88 
charge, and the cavalry advanced. Enquiry 
was immediately made who had given the 
order, but no satisfactory account could be 
had. The cavalry however charged with 
success, and after the battle, Bonaparte or- 
dered the drummer before him, and asked 
him, how he had dared, without order, to 
beat the charge. The boy quickly replied, 
«« General, I saw a fine opportunity for the 
division to advance, and no orders were 
given; I could not resist the temptation, 
and, did beat the charge."—‘* My noble 
boy,” replied the consul, «* you gave alesson 
to your general, and I will reward you for 
it.” He immediately made him chief drum- 
mer of his favourite regiment of chasseurs, 
commanded by young Beauharnois, his ste 
son, and the oy always appears ina taperb 
dress at the parade, with his drums and horse 
‘most beautifully adorned with silk and rib- 
bons, gilt ornaments, &c.; and he never 
passes ie first consul, in filing off, without 
a marked nod and a smile. He wil! no doubt 
soon be made an officer.” 
*¢ Tt is said, that Mr. West exhibited, 
among his professional ffiends in Paris, a 
painting of the subject of ‘* the pale rider 
on a white horse,” mentioned in the Reve- 
Jations, and is a most excellent likeness of 
the first consul. How far the application 
can be made in a serious point of view, is 
not for me to give an opinion upon; but 
much might certainly be said on the sub- 
RECS 
Art. XX. Letters from France written by J, Kins, in the Months 
and O@ober, 1802 
IF the declamations and interroga- 
tions of this author were all omitted, 
the “ occurences’’ announced in the title 
page might have been comprised in one 
letter of the ordinary length. The 
words and the matter of the volume are 
in the same proportion that the husk of 
a cocoa nut would be to the kernel of a 
filbert. 
Mr. King has communicated one very 
interesting fact ; he was introduced to 
Santerre, and conversed with him upon 
the execution of Louis XVI. ‘Santerre 
entered on the subject without hesita- 
tion ; he said it was expected there would 
be a cry for mercy, and a tumult in con- 
sequence, and he had re¢eived orders to 
fire on those who should begin it} the 
scaffold accordingly was surrounded by 
aristocrats, many of whom were weil 
known men; the Marseillois were pre- 
paring to answer them and support the 
sentence, and a contest would in all pro- 
bability have ensued, as bloody as the 
carnage at the Thuilleries, or the massa- 
cre atthe prisons. The thought occurred 
to Santerre to bid the drums strike up; 
VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 
We leave Mr. Morrice, Archbishop 
Cambaceres, and Mr. Bicheno to deter- 
mine whether the first consul be the - 
man on the white horse, or Gog and 
Magog; at the same time hinting, to 
their consideration, whether he may not 
possibly turn out to be the man in the 
moon. 
The following anecdote is truly shock- 
ing : 
«© T asked a lady in Paris, who is under 
twenty years of age, and the mother of three 
children, what made her so indifferent to 
them, and unmoved by that adversity under 
which she was labouring; she replied, with- 
out hesitation, that she attributed it to the 
many scenes of horror she had witnessed in 
Paris, during the revolution, which had 
steeled her heart against the finer feelings, 
and rendered her proof against poverty, mi- 
sery, and distress.—She added, that when a 
child, she was often promised, asa reward 
for good behaviour, to be permitted to go 
and see the victims of political fury guil- 
Jotined, and has often witnessed the execution 
of seventy or eighty in tiie short space of an 
hour, the young and old scrambling for 
places, to see well, as if they had been at a 
play. She also observed, that to see two or 
three cart loads of dead and perfectly naked 
bodies, go by her window in the course of a 
morning, was very usual.” 
of August, September, 
8vo. pp. 168. ‘ 
the watch word could not be heard, nor 
the cry raised, and thus the whole dan- 
ger was prevented, and the lives of thou- 
sands were preserved. 
Santerre added that 
«© Though the duty of seeing the king’s 
sentence executed, devolved on him, it was 
impossible he could rejoice at an event, that 
however necessary was distressing and la- 
mentable; he deplored it as much as any 
man in France, and tried all he could to pre- 
vent it by repeated visits to the Temple, to 
instruct the king by what measures he might 
still save himself ; he said several expedients 
were proposed to the king, but his rejection 
of them evinced that he had no confidence 
in the nation and would retort upon it if 
ever he possessed power. Once hethought the 
ae 
oe 
king would accede to his overtures, but he 
required some hours to ponder on them; he 
saw the queen in the interim and declined 
further treaty. In the last extremity he 
made another effort, he went once more to 
the king, and told him his life was in danger 
if he temnporized any more, but if he would 
listen to his overtures the king, would be sav- 
ed and liberated, he would forfeit his exist- 
enceif he failed ; again the queen interposed, 
and Santerre was set at defiance. Soon after 
