etc., are most valuable, but these writers were
not in that close contact with Napoleon enjoyed by
Bourrienne. Bourrienne’s position was simply
unique, and we can only regret that he did not occupy
it till the end of the Empire. Thus it is natural
that his Memoirs should have been largely used by
historians, and to properly understand the history
of the time, they must be read by all students.
They are indeed full of interest for every one.
But they also require to be read with great caution.
When we meet with praise of Napoleon, we may generally
believe it, for, as Thiers (Consulat., ii. 279) says,
Bourrienne need be little suspected on this side,
for although be owed everything to Napoleon, he has
not seemed to remember it. But very often in
passages in which blame is thrown on Napoleon, Bourrienne
speaks, partly with much of the natural bitterness
of a former and discarded friend, and partly with the
curious mixed feeling which even the brothers of Napoleon
display in their Memoirs, pride in the wonderful abilities
evinced by the man with whom he was allied, and jealousy
at the way in which he was outshone by the man he
had in youth regarded as inferior to himself.
Sometimes also we may even suspect the praise.
Thus when Bourrienne defends Napoleon for giving, as
he alleges, poison to the sick at Jaffa, a doubt arises
whether his object was to really defend what to most
Englishmen of this day, with remembrances of the deeds
and resolutions of the Indian Mutiny, will seem an
act to be pardoned, if not approved; or whether he
was more anxious to fix the committal of the act on
Napoleon at a time when public opinion loudly blamed
it. The same may be said of his defence of the
massacre of the prisoners of Jaffa.
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne was born in 1769,
that is, in the same year as Napoleon Bonaparte, and
he was the friend and companion of the future Emperor
at the military school of Brienne-le-Chateau till
1784, when Napoleon, one of the sixty pupils maintained
at the expense of the State, was passed on to the
Military School of Paris. The friends again met
in 1792 and in 1795, when Napoleon was hanging about
Paris, and when Bourrienne looked on the vague dreams
of his old schoolmate as only so much folly.
In 1796, as soon as Napoleon had assured his position
at the head of the army of Italy, anxious as ever
to surround himself with known faces, he sent for
Bourrienne to be his secretary. Bourrienne had
been appointed in 1792 as secretary of the Legation
at Stuttgart, and had, probably wisely, disobeyed
the orders given him to return, thus escaping the
dangers of the Revolution. He only came back to
Paris in 1795, having thus become an emigre.
He joined Napoleon in 1797, after the Austrians had
been beaten out of Italy, and at once assumed the office
of secretary which he held for so long. He had
sufficient tact to forbear treating the haughty young
General with any assumption of familiarity in public,