In March 1812, when I saw that the approaching war would necessarily take Napoleon from France, weary of the persecutions and even threats by which I was every day assailed, I addressed to the Emperor a memorial explaining my conduct and showing the folly and wickedness of my accusers.  Among them was a certain Ogier de la Saussaye, who had sent a report to the Emperor, in which the principal charge was, that I had carried off a box containing important papers belonging to the First Consul.  The accusation of Ogier de la Saussaye terminated thus:  “I add to my report the interrogatories of mm.  Westphalen, Osy, Chapeau Rouge, Aukscher, Thierry, and Gumprecht-Mores.  The evidence of the latter bears principally on a certain mysterious box, a secret upon which it is impossible to throw any light, but the reality of which we are bound to believe.”  These are his words.  The affair of the mysterious box has been already explained.  I have already informed the reader that I put my papers into a box, which I buried lest it should be stolen from me.  But for that precaution I should not have been able to lay before the reader the autograph documents in my possession, and which I imagine form the most essential part of these volumes.  In my memorial to the Emperor I said, in allusion to the passage above quoted, “This, Sire, is the most atrocious part of Ogier’s report.

“Gumprecht being questioned on this point replies that the accuser has probably, as well as himself, seen the circumstance mentioned in an infamous pamphlet which appeared seven or eight years, ago.  It was, I think, entitled ‘Le Secret du Cabinet des Tuileries,’ and was very likely at the time of its appearance denounced by the police.  In that libel it is stated, among a thousand other calumnies equally false and absurd, ’that when I left the First Consul I carried away a box full of important papers, that I was in consequence sent to the Temple, where your brother Joseph came to me and offered me my liberation, and a million of francs, if I would restore the papers, which I refused to do,’ etc.  Ogier, instead of looking for this libel in Hamburg, where I read it, has the impudence to give credit to the charge, the truth of which could have been ascertained immediately:  and he adds, ’This secret we are bound to believe.’  Your Majesty knows whether I was ever in the Temple, and whether Joseph ever made such an offer to me.”  I entreated that the Emperor would do me the favour to bring me to trial; for certainly I should have regarded that as a favour rather than to remain as I was, exposed to vague accusations; yet all my solicitations were in vain.  My letter to the Emperor remained unanswered; but though Bonaparte could not spare a few moments to reply to an old friend, I learned through Duroc the contempt he cherished for my accusers.  Duroc advised me not to be uneasy, and that in all probability the Emperor’s prejudices against me would be speedily overcome; and I must say that if they were not overcome it was neither the fault of Duroc nor Savary, who knew how to rightly estimate the miserable intrigues just alluded to.