A cobbler, of the name of Matthieu, either in a fit of madness or from hatred to the new order of things, decorated himself with the large riband of the Legion of Honour, and had an old star fastened on his coat.  Thus accoutred, he went into the Palais Royal, in the middle of the day, got upon a chair, and began to speak to his audience of the absurdity of true republicans not being on a level, even under an Emperor, and putting on, like him, all his ridiculous ornaments.  “We are here,” said he, “either all grand officers, or there exist no grand officers at all; we have all fought and paid for liberty, and for the Revolution, as much as Bonaparte, and have, therefore, the same right and claim with him.”  Here a police agent and some gendarmes interrupted his eloquence by taking him into custody.  When Fouche asked him what he meant by such rebellious behaviour, he replied that it was only a trial to see whether destiny had intended him to become an Emperor or to remain a cobbler.  On the next day he was shot as a conspirator.  I saw the unfortunate man in the Palais Royal; his eyes looked wild, and his words were often incoherent.  He was certainly a subject more deserving a place in a madhouse than in a tomb.

Cambaceres has been severely reprimanded by the Emperor for showing too much partiality for the Royal Prussian Black Eagle, by wearing it in preference to the Imperial Legion of Honour.  He was given to understand that, except for four days in the year, the Imperial etiquette did not permit any subjects to display their knighthood of the Prussian Order.  In Madame Bonaparte’s last drawing-room, before His Imperial Majesty set out for the Rhine, he was ornamented with the Spanish, Neapolitan, Prussian, and Portuguese orders, together with those of the French Legion of Honour and of the Italian Iron Crown.  I have seen the Emperor Paul, who was also an amateur of ribands and stars, but never with so many at once.  I have just heard that the Grand Master of Malta has presented Napoleon with the Grand Cross of the Maltese Order.  This is certainly a negative compliment to him, who, in July, 1798, officially declared to his then sectaries, the Turks and Mussulmans, “that the Grand Master, Commanders, Knights, and Order of Malta existed no more.”

I have heard it related for a certainty among our fashionable ladies, that the Empress of the French also intends to institute a new order of female knighthood, not of honour, but of confidence; of which all our Court ladies, all the wives of our generals, public functionaries, etc., are to be members.  The Imperial Princesses of the Bonaparte family are to be hereditary grand officers, together with as many foreign Empresses, Queens, Princesses, Countesses, and Baronesses as can be bayoneted into this revolutionary sisterhood.  Had the Continent remained tranquil, it would already have been officially announced by a Senatus Consultum.  I should suppose that Madame