Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

“ Bonaparte remained in Paris, forming schemes for the gratification of his ambition, and his desire of making a figure in the world; but obstacles opposed all he attempted.
Women are better judges of character than men. Madame de Bourrienne, knowing the 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. ”

“ Bonaparte is announcing the victory of Arcola to Josephine.
VERONA, the 29th, noon.
At length, my adored Josephine, I live again. Death is no longer before me, and glory and honour are still in my breast. The enemy is beaten at Arcola. To-morrow we will repair the blunder of Vaubois, who abandoned Rivoli. In eight days Mantua will be ours, and then thy husband will fold thee in his arms, and give thee a thousand proofs of his ardent affection. ”

“ Turkey remained unaided, and Bonaparte unoccupied. I must confess that for the failure of this project, at least I was not sorry. I should have regretted to see a young man of great promise, and one for whom I cherished a sincere friendship, devote himself to so uncertain a fate. Napoleon has less than any man provoked the events which have favoured him; no one has more yielded to circumstances from which he was so skilful to derive advantages. ”

“ Had the circumstance occurred three weeks earlier, and had Bonaparte been arraigned before the Committee of Public Safety previous to the 9th Thermidor, there is every probability that his career would have been at an end; and we should have seen perish on the scaffold, at the age of twenty-five, the man who, during the twenty-five succeeding years, was destined to astonish the world by his vast conceptions, his gigantic projects, his great military genius, his extraordinary good fortune, his faults, reverses, and final misfortunes. ”

“ Ought the representatives to reduce the Government to the necessity of being unjust and impolitic?
Hear me; destroy the oppression that overwhelms me, and restore me to the esteem of the patriots.
An hour after, if my enemies wish for my life, let them take it. I have often given proofs how little I value it. Nothing but the thought that I may yet be useful to my country makes me bear the burden of existence with courage.
It appears that this defence, which is remarkable for its energetic simplicity, produced an effect on Albitte and Salicetti. ”

“ M. de Bourrienne shows us the hero of Marengo and Austerlitz in his night-gown and slippers—with a 'trait de plume' he, in a hundred instances, places the real man before us, with all his personal habits and peculiarities of manner, temper, and conversation.
The friendship between Bonaparte and Bourrienne began in boyhood, at the school of Brienne, and their unreserved intimacy continued during the most brilliant part of Napoleon's career. ”

“ When the Memoirs first appeared in 1829 they made a great sensation. Till then in most writings Napoleon had been treated as either a demon or as a demi-god. The real facts of the case were not suited to the tastes of either his enemies or his admirers. While the monarchs of Europe had been disputing among themselves about the division of the spoils to be obtained from France and from the unsettlement of the Continent, there had arisen an extraordinarily clever and unscrupulous man who, by alternately bribing and overthrowing the great monarchies, had soon made himself master of the mainland. ”

“ If the monks to whom the superintendence of the establishment was confided had understood the organisation of his mind, if they had engaged more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, etc., I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a career, more brilliant it is true, but less useful to mankind. ”

“ TO THE REPRESENTATIVES ALBITTE AND SALICETTI. You have suspended me from my duties, put me under arrest, and declared me to be suspected.
Thus I am disgraced before being judged, or indeed judged before being heard.
In a revolutionary state there are two classes, the suspected and the patriots.
When the first are aroused, general measures are adopted towards them for the sake of security.
The oppression of the second class is a blow to public liberty. The magistrate cannot condemn until after the fullest evidence and a succession of facts. ”

“ Why might he not impose on a few persons in St. Helena, when he was able to impose on France and Europe, respecting many acts which emanated from him during the long duration of his power? The life of Napoleon would be very unfaithfully written were the author to adopt as true all his bulletins and proclamations, and all the declarations he made at St. Helena. Such a history would frequently be in contradiction to facts; and such only is that which might be entitled, 'The History of Napoleon, written by Himself'. ”

“ But very often in passages in which blame is thrown on Napoleon, Bourrienne speaks, partly with much of the natural bitterness of a former and discarded friend, and partly with the curious mixed feeling which even the brothers of Napoleon display in their Memoirs, pride in the wonderful abilities evinced by the man with whom he was allied, and jealousy at the way in which he was outshone by the man he had in youth regarded as inferior to himself. Sometimes also we may even suspect the praise. ”

“ These are the only authentic Memoirs of Napoleon which have yet appeared. The style is not brilliant, but that only makes them the more trustworthy." Indeed, Metternich himself in his own Memoirs often follows a good deal in the line of Bourrienne: among many formal attacks, every now and then he lapses into half involuntary and indirect praise of his great antagonist, especially where he compares the men he had to deal with in aftertimes with his former rapid and talented interlocutor. To some even among the Bonapartists, Bourrienne was not altogether distasteful. ”

“ The following interesting trait of Napoleon's childhood is derived from the 'Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Arbranes':—"He was one day accused by one of his sisters of having eaten a basketful of grapes, figs, and citrons, which had come from the garden of his uncle the Canon. None but those who were acquainted with the Bonaparte family can form any idea of the enormity of this offence. To eat fruit belonging to the uncle the Canon was infinitely more criminal than to eat grapes and figs which might be claimed by anybody else. ”

“ Death alone can break the union which sympathy, love, and sentiment have formed. Let me have news of your health. A thousand and a thousand kisses.
It is impossible for me to avoid occasionally placing myself in the foreground in the course of these Memoirs. I owe it to myself to answer, though indirectly, to certain charges which, on various occasions, have been made against me. Some of the documents which I am about to insert belong, perhaps, less to the history of the General-in-Chief of the army of Italy than to that of his secretary ”

“ The pupils were invited by turns to dine with Father Berton, the head of the school. One day, it being Bonaparte's turn to enjoy this indulgence, some of the professors who were at table designedly made some disrespectful remarks on Paoli, of whom they knew the young Corsican was an enthusiastic admirer. "Paoli," observed Bonaparte, "was a great man; he loved his country; and I will never forgive my father, who was his adjutant, for having concurred in the union of Corsica with France. He ought to have followed Paoli's fortune, and have fallen with him." ”

“ The pursuit of the Archduke Charles into the heart of Austria encouraged the hopes which the Venetian Senate had conceived, that it would be easy to annihilate the feeble remnant of the French army, as the troops were scattered through the States of Venice on the mainland. Wherever the Senate had the ascendency, insurrection was secretly fomented; wherever the influence of the patriots prevailed, ardent efforts were made to unite the Venetian terra firma to the Lombard Republic. ”

“ On the 13th of July 1794 (25th Messidor, year II) , the representatives of the people with the army of Italy ordered that General Bonaparte should proceed to Genoa, there, conjointly with the French 'chargé d'affaires', to confer on certain subjects with the Genoese Government. This mission, together with a list of secret instructions, directing him to examine the fortresses of Genoa and the neighbouring country, show the confidence which Bonaparte, who was then only twenty-five, inspired in men who were deeply interested in making a prudent choice of their agents. ”

“ What is to be thought of the motives for Bonaparte's arrest and provisional liberation, when his innocence and the error that had been committed were acknowledged? The importance of the General's military talents, though no mention is made about the impossibility of dispensing with them, is a pretence for restoring him to that liberty of which he had been unjustly deprived.
It was not at Toulon, as has been stated, that Bonaparte took Duroc into the artillery, and made him his 'aide de camp'. ”

“ These two new professors, MM. Durfort and Desponts, finished my education; and I regretted that they did not come sooner. The often- repeated assertion of Bonaparte having received a careful education at Brienne is therefore untrue. The monks were incapable of giving it him; and, for my own part, I must confess that the extended information of the present day is to me a painful contrast with the limited course of education I received at the Military College. It is only surprising that the establishment should have produced a single able man. ”

“ Duroc's cold character and unexcursive mind suited Napoleon, whose confidence he enjoyed until his death, and who entrusted him with missions perhaps above his abilities. At St. Helena Bonaparte often declared that he was much attached to Duroc. I believe this to be true; but I know that the attachment was not returned. The ingratitude of princes is proverbial. May it not happen that courtiers are also sometimes ungrateful?— [It is only just to Duroc to add that this charge does not seem borne out by the impressions of those more capable than Bourrienne of judging in the matter.] ”

“ Generally speaking, Bonaparte was not much liked by his comrades at Brienne. He was not social with them, and rarely took part in their amusements. His country's recent submission to France always caused in his mind a painful feeling, which estranged him from his schoolfellows. I, however, was almost his constant companion. During play-hours he used to withdraw to the library, where he read with deep interest works of history, particularly Polybius and Plutarch. He was also fond of Arrianus, but did not care much for Quintus Gurtius. ”

“ He told my mother that Napoleon was very morose. 'I fear,' added he, 'that that young man has more self-conceit than is suitable to his condition. When he dined with me he began to declaim violently against the luxury of the young men of the military school. After a little he turned the conversation on Mania, and the present education of the young Maniotes, drawing a comparison between it and the ancient Spartan system of education. His observations on this head he told me he intended to embody in a memorial to be presented to the Minister of War. ”