The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-04 00:00:00

branch, it is a little too hasty to deprive people of
it who have grown gray in it. With regard to the
reforms to be made, make me out a detait-d report,
and draw out for me a fresh code of regulations.

" NAPOLEON."

Again, to M. Champagny, Minister of the Interior,
16th December, 1804
" M. Champagny,—A number of poets and musi-
cians have distinguished themselves by the odes,
pieces of music, and other productions which they
made on the occasion of my coronation, We ought
to make them presents in proportion to the goodness
of their works. I wish you would collect all that
has been done on that occasion.

" NAPOLEON."

A cousin of the celebrated General Roche petitions
for the place of usher or valet de chambre. The
petition is referred to the Emperor, who writes in
the margin :
" A little place is granted to him in the Excise.
Forwarded to Francois, Counsellor of State."
The Minister of Marine proposes to the Emperor
to cancel the nomination of a young man in his
Department, on the ground that his father was a
man of bad character, and that one of his relations
had been condemned to hard labour. Napoleon,
much to his credit, writes (20th of February, 1805)
in the margin :

" Rejected. The young man must be kept in his
employment. Faults are personal."
He gives instructions (7th of June, 1805) to Prince
Eugene Beauharnais how to regulate his conduct as
Viceroy :

" My Cousin,—ln confiding to you the govern-
ment of our kingdom of Italy, we have given you a
proof of the esteem with which your conduct has
inspired us. But, being still at a time of life when
one is not acquainted with the perversity of the
human heart, we cannot too strongly reco:n mend
you to be circumspect and prudent. Our Italian
subjects are naturally greater dissemblers than
the citizens of France. You have but one method
of preserving their esteem and forwarding their in-
terests ; it is not to accord your entire confidence to
anybody, and not to tell anybody what you think
of the Ministers and of the great officers who sur-
round you. When you shall have spoken candidly
and unnecessarily, remark to yourself that you have
committed a fault, in order that you may not re-
peat it. Show for the nation you govern an esteem
which it is necessary to manifest the more you dis-
cover reasons for esteeming it less. A time will
come when you will admit that there is a great dif-
ference between one people and another. The ob-
ject of your Government being the happiness of
my Italian people, the sacrifice of your prejudice
against such of their customs as displease you is
the first of your duties. Make it your glory to be
a Frenchman in every position except in that of
Viceroy of Italy, but in that you must cause it to
be forgotten, and you will not succeed except by
persuading the Italians that you love them. They
know that we love only those we esteem. Cultivate
their languo ge—let them form your principal so-
ciety—distinguish them at your festivities in a
marked manner—approve what they approve, and
love what they love. Speak as little as possible.
You are not sufficiently informed, and your educa-
tion has not been sufficiently perfect, to permit
you to enter on a discussion without reflection.
Learn to be silent, and be assured that silence often
produces the same effect as science. Do not be
ashamed to ask a question. Although a Viceroy, you
are only 23 years of age, and, whatever flatterers
may tell you, everybody knows secretly the extent
of your acquirements, and they grant you more
esteem through the hope of what you shall be than
through the opinion of what you are

Give no credit to spies. There is more harm than
good in having them ; you have nothing to fear at
Milan, and perhaps even in no country. Your
military police, who narrow you as to your troops,
are all you want . . . Your great interest is to
treat the natives well, to know them all, to know
their names and their families. Do not be very
familiar with strangers. There is nothing to gain
with them. An ambassador will not say any good
of you, because his trade is to say all the bad he can.
Foreign Ministers are, in all the force of the term,
titled spies. There will be no harm in keeping
them at a distance, for they are always more dis-
posed to esteem those they see little of than those
who show them friendship and kindness. . . .
Mejan (the Viceroy's secretary) will be of use to
you if he does not seek to make money; and he will
not do so if he knows you are watching his acts,
and that a single fault of the kind would destroy
him in my mind and in yours, He must be well paid,
and have the hope of every sort of promotion ; but
for that he must be on foot night and day. If he
get the habit of working only at fixed hours, and
amusing himself the remainder of the day, he will be
of no use to you. Yon will have to repress in him,
as in the other Frenchman, the disposition which
leads them to despise the country, all the more that
melancholy will be added to it ; for the Frenchman
is good for nothing anywhere but in France."