sacrilege into religion, and they would think themselves apostates were they to renounce the cult of their iniquities. * There is a serious lesson to be drawn from Bonaparte's life. Two actions, both bad, began and caused his fall: the death of the Duc d'Enghien and the war with Spain. It was vain for him to ride over them with his glory: they remained there to ruin him. He perished on the very side in which he thought himself strong, profound, invincible, when he violated the moral law while neglecting and scorning his real strength, that is, his superior qualities of order and equity. So long as he confined himself to attacking anarchy and foreigners hostile to France, he was victorious; he found himself robbed of his vigour so soon as he entered upon the paths of corruption: the shaving of the locks by Delilah is nothing other than the loss of virtue. Every crime bears within itself a radical incapacity and a germ of misfortune: let us then practise good to be happy, and let us be just to be able. In proof of this truth, observe that, at the very moment of the Prince's death, commenced the dissent which, growing in proportion to ill-fortune, decided the fall of the ordainer of the tragedy of Vincennes. The Russian Cabinet, in reference to the arrest of the Duc d'Enghien, addressed vigorous representantions against the violation of the territory of the Empire: Bonaparte felt the blow, and replied in the _Moniteur_ with a fulminating article bringing up the death of Paul I[639]. A funeral service had been celebrated in St. Petersburg for young Condé. On the cenotaph was read: "To the Duc d'Enghien _quem devoravit bellua Corsica._" The two mighty adversaries subsequently became reconciled in appearance; but the mutual wound which policy had inflicted and insult-enlarged remained in their hearts. Napoleon did not think himself revenged until he came to sleep in Moscow; Alexander[640] was not satisfied before he entered Paris. [Sidenote: European indignation.] The hatred of the Cabinet of Berlin arose from the same origin: I have spoken of the noble letter of M. de Laforest, in which he told M. de Talleyrand of the effect which the murder of the Duc d'Enghien had produced at the Court of Potsdam. Madame de Staël was in Prussia when the news from Vincennes arrived: "I was living in Berlin," he said, "on the Spree Quay, and my apartment was on the ground floor. At eight o'clock one morning, they woke me to tell me that Prince Louis Ferdinand[641] was under my windows on horse-back, and asked me to come and speak to him.... "'Do you know,' he asked, 'that the Duc d'Enghien has been kidnapped on Baden territory, handed over to a military commission, and shot within four-and-twenty hours after his arrival in Paris?' "'What nonsense!' I replied. 'Do you not see that this can only be a rumour spread by the enemies of France?'