Committee of Public Safety, he was promoted to a chef de brigade, or colonel. In 1796, when Barras gave Bonaparte the command of the army of Italy, Salicetti was appointed a Commissary of Government to the same army, and in that capacity behaved with the greatest insolence towards all the Princes of Italy, and most so towards the Duke of Modena, with whom he and Bonaparte signed a treaty of neutrality, for which they received a large sum in ready money; but shortly afterwards the duchy was again invaded, and an attempt made to surprise and seize the Duke. In 1797 he was chosen a member of the Council of Five Hundred, where he always continued a supporter of violent measures.

When, in 1799, his former protege, Bonaparte, was proclaimed a First Consul, Salicetti desired to be placed in the Conservative Senate; but his familiarity displeased Napoleon, who made him first a commercial agent, and afterwards a Minister to the Ligurian Republic, so as to keep him at a distance. During his several missions, he has amassed a fortune, calculated, at the lowest, of six millions of livres.

The order Salicetti received to prepare the incorporation of Genoa with France, would not, without the presence of our troops, have been very easy to execute, particularly as he, six months before, had prevailed on the Doge and the Senate to resign all sovereignty to Lucien Bonaparte, under the title of a Grand Duke of Genoa.

The cause of Napoleon's change of opinion with regard to his brother Lucien, was that the latter would not separate from a wife he loved, but preferred domestic happiness to external splendour frequently accompanied with internal misery. So that this act of incorporation of the Ligurian Republic, in fact, originated, notwithstanding the great and deep calculations of our profound politicians and political schemers, in nothing else but in the keeping of a wife, and in the refusal of a riband.

That corruption, seduction, and menaces seconded the intrigues and bayonets which convinced the Ligurian Government of the honour and advantage of becoming subjects of Bonaparte, I have not the least doubt; but that the Doge, Girolamo Durazzo, and the senators Morchio, Maglione, Travega, Maghella, Roggieri, Taddei, Balby, and Langlade sold the independence of their country for ten millions of livres—though it has been positively asserted, I can hardly believe; and, indeed, money was as little necessary as resistance would have been unavailing, all the forts and strong positions being in the occupation of our troops. A general officer present when the Doge of Genoa, at the head of the Ligurian deputation, offered Bonaparte their homage at Milan, and exchanged liberty for bondage, assured me that this ci-devant chief magistrate spoke with a faltering voice and with tears in his eyes, and that indignation was read on the countenance of every member of the deputation thus forced to prostitute their rights as citizens, and to vilify their sentiments as patriots.

When Salicetti, with his secretary, Milhaud, had arranged this honourable affair, they set out from Genoa to announce to Bonaparte, at Milan, their success. Not above a league from the former city their carriage was stopped, their persons stripped, and their papers and effects seized by a gang, called in the country the gang of PATRIOTIC ROBBERS, commanded by Mulieno. This chief is a descendant of a good Genoese family, proscribed by France, and the men under him are all above the common class of people. They never commit any murders, nor do they rob any but Frenchmen, or Italians known to be adherents of the French party. Their spoils they distribute among those of their countrymen who, like themselves, have suffered from the revolutions in Italy within these last nine years. They usually send the amount destined to relieve these persons to the curates of the several parishes, signifying in what manner it is to be employed. Their conduct has procured them many friends among the low and the poor, and, though frequently pursued by our gendarmes, they have hitherto always escaped. The papers captured by them on this occasion from Salicetti are said to be of a most curious nature, and throw great light on Bonaparte's future views of Italy. The original act of consent of the Ligurian Government to the incorporation with France was also in this number. It is reported that they were deposited with the Austrian Minister at Genoa, who found means to forward them to his Court; and it is supposed that their contents did not a little to hasten the present movements of the Emperor of Germany.

Another gang, known under the appellation of the PATRIOTIC AVENGERS, also desolates the Ligurian Republic. They never rob, but always murder those whom they consider as enemies of their country. Many of our officers, and even our sentries on duty, have been wounded or killed by them; and, after dark, therefore, no Frenchman dares walk out unattended. Their chief is supposed to be a ci-devant Abbe, Sagati, considered a political as well as a religious fanatic. In consequence of the deeds of these patriotic avengers, Bonaparte's first act, as a Sovereign of Liguria, was the establishment of special military commissions, and a law prohibiting, under pain of death, every person from carrying arms who could not show a written permission of our commissary of police. Robbers and assassins are, unfortunately, common to all nations, and all people of all ages; but those of the above description are only the production and progeny of revolutionary and troublesome times. They pride themselves, instead of violating the laws, on supplying their inefficacy and counteracting their partiality.

LETTER XXXVI.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:—Bonaparte is now the knight of more Royal Orders than any other Sovereign in Europe, and were he to put them on all at once, their ribands would form stuff enough for a light summer coat of as many different colours as the rainbow. The Kings of Spain, of Naples, of Prussia, of Portugal, and of Etruria have admitted him a knight-companion, as well as the Electors of Bavaria, Hesse, and Baden, and the Pope of Rome. In return he has appointed these Princes his grand officers of HIS Legion of Honour, the highest rank of his newly instituted Imperial Order. It is even said that some of these Sovereigns have been honoured by him with the grand star and broad riband of the Order of His Iron Crown of the Kingdom of Italy.

Before Napoleon's departure for Milan last spring, Talleyrand intimated to the members of the foreign diplomatic corps here, that their presence would be agreeable to the Emperor of the French at his coronation at Milan as a King of Italy. In the preceding summer a similar hint, or order, had been given by him for a diplomatic trip to Aix-la-Chapelle, and all Their Excellencies set a-packing instantly; but some legitimate Sovereigns, having since discovered that it was indecent for their representatives to be crowding the suite of an insolently and proudly travelling usurper, under different pretences declined the honour of an invitation and journey to Italy. It would, besides, have been pleasant enough to have witnessed the Ambassadors of Austria and Prussia, whose Sovereigns had not acknowledged Bonaparte's right to his assumed title of King of Italy, indirectly approving it by figuring at the solemnity which inaugurated him as such. Of this inconsistency and impropriety Talleyrand was well aware; but audacity on one side, and endurance and submission on the other, had so often disregarded these considerations before, that he saw no indelicacy or impertinence in the proposal. His master had, however, the gratification to see at his levee, and in his wife's drawing-room, the Ambassadors of Spain, Naples, Portugal, and Bavaria, who laid at the Imperial and royal feet the Order decorations of their own Princes, to the nor little