still be valued according to my deserts.  I have been very well satisfied with your services, and I have appointed you to a situation where I shall have occasion for them.  I know that I can rely upon you.”  He then asked with great warmth of friendship what I was about, and inquired after my family, etc.  In short, I never saw him display less reserve or more familiarity and unaffected simplicity; which he did the more readily, perhaps, because his greatness was now incontestable.

“You know,” added Napoleon, “that I set out in a week for Italy.  I shall make myself King; but that is only a stepping-stone.  I have greater designs respecting Italy.

“It must be a kingdom comprising all the Transalpine States, from Venice to the Maritime Alps.  The union of Italy with France can only be temporary; but it is necessary, in order to accustom the nations of Italy to live under common laws.  The Genoese, the Piedmontese, the Venetians, the Milanese, the inhabitants of Tuscany, the Romans, and the Neapolitans, hate each other.  None of them will acknowledge the superiority of the other, and yet Rome is, from the recollections connected with it, the natural capital of Italy.  To make it so, however, it is necessary that the power of the Pope should be confined within limits purely spiritual.  I cannot now think of this; but I will reflect upon it hereafter.  At present I have only vague ideas on the subject, but they will be matured in time, and then all depends on circumstances.  What was it told me, when we were walking like two idle fellows, as we were, in the streets of Paris, that I should one day be master of France —­my wish—­merely a vague wish.  Circumstances have done the rest.  It is therefore wise to look into the future, and that I do.  With respect to Italy, as it will be impossible with one effort to unite her so as to form a single power, subject to uniform laws, I will begin by making her French.  All these little States will insensibly become accustomed to the same laws, and when manners shall be assimilated and enmities extinguished, then there will be an Italy, and I will give her independence.  But for that I must have twenty years, and who can count on the future?  Bourrienne, I feel pleasure in telling you all this.  It was locked up in my mind.  With you I think aloud.”

I do not believe that I have altered two words of what Bonaparte said to me respecting Italy, so perfect, I may now say without vaniy, was my memory then, and so confirmed was my habit of fixing in it all that he said to me.  After having informed me of his vague projects Bonaparte, with one of those transitions so common to him, said, “By the by, Bourrienne, I have something to tell you.  Madame de Brienne has begged that I will pass through Brienne, and I promised that I will.  I will not conceal from you that I shall feel great pleasure in again beholding the spot which for six years was the scene of our