Paris, August, 1805.

My lord:—­The household troops of Napoleon the First are by thousands more numerous than those even of Louis XIV. were.  Grenadiers on foot and on horseback, riflemen on foot and on horseback, heavy and light artillery, dragoons and hussars, mamelukes and sailors, artificers and pontoneers, gendarmes, gendarmes d’Alite, Velites and veterans, with Italian grenadiers, riflemen, dragoons, etc., etc., compose all together a not inconsiderable army.

Though it frequently happens that the pay of the other troops is in arrears, those appertaining to Bonaparte’s household are as regularly paid as his Senators, Counsellors of State, and other public functionaries.  All the men are picked, and all the officers as much as possible of birth, or at least of education.  In the midst of this voluptuous and seductive capital, they are kept very strict, and the least negligence or infraction of military discipline is more severely punished than if committed in garrison or in an encampment.  They are both better clothed, accoutred, and paid, than the troops of the line, and have everywhere the precedency of them.  All the officers, and many of the soldiers, are members of Bonaparte’s Legion of Honour, and carry arms of honour distributed to them by Imperial favour, or for military exploits.  None of them are quartered upon the citizens; each corps has its own spacious barracks, hospitals, drilling-ground, riding or fencing-houses, gardens, bathing-houses, billiard-table, and even libraries.  A chapel has lately been constructed near each barrack, and almoners are already appointed.  In the meantime, they attend regularly at Mass, either in the Imperial Chapel or in the parish churches.  Bonaparte discourages much all marriages among the military in general, but particularly among those of his household troops.  That they may not, however, be entirely deprived of the society of women, he allows five to each company, with the same salaries as the men, under the name of washerwomen.

With a vain and fickle people, fond of shows and innovations, nothing in a military despotism has a greater political utility, gives greater satisfaction, and leaves behind a more useful terror and awe, than Bonaparte’s grand military reviews.  In the beginning of his consulate, they regularly occurred three times in the month; after his victory of Marengo, they were reduced to once in a fortnight, and since he has been proclaimed Emperor, to once only in the month.  This ostentatious exhibition of usurped power is always closed with a diplomatic review of the representatives of lawful Princes, who introduce on those occasions their fellow-subjects to another subject, who successfully has seized, and continues to usurp, the authority of his own Sovereign.  What an example for ambition! what a lesson to treachery!