Another thing which always appeared to me very remarkable was, that Bonaparte, notwithstanding his incontestable superiority, studied to depreciate the reputations of his military commanders, and to throw on their shoulders faults which he had committed himself.  It is notorious that complaints and remonstrances, as energetic as they were well founded, were frequently addressed to General Bonaparte on the subject of his unjust and partial bulletins, which often attributed the success of a day to some one who had very little to do with it, and made no mention of the officer who actually had the command.  The complaints made by the officers and soldiers stationed at Damietta compelled General Lanusse, the commander, to remonstrate against the alteration of a bulletin, by which an engagement with a body of Arabs was represented as an insignificant affair, and the loss trifling, though the General had stated the action to be one of importance, and the loss considerable.  The misstatement, in consequence of his spirited and energetic remonstrances, was corrected.

Bonaparte took Malta, as is well known, in forty-eight hours.  The empire of the Mediterranean, secured to the English by the battle of Aboukir, and their numerous cruising vessels, gave them the means of starving the garrison, and of thus forcing General Vaubois, the commandant of Malta, who was cut off from all communication with France, to capitulate.  Accordingly on the 4th of September 1800 he yielded up the Gibraltar of the Mediterranean, after a noble defence of two years.  These facts require to be stated in order the better to understand what follows.

On 22d February 1802 a person of the name of Doublet, who was the commissary of the French Government at Malta when we possessed that island, called upon me at the Tuileries.  He complained bitterly that the letter which he had written from Malta to the First Consul on the 2d Ventose, year VIII. (9th February 1800), had been altered in the ‘Moniteur’.  “I congratulated him,” said M. Doublet, “on the 18th Brumaire, and informed him of the state of Malta, which was very alarming.  Quite the contrary was printed in the ‘Moniteur’, and that is what I complain of.  It placed me in a very disagreeable situation at Malta, where I was accused of having concealed the real situation of the island, in which I was discharging a public function that gave weight to my words.”  I observed to him that as I was not the editor of the ‘Moniteur’ it was of no use to apply to me; but I told him to give me a copy of the letter, and I would mention the subject to the First Consul, and communicate the answer to him.  Doublet searched his pocket for the letter, but could not find it.  He said he would send a copy, and begged me to discover how the error originated.  On the same day he sent me the copy of the letter, in which, after congratulating Bonaparte on his return, the following passage occurs:—­“Hasten to save Malta with men and provisions:  no time is to be lost.”  For this passage these words were substituted in the ‘Moniteur’:  “His name inspires the brave defenders of Malta with fresh courage; we have men and provisions.”