KLEBER'S ADVANCE-GUARD LOST IN THE DESERT, AND SAVED BY NAPOLEON.

IN proceeding to Asia, the French army had to cross the desert, which separates the continent from Africa. Kleber, who commanded the advance guard, mistook his road, and lost his way in the desert. Napoleon, who was following at the distance of half a day's march, attended by a slender escort, found himself at nightfall in the midst of the Turkish camp; he was closely pursued, and escaped only because, it being night, the Turks suspected an ambush was intended. The next source of uneasiness was the doubtful fate of Kleber and his detachment, and the greater part of the night was passed in the most cruel anxiety. At length they got information respecting them from some Arabs of the deserts, and the general-in-chief hastened, on his dromedary, in quest of his troops. He found them overwhelmed with despair, and ready to perish from thirst and fatigue; some of the young soldiers had in a moment of frenzy even broken their muskets. The sight of their general seemed to give them new life, by reviving their hopes. Napoleon informed them that a supply of provisions and water was coming up behind him; " but," said he, to the troops, " if relief had been longer delayed, would that have excused your murmuring and loss of courage? No, soldiers; learn to die with honour."

CHARACTER OF TALLEYRAND AND METTERNICH.

"TALLEYRAND," said the emperor," est le plus vil des agioteurs, bas flatteur. C'est un homme corrumpu, who has betrayed all parties and persons. Wary and circumspect; always a traitor, but always in conspiracy with fortune, Talleyrand treats his enemies as if they were one day to become his friends; and his friends, as if they were to become his enemies. He is a man of talent, but venal in every thing. Nothing could be done with him but by means of bribery. The kings of Wirtemberg and Bavaria made so many complaints of his rapacity and extortion, that I took his porte-feuille from him: moreover I found that he had divulged, to some intriguants, a most important secret, which I had confided to him alone. He hates the Bourbons in his heart. When I returned from Elba, Talleyrand wrote to me from Vienna, offering his services, and to betray the Bourbons, provided I would pardon and restore him to favour. gued upon a part of my proclamation, in which I said there were circumstances which it was impossible to resist, which he quoted. But I considered that there were a few I was obliged to except, and refused, as it would have excited indignation if I had not punished somebody."

He ar

"I asked," says Mr. O'Meara, "if it were true that Talleyrand had advised him to dethrone the King of Spain, and mentioned that the Duke of Rovigo had told me that Talleyrand had said in his presence, Your majesty will never be secure upon your throne, while a Bourbon is seated upon

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one.' Napoleon replied, 'True, he advised me to do every thing which would injure the Bourbons, whom he detests.""

The Emperor then spoke at length about Talleyrand. "The triumph of Talleyrand," said he, "is the triumph of immorality. A priest united to another man's wife, and who has paid her husband a large sum of money to leave her with him. A man who has sold every thing, betrayed every body and every side. I forbade Madame Talleyrand the court, first, because she was a disreputable character, and because I found out that some Genoese merchants had paid her four hundred thousand francs, in order to gain some commercial favours by means of her husband."

Mr. O'Meara asked the emperor, if he had ever said something of the following tenor relative to Metternich: "One or two lies are sometimes neces sary, but Metternich is all lies. Nothing but lies, lies, lies, from him?" Napoleon laughed and said, "C'est vrai. He is composed of nothing but lies and intrigues." I asked if he were not a man of great talent? "Not at all," replied he, " è bugiardo ed intrigante, intrigante e bugiardo." "He is a liar and an intriguer—an intriguer and a liar. That is the sum total of his character."

EDUCATION OF THE FRENCH YOUTH.

TURNING one day to Count Las Cases, "What a rising generation I leave behind me," said the emperor, "this is all my work. The merits of the French youth will be a sufficient revenge to me. On beholding the work, all must render justice to the

workman; and the perverted judgment or bad faith of declaimers must fall before my deeds. If I had thought only of myself, and securing my own power, as has been continually asserted, I should have endeavoured to hide learning under a bushel; instead of which I devoted myself to the propagation of knowledge. And yet the youth of France have not enjoyed all the bencfits I intended they should. My UNIVERSITY, according to the plan I had conceived, was a masterpiece in its combinations, and would have been such in its national results. But an evil disposed person spoiled all, and in so doing he was actuated by the worst of feelings, and doubtless by a calculation of consequences.

BENEFITS CONFERRED BY MURAT ON NAPLES.

THE good effected by Murat, in his government of Naples, belonged to that admirable system which raised him into power. That system worked of itself; and reflected, alike, credit upon the king, and comfort on the people. The civilisation of France, operating upon the comparative savagism, which ages of misrule had burned into the Neapolitan character, could not but be advantageous. The activity of revolutionary councils, acting upon the indolence and inertness of the agents of ancient despotism, could not but animate and invigorate the worn out institutions of the country. Every branch of administration, of finance, war, educa. tion, and justice, received developement and improvement. Society was mounted upon the Parisian scale; French literature was imported; the French code superseded the cumbrous and vicious

jurisprudence of Ancient Naples; and the nation, notwithstanding its subordination to the imperial politics, and its participation in Napoleon's wars, was fast emerging from its forced barbarism, and rising to take its place amidst European nations, when the fall of Napoleon again threw it back upon the institutes of the Anjous and the Arragons, and the misrule of the sixteenth century.

Murat, who had brought immense wealth with him as his private property, spent the whole among his new subjects; and the taxes which he raised, though large ih amount, fell less heavily on the people, from the increase of their means; while the expenditure arising out of a vast variety of improvements, splendid furniture in the palaces, excavations at Pompeii, making roads through the country, establishing schools, &c. carried arts and civilisation through the land.

Of the miserable end of Murat, his ill fated expedition, and summary punishment, enough is already before the public; the only fact to be added to the eventful history is, that Ferdinand had prepared every thing for a third flight, before he gave the order for Murat's execution, and was determined most valourously to decamp, if his order met with the slightest resistance!

A HINT TO MARRIED LADIES.

A LADY of rank having been admitted to the table of Buonaparte, after his first campaigns of Italy, wearied the general with a string of extravagant praises, and among other things, exclaimed, " What