During one of the campaigns that I made while in the service of the Emperor, I wrote to my wife, inquiring about the life that her sister led at Malmaison.  In her answer, among other things, she said (I copy a passage from one of her letters):  “Sometimes we take part in performances such as I had never dreamed of.  For instance, one evening the saloon was divided in half by a gauze curtain, behind which was a bed arranged in Greek style, on which a man lay asleep, clothed in long white drapery.  Near the sleeper Madame Bonaparte and the other ladies beat in unison (not in perfect accord, however) on bronze vases, making, as you may imagine, a terrible kind of music.  During this charivari, one of the gentlemen held me around the waist, and raised me from the ground, while I shook my arms and legs in time to the music.  The concert of these ladies awoke the sleeper, who stared wildly at me, frightened at my gestures, then sprang up and ran with all his might, followed by my brother, who crept on all fours, representing a dog, I think, which belonged to this strange person.  As I was then a mere child, I have only a confused idea of all this; but the society of Madame Bonaparte seemed to be much occupied with similar amusements.”

When the First Consul went to live at Saint-Cloud, he expressed his high opinion of my father-in-law in the most flattering manner, and made him concierge of the chateau, which was a confidential position, the duties and responsibilities of which were considerable.

M. Charvet was charged with organizing the household; and, by orders of the First Consul, he selected from among the old servants of the queen those to whom he gave places as porters, scrubbers, and grooms of the chateau, and he gave pensions to those unable to work.

When the chateau took fire in 1802, as I have related previously, Madame Charvet, being several months pregnant, was terribly frightened; and as it was not thought best to bleed her, she became very ill, and died at the age of thirty years.  Louise had been at a boarding-school for several years; but her father now brought her home to keep house for him, though she was then only twelve years old.  One of her friends has kindly allowed me to see a letter which Louise addressed to her a short time after our marriage, and from which I have made the following extracts: 

“On my return from boarding-school I went to see her Majesty the Empress (then Madame Bonaparte) at the Tuileries.  I was in deep mourning.  She took me on her knee, and tried to console me, saying that she would be a mother to me, and would find me a husband.  I wept, and said that I did not wish to marry.  Not at present,’ replied her Majesty, I but that will come; be sure of it.  I was, however, by no means persuaded that this would be the case.  She caressed me a while longer, and I withdrew.  When the First Consul was at Saint-Cloud, all the chiefs of the different departments of the household service assembled