after lulling the Government of Berne into security by repeated proposals
of accommodation, he attacked the Swiss and Bernese troops during a
truce, and obtained by treachery successes which his valour did not
promise him. The pillage, robberies, and devastations in Helvetia added
several more millions to his previously great riches.

It was after his campaign in Holland, during the autumn of 1799, that he
first began to claim some military glory. He owed, however, his
successes to the superior number of his troops, and to the talents of the
generals and officers serving under him. Being made a Counsellor of
State by Bonaparte, he was entrusted with the command of the army against
the Chouans. Here he again seduced by his promises, and duped by his
intrigues, acted infamously--but was successful.



LETTER XXXIX.

PARIS, September, 1805.

MY LORD:--Three months before Brune set out on his embassy to
Constantinople, Talleyrand and Fouche were collecting together all the
desperadoes of our Revolution, and all the Italian, Corsican, Greek, and
Arabian renegadoes and vagabonds in our country, to form him a set of
attendants agreeable to the real object of his mission.

You know too much of our national character and of my own veracity to
think it improbable, when I assure you that most of our great men in
place are as vain as presumptuous, and that sometimes vanity and
presumption get the better of their discretion and prudence. What I am