At the same time he was soliciting employment at the War Office, and I at the office of Foreign Affairs.  I was for the moment the luckier of the two.

While we were spending our time in a somewhat vagabond way,

   —­[It was before the 20th of June that in our frequent excursions
   around Paris we went to St. Cyr to see his sister Marianne (Elisa). 
   We returned to dine alone at Trianon.—­Bourrienne.]—­

the 20th of June arrived.  We met by appointment at a restaurateur’s in the Rue St. Honore, near the Palais Royal, to take one of our daily rambles.  On going out we saw approaching, in the direction of the market, a mob, which Bonaparte calculated at five or six thousand men.  They were all in rags, ludicrously armed with weapons of every description, and were proceeding hastily towards the Tuilleries, vociferating all kinds of gross abuse.  It was a collection of all that was most vile and abject in the purlieus of Paris.  “Let us follow the mob,” said Bonaparte.  We got the start of them, and took up our station on the terrace of the banks of the river.  It was there that he witnessed the scandalous scenes which took place; and it would be difficult to describe the surprise and indignation which they excited in him.  When the King showed himself at the windows overlooking the garden, with the red cap, which one of the mob had put on his head, he could no longer repress his indignation.  “Che coglione!” he loudly exclaimed.  “Why have they let in all that rabble!  They should sweep off four or five hundred of them with the cannon; the rest would then set off fast enough.”

When we sat down to dinner, which I paid for, as I generally did, for I was the richer of the two, he spoke of nothing but the scene we had witnessed.  He discussed with great good sense the causes and consequences of this unrepressed insurrection.  He foresaw and developed with sagacity all that would ensue.  He was not mistaken.  The 10th of August soon arrived.  I was then at Stuttgart, where I was appointed Secretary of Legation.

At St. Helena Bonaparte said, “On the news of the attack of the Tuilleries, on the 10th of August, I hurried to Fauvelet, Bourrienne’s brother, who then kept a furniture warehouse at the Carrousel.”  This is partly correct.  My brother was connected with what was termed an ‘enterprise d’encan national’, where persons intending to quit France received an advance of money, on depositing any effects which they wished to dispose of, and which were sold for them immediately.  Bonaparte had some time previously pledged his watch in this way.

After the fatal 10th of August Bonaparte went to Corsica, and did not return till 1793.  Sir Walter Scott says that after that time he never saw Corsica again.  This is a mistake, as will be shown when I speak of his return from Egypt.