At that time a simple general of infantry in the Russian service, M. Pozzo di Borgo never deviated from the line of conduct which led him subsequently to exercise such a great influence on the destinies of Europe. Born in Corsica, and deputy for the island in the Legislative Assembly, he held the same ardent opinions which had made him conspicuous in his own country. It was he who in July 1792 induced the Assembly to declare war against the German Emperor. After the revolution of August 10th, his name was found mentioned in the papers of Louis XVI. A fellow-deputy for Corsica, one of the commissaries entrusted with the examination of those papers, informed him, it was said, of the danger he might be running, and prevailed upon him to leave Paris. On his return to Corsica, he changed his colours. Resolved to support the designs for rendering the island independent, he joined the party of Paoli, and in 1793, the Convention summoned him, as well as the general, to its bar, to account for his conduct. Neither obeyed the summons: the English army occupied the island, and M. Pozzo di Borgo was appointed president of the Council of State under Eliot, who was raised to the dignity of viceroy. Nevertheless, during his tenure of office there arose so many complaints against him that Eliot advised him to retire, at the request of Paoli, who had become afraid of the number of enemies his protégé had managed to array against himself. M. Pozzo di Borgo then went to London, where he was employed by the government in the secret diplomatic service. The British Government itself subsequently admitted that, thanks to the influence of Prince Czartoryski, Pozzo di Borgo had passed into the secret political service of Russia. The same good fortune that attended him in his political functions remained by his side on the battlefield: he obtained rapid promotion, and at Leipzig he fought as major-general under the orders of another Frenchman, to-day King of Sweden.[38] It was Pozzo di Borgo who in 1814 settled the question of the Allied Powers marching upon Paris, and who in their deliberations removed all apprehension on the subject. Every one remembers the dignities with which he was subsequently invested, and the various phases of his political career. Already at the Congress he was credited with a sentence which he never denied, and which laid bare his thoughts. ‘France,’ he said, ‘is a seething saucepan; whatever comes out of it ought to be flung back into it.’ M. Pozzo di Borgo’s conversation did not lack piquancy; nevertheless, it did not take long to find out that the learning he somewhat ostentatiously displayed was neither solid nor extensive, nor profound. He had a mania for quoting, but not the talent of varying his quotations. For instance, at M. de Talleyrand’s, he supported an argument by a passage from Dante, a phrase of Tacitus, and shreds from English orators. M. de la Besnadière told me that every