“We have been very gay lately. Last night we went to a Ball at M[adam]e Recamier’s, it was a very pretty one & lasted till 5 in the morning. Vestris1 danced & most excessively well, & there

1 Famous French ballet dancer (1729-1808). He is reported to have said, “There are but three great men in Europe—the King of Prussia, Voltaire and I.”

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was some very fine Dancing besides. The House is not very large but is extremely pretty, the furniture of her Bedroom & Boudoir beautiful. She has been as good natur’d as possible to L[ad]y [E]Liz[abeth Foster] & has promised to invite Moreau to meet us at a small Party. By the bye a person asked Moreau if he ever visited Bonaparte. He replied never, & that ‘il a fait une impertinence à moi & à mon armée’—this is pretty strong I think, & as Mr. Hare told it to us, is I daresay true. We have met Jourdan there a good deal. He was, you may recollect, a Member of the Council of 500 & was intended for Deportation by the Directory, but luckily escaped. He is very Gentlemanlike & pleasing in his manners, & is reckoned a very clever & eloquent man, but by no means in favor at present with the Consul, indeed very few of the famous Leaders of the Revolution, good or bad, are. I met Tallien at a dinner the other day, he seems quite out of humour with Buonaparte & spoke his mind pretty freely about him. He has the appearance of a Gentleman Murderer, & talks of Guillotines & slaughter with the greatest coolness & composure—his manners are very civil & his Conversation & look give me the idea of a Philosophe-Bourreau. He was very communicative & told me that it was their Plan to have murdered the King on the 10th of August but that ‘Judas’ Roederer, as he call’d him, prevented it, by persuading the K[ing] to go to the assembly. I said—mais pour la Reine et la famille Royale, what was to have become of them? O tout ça aurait passé—& then, said he, the Republick would have arisen sage et tranquille, & we should not have

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been embarassed by the Trials of the King & Queen &c. The King, he allowed, was the best man in his Kingdom, & that the Q[ueen] had been cruelly traduced—but he complained of the coldness of her manner to him when he was on guard over them at the Tuilleries & Temple, but that the K[ing] & he agreed very well. He added that it was Cambaceres, now 2d. Consul, Herault de Sechelles, guillotined by Robespierre, & himself who prepared the papers for the King’s Trial. On the 9th Thermidor, when Robespierre was overthrown, he told me that he, Collot d’Herbois & Billaud de Varennes placed themselves, armed with daggers, behind Rob[ert] Couthon & St. Just, determined to have stabbed them, had not the Convention decreed their arrest. He said that Rob[ert Couthon] had great Influence over the Populace, & that they had an Idea of his great Incorruptibility. On the 13 Vendemiere when the Parisians attacked the Convention it was he that recommended Bonaparte to Barras & Freron, to command their Troops, & that B[onaparte] was then so poor that they were obliged to borrow him a Horse & an uniform—& that Bonap[arte] had been very near taking the part of the Parisians—(you recollect how completely he licked them)—but that when Menou wished to parley with the mob & prevent Bloodshed, Bonap[arte] refused, & having waited till they approachd pretty near, opend upon them a tremendous fire of Cannon, & which to use T[aillen’s] own word, completely Balaye’d them. He lamented very much the death of Hoche, said that Moreau had no civil Talents, & mentioned as a good Trait of Gen. Junot, that he was a bon Sabreur, tho’ no great officer. He said that

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the Lawyers had done all the mischief in the Assemblys by their Metaphysicks & Law-jargon, & really praised the E[nglish] H[ouse] of Commons for not listening to Erskine & his crew. His only favorites seem to be Barras & Freron—both pretty scoundrels. Danton he admird but thought that in the massacres of September he had perhaps ‘laisse le peuple trop agir.’ . . . I think I have given you a pretty good dose of Tallien & its not my fault if you don’t think & dream for this month to come, of Tallien, Barrere, Santerre, the Guillotine & Co. I must just tell you that Barrere considers himself as the Virtuous man, persecuted by the Wicked. He said to a Gentleman that he was afraid the Revol[ution] appeared to the World in the light of a Crime éclatante. This Virtuous Martyr, you know, was president of the Committee (of public Safety, I think it was) when in 5 weeks upwards of 1200 people were put to death by its (orders?) & he it was who proposed to ‘balayer’ (the prisons 7).1 I must have done with these (monsters), & say a word about their mighty master the modern Cæsar—whom one can hardly praise or abuse too much. I heard a curious anecdote of him. He told a Gentleman that the Aegyptiens regretted him very much & that their sorcerers predicted his return. We expect to be presented by Lord Whitworth next Monday, & on Thursday I believe to Madame Bonaparte—her son Beauharnais was at M[adam]e Rec[amie]r last night & at the D[uche]ss [of] Gordon’s ball a few nights ago—he seems gentlemanlike & unassuming. By the bye the D[uche]ss Gordon in her happy manner & choice French

1 MS. damaged.

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took the opportunity of observing to Mr. Seger whilst Beauh[arnais] was standing close bye him, that Bonap: only waited to equip his fleets to declare War against England.”