Bernadotte, it was reported, had advised that Bonaparte should be brought to a court-martial, an the two-fold charge of having abandoned his army and violated the quarantine laws.  This report came to the ear of Bonaparte; but he refused to believe it and he was right.  Bernadotte thought himself bound to the Constitution which he had sworn to defend.  Hence the opposition he manifested to the measures of the 18th Brumaire.  But he cherished no personal animosity against Bonaparte as long as he was ignorant of his ambitious designs.  The extraordinary and complicated nature of subsequent events rendered his possession of the crown of Sweden in no way incompatible with his fidelity to the Constitution of the year iii.

On our first arrival in Paris, though I was almost constantly with the General, yet, as our routine of occupation was not yet settled, I was enabled now and then to snatch an hour or two from business.  This leisure time I spent in the society of my family and a few friends, and in collecting information as to what had happened during our absence, for which purpose I consulted old newspapers and pamphlets.  I was not surprised to learn that Bonaparte’s brothers—­that is to say, Joseph and Lucien—­had been engaged in many intrigues.  I was told that Sieyes had for a moment thought of calling the Duke of Brunswick to the head of the Government; that Barras would not have been very averse to favouring the return of the Bourbons; and that Moulins, Roger Ducos, and Gohier alone believed or affected to believe, in the possibility of preserving the existing form of government.  From what I heard at the time I have good reasons for believing that Joseph and Lucien made all sorts of endeavours to inveigle Bernadotte into their brother’s party, and in the hope of accomplishing that object they had assisted in getting him appointed War Minister.  However, I cannot vouch for the truth of this.  I was told that hernadotte had at first submitted to the influence of Bonaparte’s two brothers; but that their urgent interference in their client’s behalf induced him to shake them off, to proceed freely in the exercise of his duties, and to open the eyes of the Directory on what the Republic might have to apprehend from the enterprising character of Bonaparte.  It is certain that what I have to relate respecting the conduct of Bernadotte to Bonaparte is calculated to give credit to these assertions.

All the generals who were in Paris, with the exception of Bernadotte, had visited Bonaparte during the first three days which succeeded his arrival.  Bernadotte’s absence was the more remarkable because he had served under Bonaparte in Italy.  It was not until a fortnight had elapsed, and then only on the reiterated entreaties of Joseph and Madame Joseph Bonaparte (his sister-in-law), that he determined to go and see his old General-in-Chief.  I was not present at their interview, being at that moment occupied in the little cabinet of the Rue Chantereine.