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Says Bourrienne, "Napoleon never cherished for her any feeling but a real paternal tenderness. He loved her after his marriage with her mother, as he would have loved his own child. At least for three years I was a witness to all their most private actions, and I declare I never saw any thing that could furnish the least ground for suspicion, nor the slightest trace of a culpable intimacy.
"How often," said Bourrienne, "has he said to me, 'Friendship is only a word; I love no one, not even my brothers Joseph a little possibly; but if I love him it is only from habit, and because he is my elder. Duroc, yes, I love him; but why? Because his character pleases me; because he is stern, cold, resolute; besides, Duroc never sheds a tear. But why should I love any one?
The fault committed by the Directory is owing to yourself! Bernadotte? he is gone to join you. Cacault? he is recalled. Twelve thousand men for your army? they are on their march. The treaty with Sardinia? it is ratified. Bourrienne? he is erased. The revolution of Italy? it is adjourned. Advise the Directory, then: I repeat it, they have need of information, and it is to you they look for it."
"The truth is, that he was believed to have made much money there." Thus we may take Bourrienne as a clever, able man, who would have risen to the highest honours under the Empire had not his short-sighted grasping after lucre driven him from office, and prevented him from ever regaining it under Napoleon.
The place of the interview was the apartment formerly occupied by Bourrienne, communicating by a staircase which opened on his Majesty's bedroom.
"Well, then," said I, "tell him he may go to the devil." The Minister naturally wished to obtain some variation from this laconic answer, but I would give no other; and I afterwards learned from Duroc that M. de Champagny was compelled to communicate it to Napoleon. "Well," asked the latter, "have you seen Bourrienne?" "Yes, Sire." "Did you tell him I wished him to pay 6,000,000 into your chest?"
"Bouquet was my old schoolfellow at Brienne," he said. "I am glad I did not have to punish him." Whenever he had the chance, after he had risen to honor and power, he would do his old schoolmates and teachers at Brienne school a service. Bourrienne and Lauriston were both advanced and honored.
"Do you know, Bourrienne," said he, "that I have been performing the duties of professor?" "you, General!" "Yes! and I did not acquit myself badly. I examined the pupils in the mathematical class; and I recollected enough of my Bezout to make some demonstrations before them. I went everywhere, into the bedrooms and the dining-room.
They opened their hearts to a penniless officer named Harel, who had been dismissed from the army; and he straightway took the news to Bonaparte's private secretary, Bourrienne. The First Consul, on hearing of the matter, at once charged Bourrienne to supply Harel with money to buy firearms, but not to tell the secret to Fouché, of whose double dealings with the Jacobins he was already aware.
Though perhaps not positively engaged, there was such an understanding between the young lovers that a brisk correspondence was kept up during one of Duroc's embassies to the north. Bourrienne, at that time the private secretary of Napoleon, says that this correspondence was carried on by consent through his hands.
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