it on the first opportunity.  When the war with Russia was first spoken of Savary and I had frequent conversations on the subject.  I communicated to him all the intelligence I received from abroad respecting that vast enterprise.  The Duc de Rovigo shared all my forebodings; and if he and those who thought like him had been listened to, the war would probably have been avoided.  Through him I learnt who were the individuals who urged the invasion.  The eager ambition with which they looked forward to Viceroyalties, Duchies, and endowments blinded them to the possibility of seeing the Cossacks in Paris.

The gigantic enterprise being determined on, vast preparations were made for carrying it into effect.  Before his departure Napoleon, who was to take with him all the disposable troops, caused a ‘Senatus-consulte’ to be issued for levying the National Guards, who were divided into three corps.  He also arranged his diplomatic affairs by concluding, in February 1812, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with Prussia, by virtue of which the two contracting powers mutually guaranteed the integrity of their own possessions, and the European possessions of the Ottoman Porte, because that power was then at war with Russia.  A similar treaty was concluded about the beginning of March with Austria, and about the end of the same month Napoleon renewed the capitulation of France and Switzerland.  At length, in the month of April, there came to light an evident proof of the success which had attended M. Czernischeff’s intrigues in Paris.  It was ascertained that a clerk in the War Office, named Michel, had communicated to him the situation of the French forces in Germany.  Michel was condemned to death, for the time was gone by when Bonaparte, confident in his genius and good fortune, could communicate his plans to the spy of General Melas.

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.