remotest shores of Asia with subjugation and slavery! After Menou's return to Europe he was in a temporary disgrace with the First Consul, and forced to remain at Marseilles until his justification, backed by the influence and intrigues of his old constitutional friends, Madame Buonaparte and Talleyrand, procured him, in March, 1802, permission to arrive in the capital of the French Republic. But here General Regnier waited for him, challenged him, and, after killing his friend General d'Estaing one day, appointed a meeting with him for the next. Buonaparte, however, interfered, and Regnier was forced to reside forty leagues from Paris. This, perhaps, saved Menou's life, but, according to the opinion of the French military characters, stained his honour and reputation. No officer would afterwards serve under him; and when his opponents, Generals Regnier and Belliard, obtained military commands, the one at Toulon and the other in Belgium, after being long unemployed, he received at last the civil appointment of Lieutenant-Governor in Piedmont, where he has not only himself become a christian again, but. but converted his Mahometan wife to christianity*, The * By an English gentleman who, during the last summer (1804), visited Piedmont, the following particulars have been inserted in the public prints, concerning Menou's conduct, as a revolutionary governor of that unfortunate country; where the discontent of the people from the tyranny of this, Buonaparte's satrap, has made it necessary to suspend the Constitution, and the Constitutional Tribunals, and to erect in their place, Special Military Commissions, under the special command and disposition of Menou. "Turin, the capital of Piedmont, formerly the residence of his Sardinian Majesty, the seat of refinement, luxury, and politeness, is now as tame, dull, and insipid, as any provincial town of Italy or France. Abdallah Menou, who commands there, rules with the most despotic sway, and is execrated by all the inhabitants. His extravagance, in keeping up a kind of eastern magnifi. cence, has led him into enormous expences. He is said to be in debt to the mercers, jewellers, and other trades-people, to the amount of six millions of livres, for no bill of his has been paid since his appointment to the chief command at Turin. The following anecdote may give some idea of the mildness of the administration of government in the conquered provinces, as well as of the scrupulous regard to justice in the Imperial Cabinet. Menou's poulterer, to whom he owed above 40,000 livres, after many fruitless attempts to procure payment of even part of his debt, contrived, by uncommon perseverance, last spring, to obtain a personal interview of the General. He found Menou, on being ordered into the din ing saloon, with his etat-major, in one of his daily revels, immersed in inebriety, and reclining on a Turkish sofa! He made a very affecting appeal to the feelings of the general, concerning the ruin which would inevitably fall on him, if not paid some of his money. A drunken laugh succeeded his representation, when Menou coolly replied, Mon ami, ne vous chagrinez point, l'on va vous payez, He was instantly taken into an adjoining room, tied up by the heels The French writers give the following cha racter of Menou :- "This man, who is one of the vilest members furnished by the order of the nobility of the revolutionary party, has shewn all the vices of a factious intriguer, without placing in the opposite scale a single virtue or talent; and has therefore from the beginning of the Revolution inspired contempt in all factions, and been insulted or ridiculed by all parties; even by his own accomplices. Vain without knowledge, proud without dignity, and insolent without judgment: he has been hissed and despised at the head of armies, as well as when ascending the tribune in the senate. He has served Louis XVI., the Duke of Orleans, Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Barras, and Buonaparte, as he has done Christ and Mahomet; or which is the same-he has been alike a political and religious apostate, regarding no more the principles of virtue than those of religion+!! In his person, heels by a couple of Mamelukes, and severely bastinadoed in presence of Menou and his officers; after which he was precipitated from the window, and killed on the spot. The mayor of the city had sufficient spirit to transmit a procès verbal of the facts to the grand judge Regnier, at Paris; but no answer had been received to it so late as August last (1804)." + See Le Recueil d'Anecdotes, Les Annales du Terrorisme, and Le Dictionnaire Biographique. Menou Menou is a tall good-looking man, between 50 and 60 years of age*. * The particulars of Menou's transactions in Egypt, are taken from Political Reflections, by G. Baldwin, and from Sir Robert Wilson, Walsh, Witman, Regnier, and the State Papers. GENERAL GENERAL MURAT, BROTHER-IN-LAW OF BUONAPARTE. SINCE the destruction of the Roman empire by the Goths, Huns, and Vandals, no political convulsions have, in so short a time, brought forward from obscurity so many low and unknown individuals as revolutionary France. During the last twelve years more persons have appeared upon her bloody stage, who, from their more or less interesting posts, have unexpectedly become the objects of public curses, curiosity, inquiry, or conversation, than in the twelve preceding centuries. Not only every year, but almost every month, has changed the performers, though not the scene; and men who but lately were regarded as the underlings of this shocking theatre, start suddenly forward, usurp the place of the first-rate tragedians, proscribe, crush, or butcher their predecessors, and rule |