Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 453 pages of information about Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Complete.

Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 453 pages of information about Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Complete.

Our Ambassador to the United States, General Turreaux, is far from being contented with our friend, the President Jefferson, whose patriotic notions have not yet soared to the level of our patriotic transactions.  He refused both to prevent the marriage of Jerome Bonaparte with a female American citizen, and to detain her after her marriage when her husband returned to Europe.  To our continual representation against the liberties which the American newspapers take with our Government, with our Emperor, with our Imperial Family, and with our Imperial Ministers, the answer has always been, “Prosecute the libeller, and as soon as he is convicted he will be punished.”  This tardy and negative justice is so opposite to our expeditious and summary mode of proceeding, of punishing first and trying afterwards, that it must be both humiliating and offensive.  In return, when the Americans have complained to Turreaux against the piracy of our privateers, he has sent them here to seek redress, where they also will, to their cost, discover that in civil cases our justice has not the same rapid march as when it is a question of arresting or transporting suspected persons, or of tormenting, shooting, or guillotining a pretended spy, or supposed conspirator.

Had the peace of Europe continued, Bernadotte was the person selected by Bonaparte and Talleyrand as our representative in America; because we then intended to strike, and not to negotiate.  But during the present embroiled state of Europe, an intriguer was more necessary there than either a warrior or a politician.  A man who has passed through all the mire of our own Revolution, who has been in the secrets, and an accomplice of all our factions, is, undoubtedly, a useful instrument where factions are to be created and directed, where wealth is designed for pillage, and a State for overthrow.  General Turreaux is, therefore, in his place, and at his proper post, as our Ambassador in America.

The son of a valet of the late Duc de Bouillon, Turreaux called himself before the Revolution Chevalier de Grambonville, and was, in fact, a ‘chevalier d’industrie’ (a swindler), who supported himself by gambling and cheating.  An associate of Beurnonville, Barras, and other vile characters, he with them joined the colours of rebellion, and served under the former in 1792, in the army of the Moselle, first as a volunteer, and afterwards as an aide-de-camp.  In a speech at the Jacobin Club at Quesnoy, on the 20th of November, 1792, he made a motion—­“That, throughout the whole republican army, all hats should be prohibited, and red caps substituted in their place; and that, not only portable guillotines, but portable Jacobin clubs, should accompany the soldiers of Liberty and Equality.”

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Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.