the son of a miller, who, in 1789, was a common soldier.

The campaign of St. Domingo will probably increase the revolutionary laurels of Citizen Rochambeau, who now carries with him the same curses from that island, as in 1794 from Martinique; and therefore, if the policy of Buonaparte demands no victims to pacify the manes of his butchered white and black slaves, he undoubtedly merits as distinguished a place in the Le gion of Honour, as either Augereau or Fouché, Santerre or Sieyes.

This justice must, however, be done to General Rochambeau, that he has been alike constant and faithful to all former republican factions, when popular and powerful, as to the present Consular one, which he certainly will not desert so long as it disposes of places and pensions.、 But should Buonaparte once share the destiny of his predecessors the former kings of factions, La Fayette, Brissot, Marat, Robespierre, Rewbel, and Barras, Rochambeau's revolutionary conscience will certainly not be an impediment to joining his successors; he will, doubtless, fight their battles, cringe in their anti-chambers, bow at their levees, and execute their orders, were they even to command him to transport the whole Buonaparte family to Cayenne.

GENERAL

GENERAL BOYER.

AT Civrac and St. Christoly, in the department of Gironde, still exists a noble family of the name of Boyer, one of whom was guillotined in December 1793. Another person, from the same department, of the name of Boyer-Fonfrede, figured in the French Revolution during 1791 and 1792, as a patriotic Jacobin; and, as such, voted in the National Convention for the death of Louis XVI.; but was sent in his turn to the scaffold by the jacobins of 1793. To neither of these is General Boyer related. He was born at Paris in 1771; where his father, a citizen in easy circumstances, was enabled to give him a good and careful education.

Young Boyer joined with enthusiasm, in 1789, the subverters of Government, and served early a Revolution which promised advancement to the ambitious, employment to the active, plunder to the rapacious, and rank to all unprincipled intriguers. At the forming of the National

Guard

Guard at Paris, he was chosen one of its officers. Employing with assiduity and genius all his time to gain military knowledge, he soon distinguished himself by his capacity: in 1793 he was made a Colonel, and in 1794 an AdjutantGeneral in the army of the Sambre and Meuse, commanded by General Jourdan. He fought bravely at the famous battle of Fleurus, and caused himself afterwards to be particularly remarked in the engagements which took place in the month of July, at Hui and St. Tron. Dur ing the remainder of this (for the misfortune of loyalty) brilliant campaign for rebellion, he was always foremost in dangers, and obtained the esteem of his superiors and equals, as well as of his inferiors. Even General Clairfayt spoke well of his manœuvres, and of his conduct toward those Austrians whom the fortune of war made his prisoners; and as the praise of an enemy cannot be suspicious, it would be ungenerous, when he is in the same situation, to conceal this trait of his character, though perhaps hardened since by the examples of the ferocious Buonaparte, and by the rivers of blood which he himself afterwards waded through in Italy, Egypt, and St. Domingo.

In 1795, when France determined to act upon

VOL. III.

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the

the offensive on the other side of the Alps, Citi zen Boyer was sent to serve in the army of Italy, where Buonaparte often mentions him in the reports to the Directory, for his talents and bra very; and where he, on the 14th of April, 1796, contributed greatly to the victory at Dego. He was, in the autumn of the same year, attached to the division commanded by General Kilmain; which, by its vigilance, courage, and perseverance, effected principally the fall of Mantua in February 1797; and a friendship was then formed between him and this General, which continued to the death of the latter.

When, after the peace of Campo Formio, Buonaparte received from the Directory a carte blanche to elect all the officers and troops that he desired should accompany him to Egypt, in his attack and pillage of provinces belonging to a friendly Power, protected by treaties of two centuries standing; Adjutant-General Boyer was one of the first officers of that rank, whom he ordered to join the expedition then preparing at Toulon.

After the landing in Egypt, General - Boyer was among those who stormed the defenceless city of Alexandria. Of the letters intercepted by our cruizers, two are from this General, dated

dated Cairo, July 28, 1798: the one addressed to General Kilmain, and the other to his parents. In these are reported some of the atrocities of Buonaparte, and of his armed banditti. "We began," says Boyer," by making an assault upon a place without any defence, and garrisoned by about 500 Janissaries, of whom scarce a man knew how to level a musket. I allude to Alexandria, a huge and wretched skeleton of place, open on every side, and most certainly very unable to resist the efforts of 25,000 men, who attacked it at the same instant. We lost, notwithstanding, 150 men, whom we might have preserved by only summoning the town; but it was thought necessary to begin by striking terror into the enemy." And again: "Repulsed," continues he, "on every side, the Turks betake themselves to God and their prophet, and fill their mosques-men, women, old, young children at the breast, ALL are massacred. At the end of four hours, the fury of our troops ceases, tranquillity revives in the city, several forts capitulate. I myself reduced one, into which 700 Turks had filed: confidence springs up, and by the next day all is quiet."

In the march from Alexandria to Cairo, Buonaparte ordered Boyer with three armed sloops to pick up some intelligence. Of this expedition