—­[Everybody knows, in fact, that Sieyes refused to resign his consular dignities unless he received in exchange a beautiful farm situated in the park of Versailles, and worth about 15,000 livres a year.  The good abbe consoled himself for no longer forming a third of the republican sovereignty by making himself at home in the ancient domain of the kings of France.—­Bourrienne.]—­

Bonaparte occupied, at the Little Luxembourg, the apartments on the ground floor which lie to the right on entering from the Rue de Vaugirard.  His cabinet was close to a private staircase, which conducted me to the first floor, where Josephine dwelt.  My apartment was above.

After breakfast, which was served at ten o’clock, Bonaparte would converse for a few moments with his usual guests, that is to say, his ‘aides de camp’, the persons he invited, and myself, who never left him.  He was also visited very often by Deferment, Regnault (of the town of St. Jean d’Angely), Boulay (de la Meurthe), Monge, and Berber, who were, with his brothers, Joseph and Lucien, those whom he most delighted to see; he conversed familiarly with them.  Cambaceres generally came at mid-day, and stayed some time with him, often a whole hour.  Lebrun visited but seldom.  Notwithstanding his elevation, his character remained unaltered; and Bonaparte considered him too moderate, because he always opposed his ambitious views and his plans to usurp power.  When Bonaparte left the breakfast-table it was seldom that he did not add, after bidding Josephine and her daughter Hortense good-day, “Come, Bourrienne, come, let us to work.”

After the morning audiences I stayed with Bonaparte all the day, either reading to him, or writing to his dictation.  Three or four times in the week he would go to the Council.  On his way to the hall of deliberation he was obliged to cross the courtyard of the Little Luxembourg and ascend the grand staircase.  This always vexed him, and the more so as the weather was very bad at the time.  This annoyance continued until the 25th of December, and it was with much satisfaction that he saw himself quit of it.  After leaving the Council he used to enter his cabinet singing, and God knows how wretchedly he sung!  He examined whatever work he had ordered to be done, signed documents, stretched himself in his arm-chair, and read the letters of the preceding day and the publications of the morning.  When there was no Council he remained in his cabinet, conversed with me, always sang, and cut, according to custom, the arm of his chair, giving himself sometimes quite the air of a great boy.  Then, all at once starting up, he would describe a plan for the erection of a monument, or dictate some of those extraordinary productions which astonished and dismayed the world.  He often became again the same man, who, under the walls of St. Jean d’Acre, had dreamed of an empire worthy his ambition.