It was during the First Consul’s residence at the Luxembourg that the first report on the civil code was made to the legislative body.  It was then, also, that the regulations for the management of the Bank of France were adopted, and that establishment so necessary to France was founded.

There was at this time in Paris a man who has acquired an unfortunate celebrity, the most unlucky of modern generals—­in a word, General Mack.  I should not notice that person here were it not for the prophetic judgment which Bonaparte then pronounced on him.  Mack had been obliged to surrender himself at Championnet some time before our landing at Frejus.  He was received as a prisoner of war, and the town of Dijon had been appointed his place of residence, and there he remained until after the 18th Brumaire.  Bonaparte, now Consul, permitted him to come to Paris, and to reside there on his parole.  He applied for leave to go to Vienna, pledging himself to return again a prisoner to France if the Emperor Francis would not consent to exchange him for Generals Wrignon and Grouchy, then prisoners in Austria.  His request was not granted, but his proposition was forwarded to Vienna.  The Court of Vienna refused to accede to it, not placing perhaps so much importance on the deliverance of Mack as he had flattered himself it would.

Bonaparte speaking to me of him one day said, “Mack is a man of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything.  He has no talent.  I should like to see him opposed some day to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work.  He is a boaster, and that is all.  He is really one of the most silly men existing; and, besides all that, he is unlucky.”  Was not this opinion of Bonaparte, formed on the past, fully verified by the future?

It was at Malmaison that Bonaparte thus spoke of General Mack.  That place was then far from resembling what it afterwards became, and the road to it was neither pleasant nor sure.  There was not a house on the road; and in the evening, during the season when we were there, it was not frequented all the way from St. Germain.  Those numerous vehicles, which the demands of luxury and an increasing population have created, did not then, as now, pass along the roads in the environs of Paris.  Everywhere the road was solitary and dangerous; and I learned with certainty that many schemes were laid for carrying off the First Consul during one of his evening journeys.  They were unsuccessful, and orders were given to enclose the quarries, which were too near to the road.  On Saturday evening Bonaparte left the Luxembourg, and afterwards the Tuileries, to go to Malmaison, and I cannot better express the joy he then appeared to experience than by comparing it to the delight of a school-boy on getting a holiday.