SOUTHERN AFRICA. 425 
They saw likewise that the settlement, though nominally 
restored to the Batavian republic, was actually to become a 
colony of France. Of this they had many convincing proofs. 
The commandant of the troops was a Frenchman of Svviss 
extraction, and half of the officers were French. A native 
of the Cape, who had held an employ of considerable im- 
portance under the old government, happening to be in Hol- 
land at the time when the definitive treaty of peace was 
signed, made application to the State Directory for a very 
high situation at the Cape, which, however, they thought 
proper to refuse. He went to Paris ; obtained an audience 
of Buonaparte, or his minister, in consequence of which an 
order was sent to the State Government to revise their mo- 
tives of refusal. 
Another instance of French influence prevailing at the 
Cape was too striking to be overlooked. A Swiss gentleman, 
who had filled a high and honorable station in the service of 
the English East India Company in Bengal, but for some 
reason or other had been dismissed, passed through the Cape 
on his return to England, and became enamoured of its at- 
tractions. His wife, in his absence, being handsome and 
much younger than himself, engaged the attentions of Mr. 
Talleyrand, and lived with him as his mistress, until the 
French government had found it convenient to pass a re- 
solution that there was a God, and therefore that religion 
required some decency to be observed, when the apostate 
Bishop of Autun found no difficulty in obtaining a dispen- 
sation from the Pope to marry her. The husband, on his 
return to Europe, proceeded to Paris, where Mr. Talleyrand, 
