The Portland daily press., 1897-07-02

His Endless Orders For Arrest and Un-
ceasing Abuse of Madam de Stael-A
Call Down Administered to Prince
jerome.
Paris, July l.. NJ Leon Lecestre,
curator of the French archives will issue
during the present week the first volume
Of three hundred letters which were sup
pressed by the editors OF the correspond
ence of Napoleon, the First, issued in 1869,
as not calculated to increase the glory of
the great French emperor.
The volume includes some heated family
letters and some vigorously worded
epistles to Fouche and Dubois the min
listers of police and war. A letter to Mar
shall Soult in 1904 shows that Napoleon
did not hesitate to adopt any means of
obtaining confessions. He orders Soult
to arrest fisherman suspected of COM
municating with the British, adding: If
he refuses to speak, you must squeeze his
thumbs in musket-lock.
Napoleon's list of persons to be arrested
was endless and his abuse of Madame de
Stael was unceasing.
Learning in 1907, through Marshal Vic
tor, that Prince Augustus of Prussia was
intriguing against him in Berlin, Napol-
con writes:
1T am not astonished, because he has
dull mind and has spent his time court
ing Madame de Stael at Coppet, (Switz-
erland), and, of course, could only pick
up bad habits with her Send word to
him that at the frstKmischievou remark
he utters you will lock him up in his
castle and send Madame de StaeI to con-
sole him. There are no men so cringing
as these princes of Prussia
Writing to Talleyrand in 1908, that
princes of the former reigning family of
Spain were about to arrive at Valencia,
Napoleon added:
''You may send for Madame Tallyrand
and four or five persons. If the Prince
of Asturias should form an attachment
for pretty person, it will be no draw
back as it would supply means of watch
ing him."
Another letter to Tallyrand reads:
''Your mission is honorable enough
to receive three illustrious personages and
amuse them-and its quite in keeping
with your character.
When Napoleon received the news,
June II, 1903, that the Pope had ex COM
municated him, he wrote:
81 spare the Pope no longer. He is a
raving mailman and must be locked up"
Some scolding letters to his brother,
Prince Jerome, are interesting. When
Jerome was outwitted by the Austrian
general Kienmayer, he still boosted of
his strategetic plans in an inflated order
of the day. This caused Napoleon to
write as follows:
- have seen your order Of the day,
which makes you the laughing stock of
Austria, Germany and France. Haven t
you a friend about to tell you a few plain
truths? You King, and a brother of
the Emperor. Those are ridiculous titles.
In time of war you must be a soldier, and
nothing but soldier. You must have no
minister, no diplomatic corps, no suite.
You must camp, with the van guard, be
day and night on horseback and march
in the van to pick up news. You make
war like satrap (petty autocrat.) Is it
from me, good God, that you learn that7
|, who, with an army of 200, 900 men,
keep at the head of my skirmishers?
The people are provoked with you.
Kienmayer, with IL, 900 men has laughed
at you and your ridiculous pretensfons
and has slipped away from you and fallen
upon Junot. You have a lot of preten-
sions, some little mind and few good
qualities; but these are marred by your
fatuity and your extreme presumption.
You have no knowledge of the fitness of
your diplomatic corps back to Cassel.
have no baggage and wage war like
a young soldier wishing to earn glory
and reputation. Try to deserve the rank
you have reached and the esteem of
France and Europe, who are watching
you, and, by God, do right and speak in a
seemly manner if you cam