Murat had come to Paris on the occasion of the Empress’ accouchement, and I saw him several times during his stay, for we had always been on the best terms; and I must do him the justice to say that he never assumed the King but to his courtiers, and those who had known him only as a monarch.  Eight or ten days after the birth of the King of Rome, as I was one morning walking in the Champs Elysees, I met Murat.  He was alone, and dressed in a long blue overcoat.  We were exactly opposite the gardens of his sister-in-law, the Princess Borghese.  “Well, Bourrienne,” said Murat, after we had exchanged the usual courtesies, “well, what are you about now?” I informed him how I had been treated by Napoleon, who, that I might not be in Hamburg when the decree of union arrived there, had recalled me to Paris under a show of confidence.  I think I still see the handsome and expressive countenance of Joachim when, having addressed him by the titles of Sire and Your Majesty, he said to me, “Pshaw!  Bourrienne, are we not old comrades?  The Emperor has treated you unjustly; and to whom has he not been unjust?  His displeasure is preferable to his favour, which costs so dear!  He says that he made us Kings; but did we not make him an Emperor?  To you, my friend, whom I have known long and intimately, I can make my profession of faith.  My sword, my blood, my life belong to the Emperor.  When he calls me to the field to combat his enemies and the enemies of France I am no longer a King, I resume the rank of a Marshal of the Empire; but let him require no more.  At Naples I will be King of Naples, and I will not sacrifice to his false calculations the life, the well-being, and the interests of my subjects.  Let him not imagine that he can treat me as he has treated Louis!  For I am ready to defend, even against him, if it must be so, the rights of the people over whom he has appointed me to rule.  Am I then an advance-guard King?” These last words appeared to me peculiarly appropriate in the mouth of Murat, who had always served in the advance-guard of our armies, and I thought expressed in a very happy manner the similarity of his situation as a king and a soldier.

I walked with Murat about half an hour.  In the course of our conversation he informed me that his greatest cause of complaint against the Emperor was his having first put him forward and then abandoned him.  “Before I arrived in Naples,” continued he, “it was intimated to me that there was a design of assassinating me.  What did I do?  I entered that city alone, in full daylight, in an open carriage, for I would rather have been assassinated at once than have lived in the constant fear of being so.  I afterwards made a descent on the Isle of Capri, which succeeded.  I attempted one against Sicily, and am curtain it would have also been successful had the Emperor fulfilled his promise of sending the Toulon fleet to second my operations; but he issued contrary orders:  he enacted Mazarin,