As I could not wholly conceal an involuntary emotion, in which the Emperor saw something more than mere surprise, he paused, took me by the ear, and, smiling in the most affectionate manner, said, “I had no reference to you in what I said, but I have to complain of Lacuee.  Could you believe that during the trial he went about clamouring in behalf of Moreau?  He, my aide de camp—­a man who owes everything to me!  As for you, I have said that you acted very well in this affair.”—­” I know not, Sire, what has either been done or said by Lacuee,—­whom I have not seen for a long time; what I said to Duroc is what history teaches in every page.”—­“By the by,” resumed the Emperor, after a short silence, “do you know that it was I myself who discovered that Pichegru was in Paris.  Everyone said to me, Pichegru is in Paris; Fouche, Real, harped on the same string, but could give me no proof of their assertion.  ’What a fool you are,’ said I to Real, when in an instant you may ascertain the fact.  Pichegru has a brother, an aged ecclesiastic, who resides in Paris; let his dwelling be searched, and should he be absent, it will warrant a suspicion that Pichegru is here; if, on the contrary, his brother should be at home, let him be arrested:  he is a simple-minded man, and in the first moments of agitation will betray the truth.  Everything happened as I had foreseen, for no sooner was he arrested than, without waiting to be questioned, he inquired if it was a crime to have received his brother into his house.  Thus every doubt was removed, and a miscreant in the house in which Pichegru lodged betrayed him to the police.  What horrid degradation to betray a friend for the sake of gold.”

Then reverting to Moreau, the Emperor talked a great deal respecting that general.  “Moreau,” he said, “possesses many good qualities; his bravery is undoubted; but he has more courage than energy; he is indolent and effeminate.  When with the army he lived like a pasha; he smoked, was almost constantly in bed, and gave himself up to the pleasures of the table.  His dispositions are naturally good; but he is too indolent for study; he does not read, and since he has been tied to his wife’s apronstrings is fit for nothing.  He sees only with the eyes of his wife and her mother, who have had a hand in all these late plots; and then, Bourrienne, is it not very strange that it was by my advice that he entered into this union?  I was told that Mademoiselle Hulot was a creole, and I believed that he would find in her a second Josephine; how greatly was I mistaken!  It is these women who have estranged us from each other, and I regret that he should have acted so unworthily.  You must remember my observing to you more than two years ago that Moreau would one day run his head against the gate of the Tuileries; that he has done so was no fault of mine, for you know how much I did to secure his attachment.  You cannot have forgotten the reception I gave him at Malmaison.  On the 18th