Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,263 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon.

Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,263 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon.
and detained in such part of that department as should be pointed out by the Minister of General Police.  I was fortunate enough to keep my friend M. Moreau de Worms, deputy from the Youne, out of the fiat of exiles.  This produced a mischievous effect.  It bore a character of wanton severity quite inconsistent with the assurances of mildness and moderation given at St. Cloud on the 19th Brumaire.  Cambaceres afterwards made a report, in which he represented that it was unnecessary for the maintenance of tranquillity to subject the proscribed to banishment, considering it sufficient to place them under the supervision of the superior police.  Upon receiving the report the Consuls issued a decree, in which they directed all the individuals included in the proscription to retire respectively into the different communes which should be fixed upon by the Minister of Justice, and to remain there until further orders.

At the period of the issuing of these decrees Sieyes was still one of the Consuls; conjointly with Bonaparte and Roger Ducos; and although Bonaparte had, from the first moment, possessed the whole power of the government, a sort of apparent equality was, nevertheless, observed amongst them.  It was not until the 25th of December that Bonaparte assumed the title of First Consul, Cambaceres and Lebrun being then joined in the office with him.  He had fixed his eyes on them previously to the 18th Brumaire, and he had no cause to reproach them with giving him much embarrassment in his rapid progress towards the imperial throne.

I have stated that I was so fortunate as to rescue M. Moreau de Worms from the list of proscription.  Some days after Sieyes entered Bonaparte’s cabinet and said to him, “Well, this M. Moreau de Worms, whom M. Bourrienne induced you to save from banishment, is acting very finely!  I told you how it would be!  I have received from Sens, his native place, a letter which informs me that Moreau is in that town, where he has assembled the people in the market-place, and indulged in the most violent declamations against the 18th Brumaire,”—­“Can you, rely upon your agent” asked Bonaparte.—­“Perfectly.  I can answer for the truth of his communication.”  Bonaparte showed me the bulletin of Sieyes’ agent, and reproached me bitterly.  “What would you say, General,” I observed, “if I should present this same M. Moreau de Worms, who is declaiming at Sens against the 18th Brumaire, to you within an hour?”—­“I defy you to do it.”—­“I have made myself responsible for him, and I know what I am about.  He is violent in his politics; but he is a man of honour, incapable of failing in his word.”—­“Well, we shall see.  Go and find him.”  I was very sure of doing what I had promised, for within an hour before I had seen M. Moreau de Worms.  He had been concealed since the 13th Brumaire, and had not quitted Paris.  Nothing was easier than to find him, and in three-quarters of an hour he was at the Luxembourg.  I presented

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