gentlemen would never be paid.  I was grieved at this, and knowing their disappointment, made them an offer of services which they refused.  The Cerf-Berr brothers, notwithstanding my want of success, were convinced of the zeal I had manifested in their service, and thanked me warmly.  Each time I addressed a petition to the Emperor, I saw M. de Meneval, whom I begged to take charge of it.  He was very obliging, and had the kindness to inform me whether my demands could hope for success; and he told me that as for the Cerf-Berr brothers, he did not think the Emperor would ever compensate them.

In fact, this family, at one time wealthy, but who had lost an immense patrimony in advances made to the Directory, never received any liquidation of these claims, which were confided to a man of great honesty, but too much disposed to justify the name given him.

Madame Theodore Cerf-Berr on my invitation had presented herself several times with her children at Rambouillet and Saint-Cloud, to beseech the Emperor to do her justice.  This respectable mother of a family whom nothing could dismay, again presented herself with the eldest of her daughters at Compiegne.  She awaited the Emperor in the forest, and throwing herself in the midst of the horses, succeeded in handing him her petition; but this time what was the result?  Madame and Mademoiselle Cerf-Berr had hardly re-entered the hotel where they were staying, when an officer of the secret police came and requested them to accompany him.  He made them enter a mean cart filled with straw, and conducted them under the escort of two gens d’armes to the prefecture of police at Paris, where they were forced to sign a contract never to present themselves again before the Emperor, and on this condition were restored to liberty.

About this time an occasion arose in which I was more successful.  General Lemarrois, one of the oldest of his Majesty’s aides-de-camp, a soldier of well-known courage, who won all hearts by his excellent qualities, was for some time out of favor with the Emperor, and several times endeavored to obtain an audience with him; but whether it was that the request was not made known to his Majesty, or he did not wish to reply, M. Lemarrois received no answer.  In order to settle the matter he conceived the idea of addressing himself to me, entreating me to present his petition at an opportune moment.  I did this, and had the happiness to succeed; and in consequence M. Lemarrois obtained an audience with such gratifying results that a short time after he obtained the governorship of Magdeburg.

The Emperor was absent-minded, and often forgot where he had put the petitions which were handed to him, and thus they were sometimes left in his coats, and when I found them there I carried them to his Majesty’s cabinet and handed them to M. de Meneval or M. Fain; and often, too, the, papers for which he was hunting were found in the apartments of the Empress.  Sometimes the Emperor gave me papers to put away, and those I placed in a box of which I alone had the key.  One day there was a great commotion in the private apartments over a paper which could not be found.  These were the circumstances: