My lord:—­No Queen of France ever saw so many foreign Princes and Princesses in her drawing-rooms as the first Empress of the French did last year at Mentz; and no Sovereign was ever before so well paid, or accepted with less difficulty donations and presents for her gracious protection.  Madame Napoleon herself, on her return to this capital last October, boasted that she was ten millions of livres—­richer in diamonds; two millions of livres richer in pearls, and three million of livres richer in plate and china, than in the June before, when she quitted it.  She acknowledged that she left behind her some creditors and some money at Aix-la-Chapelle; but at Mentz she did not want to borrow, nor had she time to gamble.  The gallant ultra Romans provided everything, even to the utmost extent of her wishes; and she, on her part, could not but honour those with her company as much as possible, particularly as they required nothing else for their civilities.  Such was the Empress’s expression to her lady in waiting, the handsome Madame Seran, with whom no confidence, no tale, no story, and no scandal expires; and who was in a great hurry to inform, the same evening, the tea-party at Madame de Beauvais’s of this good news, complaining at the same time of not having had the least share in this rich harvest.

Nowhere, indeed, were bribery and corruption carried to a greater extent, or practised with more effrontery, than at Mentz.  Madame Napoleon had as much her fixed price for every favourable word she spoke, as Talleyrand had for every line he wrote.  Even the attendants of the former, and the clerks of the latter, demanded, or rather extorted, douceurs from the exhausted and almost ruined German petitioners; who in the end were rewarded for all their meanness and for all their expenses with promises at best; as the new plan of supplementary indemnities was, on the very day proposed for its final arrangement, postponed by the desire of the Emperor of the French, until further orders.  This provoking delay could no more be foreseen by the Empress than by the Minister, who, in return for their presents and money almost overpowered the German Princes with his protestations of regret at their disappointments.  Nor was Madame Bonaparte less sorry or less civil.  She sent her chamberlain, Daubusson la Feuillad, with regular compliments of condolence to every Prince who had enjoyed her protection.  They returned to their homes, therefore, if not wealthier, at least happier; flattered by assurances and condescensions, confiding in hope as in certainties.  Within three months, however, it is supposed that they would willingly have disposed both of promises and expectations at a loss of fifty per cent.