an escort of gendarmes, put on board a neutral vessel,
and forbidden, under pain of death, ever to set his
foot on French ground again. An American vessel
was, about the same time, confiscated at Bordeaux,
and the captain and crew imprisoned, because some
English books were found on board, in which Bonaparte,
Talleyrand, Fouche, and some of our great men were
rather ill-treated. The crew have since been
liberated, but the captain has been brought here, and
is still in the Temple. The vessel and the cargo
have been sold as lawful captures, though the captain
has proved from the names written in the books that
they belonged to a passenger. A young German
student in surgery, who came here to improve himself,
has been nine months in the same state prison, for
having with him a book, printed in Germany during
Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt, wherein the
chief and the undertaking are ridiculed. His
mother, the widow of a clergyman, hearing of the misfortune
of her son, came here, and has presented to the Emperor
and Empress half a dozen petitions, without any effect
whatever, and has almost ruined herself and her other
children by the expenses of the journey. During
a stay of four months she has not yet been able to
gain admittance into the Temple, to visit or see her
son, who perhaps expired in tortures, or died brokenhearted
before she came here.
A dozen copies of a funeral sermon on the Duc d’Enghien
had found their way here, and were secretly circulated
for some time; but at last the police heard of it,
and every person who was suspected of having read
them was arrested. The number of these unfortunate
persons, according to some, amounted to one hundred
and thirty, while others say that they were only eighty-four,
of whom twelve died suddenly in the Temple, and the
remainder were transported to Cayenne; upwards of half
of them were women, some of the ci-devant highest
rank among subjects.
A Prussian, of the name of Bulow, was shot as a spy
in the camp of Boulogne, because in his trunk was
an English book, with the lives of Bonaparte and of
some of his generals. Every day such and other
examples of the severity of our Government are related;
and foreigners who visit us continue, nevertheless,
to be off their guard. They would be less punished
had they with them forged bills than, printed books
or newspapers, in which our Imperial Family and public
functionaries are not treated with due respect.
Bonaparte is convinced that in every book where he
is not spoken of with praise, the intent is to blame
him; and such intents or negative guilt never escape
with impunity.