in the account that is here given of this rash and abortive undertaking, that, on first glancing at it, we could scarcely help suspecting that the whole publication was a dull and impudent fabrication, for the purpose of trying what lamentable trash would be swallowed by the English public under the name of Secrets of State, and of ridiculing, by this excessive caricature, the known gaucherie of our cabinet in all sorts of Continental interference. The singular minuteness, however, of the details, and especially the fact of the work having now been in the hands of the public for several months, without any contradiction on the part of the many distinguished persons who are referred to in the course of it, have nearly satisfied us of its authenticity; and induced us, in that view, to give some account of it to our readers-both as a singular illustration of Oxenstiern's memorable reflection, "Quam parva sapientiâ regitur mundus!' and as containing some curious specimens of the audacious falsehoods that were announced, and at due season avowed, in the department of the Police under Napoleon, as well as of the extraordinary vigilance and inflexible rigour with which it was administered. - 6 The Baron does not favour us with any account of his family or early history. All he says is, that he had been previously 'employed in secret missions in France, Germany, and Italy;' and that he had good recommendations to persons of the highest rank and station in Great Britain. He appears indeed to be a person of some consideration (though we find he is only qualified as the Sieur de Kolli' in a rescript of the present French King); for Lord Wellesley presents him with a sword of honour and instead of being paid in base ingots and bank bills, he is presented with various lots of Diamonds to the value of 200,000 francs and upwards. He is detained some time at Antwerp, waiting for a passage to England-and it is in this interval that he picks up his friend M. Albert de St B, whose mild and open countenance' at once seduces this veteran intriguer into an entire reliance on his fidelity and prudence-and he brings him with him to England, through many perils, as his secretary. There he is presented to the Duke of Kent and the Marquis of Wellesley, to whom he forthwith introduces his secretary; and then the plot for the liberation of Ferdinand is concocted with the noble Marquis and Admiral Cockburn-the parties all meeting very secretly in a house belonging to the Admiral, after nightfall-and repairing separately to the rendezvous, the Marquis and Admiral in borrowed carriages, and without any of their usual attendants! We really were not aware that there was ever so much mystery practised in England. But the beauty of it is, that all these most secret proceedings are regularly reported to the police at Paris-the agents of which astonish the Baron on his apprehension, with a minute account of all his proceedings, as well in London as elsewhere. We fear the young gentleman with the mild and open counte nance must be responsible for these disclosures-as the reader will by and by, we suspect, find good reason to believe. This trusty secretary, however, remains behind in London; and, at last brings down to Plymouth the forged papers and other credentials, consisting of a letter from Lord Wellesley to the Baron himself, and two letters, one in Latin and one in French, under the hand of our late venerable monarch George III., to Ferdinand at Valençay-all which are given at full length in the work now before us. At last they embark about the end of February, having previously taken on board, for the delight and recreation of the expected Royal visitor, a great quantity of plate and fine wines, chests filled with linen and clothes, an excellent selection of books! astronomical instruments and maps! conse'crated plate and ornaments for divine service, and a Catholic' Priest to officiate,' during the proposed voyage to Spain. They soon get over to Quiberon Bay, where they fall in with another adventurous Baron, calling himself de Ferriet, also, at that time, in the pay of the English Government, who is very ea ger to engage our hero in a project for assassinating Napoleon, or raising a new insurrection in La Vendée. The Baron, however, fights rather shy of his brother intriguer; and openly expresses to the Admiral his suspicions of his fidelity. However, he talks enough before him to put his future proceedings completely in his power, and de Ferriet is afterwards landed on the coast, without any attempt to watch or restrain him. We learn, in a note, that he certainly did give information to the French police of de Kolli's destination-that he was afterwards engaged, in 1814, in a plot to arrest the Duc de Berri,-and ultimately shut up for some time in the Tower of London under a charge of high treason. The Baron and his amiable secretary, however, are at last happily landed in the night, and begin their progress towards Valençay under no very favourable auspices. The faithful Albert drops behind in the darkness of their march, and the valorous Baron finds himself alone. He calls loudly on his companion, but is answered only by the barking of distant dogs. He then turns back to look for him; and at last falls over him in the bottom of a ditch! He pours a glass of Madeira (with a comfortable flask of which he seems to have been provided) down his throat; and, finding his pulse quite strong and natural, cannot help concluding that his indisposition proceeded rather from moral than physical causes"! However, he is at last roused and brought to his senses; when he begs to be allowed to rest for a few hours, and entreats the Baron to go on without him. I made new efforts,' says the Baron, to induce him to follow me. I appealed to his sense of honour; to his views of interest. But all was in vain!" A desperado of an adventurer, on whose conduct the fate of nations and the liberty of princes depended, might have made short work with such a craven associate. But our Baron acts in the spirit of a different system; and, after earnestly exhorting this stout-hearted and open-countenanced Royalist to die rather than betray the secret of the state and the King's fate, and, at the same time, not very consistently, assuring his readers that he had put no material secrets in his power,he says, with the most marvellous generosity we ever happened to hear of, Here is a packet which contains a thousand pounds worth of diamonds: should we never meet again, they are 'yours! If not, we shall settle the account when we meet on such a day at Paris, or on some other at Vincennes !'-and so saying, he leaves the slender youth to his repose, and travels on all day as fast as his post-horses can carry him. When lounging through an inn in the evening, while his carriage is getting ready, he sees the faithful Albert, who, in spite of his exhaustion, had got on before him, warming himself comfortably at a fire, and again prevails on him to rejoin him; but is very soon compelled to leave him a second time behind. They do meet again, however, at Paris; and Albert, who is still acting as his secretary, is allowed to go unmolested when he is ta ken up. Yet M. de Kolli, with a romantic sort of generosity, still professes to believe that he had not betrayed him. He is so exceedingly sentimental, indeed, on the score of this young gentleman, that it is not easy to tell what he would be at. These are his last words with regard to him. 'He even endeavoured to raise my suspicions of Albert. My opinion as to him was already settled. M. de St B * * * had not betrayed the cause of Ferdinand. Why happened it, notwithstanding, that he forfeited my esteem? The reader will excuse my silence; Albert had committed more than one fault, and the police furnished me with ocular demonstration of it; but, like him, I will not give my enemies the pleasure of smiling, at learning that the defenders of a just cause are not always actuated by the interests of virtue alone. The name of Albert will not appear again in these Memoirs; can he make himself equally forgotten elsewhere?' p. 95. But we are anticipating a little on the course of this extraor dinary narrative, though there is not a great deal more of the plot to be unravelled. After taking a view of the outside of Valençay, and doing all he could to excite suspicion and notice, - by stationing saddle-horses at one place, and parading an emp ty carriage, with close blinds and attending footmen, in another-he enters into engagements,' as he terms it, with the Sieur Richard, of whom he knew nothing but that he talked zealously in favour of the Bourbons, and said he had been wounded in the Vendean war. He did not indeed tell him exactly what he had come for; but let him understand that he was engaged in some Bourbon plot,-and delivered an oration to him, which, however, had only the effect of making him look pale, upon the delight of dying for a captive Sovereign, '—' and sharing the fate of the faithful, whose ghosts are still trem" bling on the shores of Quiberon, or the desarts of Grenoble.' At last, on the morning of the 24th of March, he gives him 2700 francs to purchase things for their journey; and soon after, the faithful Sieur opens the door to eleven armed officers of the police, who immediately take them both into custody! The Baron is examined first by M. Desmarest, and then by Fouché, to both of whom he at once avows his mission, and admits the fabrication of his papers, and both give him, in return, a most accurate account of my transactions in London, 'my arrival at Quiberon, and of my slightest movements in France up to the moment of my arrest!' They then endeavour to persuade him still to go, under their superintendance, with his credentials to Ferdinand, and to urge him to attempt his escape, as they wished to know whether he really had any desire to change his place of residence. If it turned out that he was really so disposed, they added that little obstacle could be offered to his coming out; and that, whatever afterwards became of him, the Baron might then turn to his own purposes the funds which had been provided for the occasion. The Baron rejects this insidious proposal with disdain; on which the agents of the police rejoin, with admirable composure, Then we will send one to him not quite so mad as you, nor 'quite so proud;'-and the worthy Baron is forthwith immured, au secret, in the Donjon of Vincennes. Before we presume, however, to tell any of the secrets of that prison-house, in which the unhappy liberator of Ferdinand sojourned for four long years, we must reveal a little of the obliquities of the Duke of Otranto, as the Baron was afterwards enabled to establish them. The Baron was arrested at Vincennes on the 24th of March, and was never afterwards in the vicinity of Valençay. A letter, however, from the commandant of that fortress, dated on the 6th of April, and published in the Moniteur soon after, announced to the Minister of Police that Ferdinand had just apprised him that an emissary of the English Government had introduced himself, and, under the false notion that he was forcibly detained, had proposed to assist him to escape-that the commandant had immediately arrested the emissary, who declared himself to be the Baron de Kolli, and who, with the numerous papers found on his person, was accordingly transmitted to the Minister of the Police-and another pretended letter from Ferdinand to the same effect was subjoined. There is falsehood enough in this to disgust and offend all honest minds-but the documents and disclosures now made public by the Baron tend, if not disavowed and contradicted, to cover his Grace of Otranto with still deeper disgrace. The fact it seems is, that after the Baron's arrest, the Sieur Richard, his treacherous confident, was sent by the Police, with the letters and credentials which had been taken from his master, to seek admission to Ferdinand at Valençay, and to urge him to attempt his escape-but that, not being acquainted with the person of the King, he addressed himself by mistake, and in a very awkward manner, to the Infanto his uncle, who, suspecting some dishonesty, immediately informed the Commandant-and that the letters which have been already alluded to were then concocted between him and the Minister of Police, and given to the world as proofs of Ferdinand's satisfaction with his condition, and the malignant restlessness of the English. The documents produced by the Baron, however, go still farther than this. The Sieur Richard, in an affidavit, declares, that he went to Valençay in consequence of an order signed by the Duke of Otranto, and that his secret instructions from the Duke were, to favour the escape of the King, and to bring him as a pri soner to the Donjon of Vincennes'-that he secreted and has 6 preserved these instructions, and has now delivered them to the Baron de Kolli. The instructions themselves, bearing to be signed by the Duke of Otranto, are accordingly printed by the Baron in this volume; and they certainly contain the following very extraordinary passages. After directing him how to gain admittance to Ferdinand, it is said, "After that, he must explain the means he possesses of facilitating his escape, and leading him in safety to the coast of Normandy, where vessels will be in waiting, &c. &c. He must insist upon the prince being alone, or at least to have not more than one attendant. In either case, the governor will provide him with two or three trusty persons, who will be supposed to be agents of Albert, or gained over by him. "As to the method of quitting Valençay, he must prevail upon the prince to withdraw himself from the observation of his guards; if he will not consent to try it, Albert will propose to him to carry him off by means of forged orders, upon which the governor will de VOL. XXXIX. No. 77. Q |