The First Consul was harassed by the continual demands for money made on him by his brothers.  To get rid of Joseph, who expended large sums at Mortfontaine, as Lucien did at Neuilly, he gave M. Collot the contract for victualling the navy, on the condition of his paying Joseph 1,600,000 francs a year out of his profits.  I believe this arrangement answered Joseph’s purpose very well; but it was anything but advantageous to M. Collot.  I think a whole year elapsed without his pocketing a single farthing.  He obtained an audience of the First Consul, to whom he stated his grievances.  His outlays he showed were enormous, and he could get no payment from the navy office.  Upon which the Consul angrily interrupted him, saying, “Do you think I am a mere capuchin?  Decres must have 100,000 crowns, Duroc 100,000, Bourrienne 100,000; you must make the payments, and don’t come here troubling me with your long stories.  It is the business of my Ministers to give me accounts of such matters; I will hear Decres, and that’s enough.  Let me be teased no longer with these complaints; I cannot attend to them.”  Bonaparte then very unceremoniously dismissed M. Collot.  I learned afterwards that he did not get a settlement of the business until after a great deal of trouble.  M. Collot once said to me, “If he had asked me for as much money as would have built a frigate he should have had it.  All I want now is to be paid, and to get rid of the business.”  M. Collot had reason and honour on his side; but there was nothing but shuffling on the other.

CHAPTER IX.

1802.

Proverbial falsehood of bulletins—­M.  Doublet—­Creation of the Legion of Honour—­Opposition to it in the Council and other authorities of the State—­The partisans of an hereditary system—­ The question of the Consulship for life.

The historian of these times ought to put no faith in the bulletins, despatches, notes, and proclamations which have emanated from Bonaparte, or passed through his hands.  For my part, I believe that the proverb, “As great a liar as a bulletin,” has as much truth in it as the axiom, two and two make four.

The bulletins always announced what Bonaparte wished to be believed true; but to form a proper judgment on any fact, counter-bulletins must be sought for and consulted.  It is well known, too, that Bonaparte attached great importance to the place whence he dated his bulletins; thus, he dated his decrees respecting the theatres and Hamburg beef at Moscow.

The official documents were almost always incorrect.  There was falsity in the exaggerated descriptions of his victories, and falsity again in the suppression or palliation of his reverses and losses.  A writer, if he took his materials from the bulletins and the official correspondence of the time, would compose a romance rather than a true history.  Of this many proofs have been given in the present work.