals of all factions, being an accomplice in their guilt and a sharer of their spoils.  In the convention, he voted for the death of Louis XVI. and pursued without mercy the unfortunate Marie Antoinette to the scaffold.  During his missions in the departments, wherever he went the guillotine was erected and blood flowed in streams.  He was, nevertheless, accused by Robespierre of moderatism.  At Lille, in 1797, and at Rastadt, in 1798, he negotiated as a plenipotentiary with the representatives of Princes, and in 1799 corresponded as a director with Emperors and Kings, to whom he wrote as his great and dear friends.  He is now a Counsellor of State, in the section of legislation, and enjoys a fortune of several millions of livres, arising from estates in the country, and from leases in the capital.  As this accident at Madame de C——­n’s soon became public, his friends gave out that he had of late been exceedingly absent, and, from absence of mind, puts everything he can lay hold of into his pocket.  He is not a favourite with Madame Bonaparte, and she asked her husband to dismiss and disgrace him for an act so disgraceful to a grand officer of the Legion of Honour, but was answered, “Were I to turn away all the thieves and rogues that encompass me I should soon cease to reign.  I despise them, but I must employ them.”

It is whispered that the police have discovered another of Madame de C n’s lost gold plates at a pawnbroker’s, where it had been pledged by the wife of another Counsellor of State, Francois de Nantes.

This I give you merely as a report! though the fact is, that Madame Francois is very fond of gambling, but very unfortunate; and she, with other of our fashionable ladies, has more than once resorted to her charms for the payment of her gambling debts.

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ST. CLOUD

Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London

BOOK 2.

LETTER I.

Paris, September, 1805.

My lord:—­Since my return here, I have never neglected to present myself before our Sovereign, on his days of grand reviews and grand diplomatic audiences.  I never saw him more condescending, more agreeable, or, at least, less offensive, than on the day of his last levee, before he set out to be inaugurated a King of Italy; nor worse tempered, more petulant, agitated, abrupt, and rude than at his first grand audience after his arrival from Milan, when this ceremony had been performed.  I am not the only one who has made this remark; he did not disguise either his good or ill-humour; and it was only requisite to have eyes and ears to see and be disgusted at the difference of behaviour.