who had served in France was present, and explained to him how the Swiss, descending from the neighbouring mountains, were enabled, under cover of a wood, to turn the Burgundian army and put it to the rout.  “What was the force of that army?” asked Bonaparte.—­“Sixty thousand men.”—­“Sixty thousand men!” he exclaimed:  “they ought to have completely covered these mountains!”—­“The French fight better now,” said Lannes, who was one of the officers of his suite.  “At that time,” observed Bonaparte, interrupting him, “the Burgundians were not Frenchmen.”

Bonaparte’s journey through Switzerland was not without utility; and his presence served to calm more than one inquietude.  He proceeded on his journey to Rastadt by Aix in Savoy, Berne, and Bale.  On arriving at Berne during night we passed through a double file of well-lighted equipages, filled with beautiful women, all of whom raised the cry of “Long live, Bonaparte!—­long live the Pacificator!” To have a proper idea of this genuine enthusiasm it is necessary to have seen it.

The position in society to which his services had raised him rendered it unfit to address him in the second person singular and the familiar manner sometimes used by his old schoolfellows of Brienne.  I thought, this very natural.

M. de Cominges, one of those who went with him to the military school at Paris, and who had emigrated, was at Bale.  Having learned our arrival, he presented himself without ceremony, with great indecorum, and with a complete disregard of the respect due to a man who had rendered himself so illustrious.  General Bonaparte, offended at this behaviour, refused to receive him again, and expressed himself to me with much warmth on the occasion of this visit.  All my efforts to remove his displeasure were unavailing this impression always continued, and he never did for M. de Cominges what his means and the old ties of boyhood might well have warranted.

On arriving at Rastadt

   —­[The conference for the formal peace with the Empire of Germany
   was held there.  The peace of Leoben was only one made with
   Austria.]—­

Bonaparte found a letter from the Directory summoning him to Paris.  He eagerly obeyed this invitation, which drew him from a place where he could act only an insignificant part, and which he had determined to leave soon, never again to return.  Some time after his arrival in Paris, on the ground that his presence was necessary for the execution of different orders, and the general despatch of business, he required that authority should be given to a part of his household, which he had left at Rastadt, to return.

How could it ever be said that the Directory “kept General Bonaparte away from the great interests which were under discussion at Rastadt”?  Quite the contrary!  The Directory would have been delighted to see him return there, as they would then have been relieved from his presence in Paris; but nothing was so disagreeable to Bonaparte as long and seemingly interminable negotiations.  Such tedious work did not suit his character, and he had been sufficiently disgusted with similar proceedings at Campo-Formio.