Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete. Louis de Bourrienne
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intimacy which subsisted between us, preserved some notes which she made upon Bonaparte, and the circumstances which struck her as most remarkable, during her early connection with him. My wife did not entertain so favourable an opinion of him as I did; the warm friendship I cherished for him probably blinded me to his faults. I subjoin Madame de Bourrienne's notes, word for word:
On the day after our second return from Germany, which was in May 1795, we met Bonaparte in the Palais Royal, near a shop kept by a man named Girardin. Bonaparte embraced Bourrienne as a friend whom he loved and was glad to see. We went that evening to the Theatre Francais. The performance consisted of a tragedy; and 'Le Sourd, ou l'Auberge pleine'. During the latter piece the audience was convulsed with laughter. The part of Dasnieres was represented by Batiste the younger, and it was never played better. The bursts of laughter were so loud and frequent that the actor was several times obliged to stop in the midst of his part. Bonaparte alone (and it struck me as being very extraordinary) was silent, and coldly insensible to the humour which was so irresistibly diverting to everyone else. I remarked at this period that his character was reserved, and frequently gloomy. His smile was hypocritical, and often misplaced; and I recollect that a few days after our return he gave us one of these specimens of savage hilarity which I greatly disliked, and which prepossessed me against him. He was telling us that, being before Toulon, where he commanded the artillery, one of his officers was visited by his wife, to whom he had been but a short time married, and whom he tenderly loved. A few days after, orders were given for another attack upon the town, in which this officer was to be engaged. His wife came to General Bonaparte, and with tears entreated him to dispense with her husband's services that day. The General was inexorable, as he himself told us, with a sort of savage exaltation. The moment for the attack arrived, and the officer, though a very brave man, as Bonaparte himself-assured us, felt a presentiment of his approaching death. He turned pale and trembled. He was stationed beside the General, and during an interval when the firing from the town was very heavy, Bonaparte called out to him, "Take care, there is a shell coming!" The officer, instead of moving to one side, stooped down, and was literally severed in two. Bonaparte laughed loudly while he described the event with horrible minuteness. At this time we saw him almost every day. He frequently came to dine with us. As there was a scarcity of bread, and sometimes only two ounces per head daily were distributed in the section, it was customary to request one's guests to bring their own bread, as it could not be procured for money. Bonaparte and his brother Louis (a mild, agreeable young man, who was the General's aide de army) used to bring with them their ration bread, which was black, and mixed with bran. I was sorry to observe that all this bad bread fell to the share of the poor aide de camp, for we provided the General with a finer kind, which was made clandestinely by a pastrycook, from flour which we contrived to smuggle from Sens, where my husband had some farms. Had we been denounced, the affair might have cost us our heads.
We spent six weeks in Paris, and we went frequently with Bonaparte to the theatres, and to the fine concerts given by Garat in the Rue St. Marc. These were the first brilliant entertainments that took place after the death of Robespierre. There was always something original in Bonaparte's behaviour, for he often slipped away from us without saying a word; and when we were supposing he had left the theatre, we would suddenly discover him in the second or third tier, sitting alone in a box, and looking rather sulky.
Before our departure for Sens, where my husband's family reside, and which was fixed upon for the place of my first accouchement, we looked out for more agreeable apartments than we had in the Rue Grenier St. Lazare, which we only had temporarily. Bonaparte used to assist us in our researches. At last we took the first floor of a handsome new house, No. 19 Rue des Marais. Bonaparte, who wished to stop in Paris, went to look at a house opposite to ours. He had thoughts of taking it for himself, his uncle Fesch (afterwards Cardinal Fesch), and a gentleman named Patrauld, formerly one of his masters at the Military School. One day he said, "With that house over there, my friends in it, and a cabriolet, I shall be the happiest fellow in the world."
We soon after left town for Sens. The house was not taken by him, for other and great affairs were preparing. During the interval between our departure and the fatal day of Vendemiaire several letters passed between him and his school companion. These letters were of the most amiable and affectionate description. They have been stolen. On our return, in November of the same year, everything was changed. The college friend was now a great personage. He had got the command of Paris in return for his share in the events of Vendemiaire. Instead of a small house in the Rue des Marais, he occupied a splendid hotel in the Rue des Capucines; the modest cabriolet was converted into a superb equipage, and the man himself was no longer the same. But the friends of his youth were still received when they made their morning calls. They were invited to grand dejeuners, which were sometimes attended by ladies; and, among others, by the beautiful Madame Tallien and her friend the amiable Madame de Beauharnais, to whom Bonaparte had begun to pay attention. He cared little for his friends, and ceased to address them in the style of familiar equality.
After the 13th of Vendemiaire M. de Bourrienne saw Bonaparte only at distant periods. In the month of February 1796 my husband was arrested, at seven in the morning, by a party of men, armed with muskets, on the charge of being a returned emigrant. He was torn from his wife and his child, only six months old, being barely allowed time to dress himself. I followed him. They conveyed him to the guard-house of the Section, and thence I know not whither; and, finally, in the evening, they placed him in the lockup-house of the prefecture of police, which, I believe, is now called the central bureau. There he passed two nights and a day, among men of the lowest description, some of whom were even malefactors. I and his friends ran about everywhere, trying to find somebody to rescue him, and, among the rest, Bonaparte was applied to. It was with great difficulty he could be seen. Accompanied by one of my husband's friends, I waited for the commandant of Paris until midnight, but he did not come home. Next morning I returned at an early hour, and found him. I stated what had happened to my husband, whose life was then at stake. He appeared to feel very little for the situation of his friend, but, however; determined to write to Merlin, the Minister of Justice. I carried the letter according to its address, and met the Minister as he was coming downstairs, on his way to the Directory. Being in grand costume, he wore a Henri IV. hat, surmounted with a multitude of plumes, a dress which formed a singular contrast with his person. He opened the letter; and whether it was that he cared as little for the General as for the cause of M. de Bourrienne's arrest, he replied that the matter was no longer in his hands, and that it was now under the cognisance of the public administrators of the laws. The Minister then stepped into his carriage, and the writer was conducted to several offices in his hotel. She passed through them with a broken heart, for she met with none but harsh men, who told her that the prisoner deserved death. From them she learned that on the following day he would be brought before the judge of the peace for his Section, who would decide whether there was ground for putting him on his trial. In fact, this proceeding took place next day. He was conveyed to the house of the judge of the peace for the Section of Bondy, Rue Grange-sue-Belles, whose name was Lemaire. His countenance was mild; and though his manner was cold, he had none of the harshness and ferocity common to the Government agents of that time. His examination of the charge was long, and he several times shook his head. The moment of decision had arrived, and everything seemed to indicate that the termination would be to place the prisoner under accusation. At seven o'clock be desired me to be called. I hastened to him, and beheld a most heart rending scene. Bourrienne was suffering under a hemorrhage, which had continued since two o'clock, and had interrupted the examination. The judge of the peace, who looked sad, sat with his head resting on his hand. I threw myself at his feet and implored his clemency. The wife and the two daughters of the judge visited this scene of sorrow, and assisted me in softening him. He was a worthy and feeling man, a good husband and parent, and it was evident that he struggled between compassion and duty. He kept referring to the laws on the subject, and, after long researches said to me, "To-morrow is Decadi, and no proceedings can take place on that day. Find, madams, two responsible persons, who will answer for the appearance of your husband, and I will permit him to go home with you, accompanied by the two guardians." Next day two friends were found, one of whom was M. Desmaisons, counsellor of the court, who became bail for M. de Bourrienne. He continued under these guardians six months, until a law compelled the persons who were inscribed on the fatal list to remove to the distance of ten leagues from Paris. One