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The Marquis was the only son of General de Montriveau, one of the ci-devants who served the Republic nobly, and fell by Joubert's side at Novi. Bonaparte had placed his son at the school at Chalons, with the orphans of other generals who fell on the battlefield, leaving their children under the protection of the Republic.
While Bonaparte, with all the madness of jealousy at a mere groundless calumny, which had come across the sea distorted and magnified, wished to be divorced from Josephine; while he complained of woman's faithlessness, frivolity, and inconstancy; while he cursed all women as coquettes, he himself was guilty of faithlessness.
"And from now till to-morrow," replied the child, "Valence will think me a coward." Then shaking his head, "It is too long till to-morrow." And he walked away. "Where are you going?" Bonaparte asked him. "To ask some one else to be my friend." "So I am no longer your friend?" "No, since you think I am a coward." "Very well," said the young man rising. "You will go?" "I am going." "At once?"
The intrigues of Auteuil continue. Carnot seems to have been the most probable choice as leader and replacer of Bonaparte. In the above letter "C ," stands for Carrot, "La F " for La Fayette, the "High Priest" is Sieyes, and the "friend of Auteuil" is Talleyrand; see Iung's Lucien, tome i. p. 411.
Aware of the unceremonious candour of his old comrade, whose daring spirit he knew would prompt him to go as great lengths in civil affairs as on the field of battle, Bonaparte, on the great occasion of the 18th Brumaire, fearing his reproaches, had given him the command of Paris in order to ensure his absence from St. Cloud.
If these vast schemes are to be taken seriously, another explanation of them is possible, namely, that he relied on the example set by Alexander the Great, who with a small but highly-trained army had shattered the stately dominions of the East. If Bonaparte trusted to this precedent, he erred.
When Bonaparte, according to his custom, talked to me in the evening of what had passed in the Council, his language was always composed of a singular mixture of quotations from antiquity, historical references, and his own ideas. He talked about the Romans, and I remember when Mr. Fox was at Paris that he tried to distinguish himself before that Foreign Minister, whom he greatly esteemed.
You could have been laughed at, and that justly." Bonaparte; not having at this time experienced reverses, having continually proceeded from triumph to triumph, confidently anticipated the taking of St, Jean d'Acre. In his letters to the generals in Egypt he fixed the 25th of April for the accomplishment of that event.
At one of these fêtes, rising at full length from her seat to gaze at the General, sharing in the admiration for the hero, she at once attracted the notice of the crowd, who all turned to look at her; which so annoyed Bonaparte that he gave her one of his dreadful and withering frowns, which caused her to sink into her seat with terror.
He heard it all as plainly as we did, and seemed as if he did not care a bit for it, but "sent the division into good quarters, when the men were as enthusiastic as they were formerly mutinous." In 1796 d'Entraigues, the Bourbon spy, reports, "As a general rule, the French soldier grumbles and is discontented. He accuses Bonaparte of being a thief and a rascal.
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