Note.

At a moment when the Empress of Russia has strengthened her union with the Emperor of Germany (Austria), it is the interest of France to do everything in her power to increase the military power of Turkey.

That power possesses a numerous and brave militia but is very backward in the scientific part of the art of war.

The organization and the service of the artillery, which, in our modern tactics, so powerfully facilitate the gaining of battles, and on which, almost exclusively, depend the attack and defence of fortresses, are especially the points in which France excels, and in which the Turks are most deficient.

They have several times applied to us for artillery officers, and we have sent them some; but the officers thus sent have not been sufficiently powerful, either in numbers or talent, to produce any important result.

General Bonaparte, who, from his youth, has served in the artillery, of which he was entrusted with the command at the siege of Toulon, and in the two campaigns of Italy, offers his services to proceed to Turkey, with a mission from the (French) Government.

He proposes to take along with him six or seven officers, of different kinds, and who may be, altogether, perfect masters of the military art.

He will have the satisfaction of being useful to his country in this new career, if he succeed in rendering the Turkish power more formidable, by completing the defence of their principal fortresses, and constructing new ones.

This note shows the error of the often-repeated assertion, that he proposed entering the service of the Turks against Austria.  He makes no mention of such a thing; and the two countries were not at war.

—­[The Scottish biographer makes Bonaparte say that it would be strange if a little Corsican should become King of Jerusalem.  I never heard anything drop from him which supports the probability of such a remark, and certainly there is nothing in his note to warrant the inference of his having made it.—­Bourrienne.]—­

No answer was returned to this note.  Turkey remained unaided, and Bonaparte unoccupied.  I must confess that for the failure of this project, at least I was not sorry.  I should have regretted to see a young man of great promise, and one for whom I cherished a sincere friendship, devote himself to so uncertain a fate.  Napoleon has less than any man provoked the events which have favoured him; no one has more yielded to circumstances from which he was so skilful to derive advantages.  If, however, a clerk of the War Office had but written on the note, “Granted,” that little word would probably have changed the fate of Europe.

Bonaparte remained in Paris, forming schemes for the gratification of his ambition, and his desire of making a figure in the world; but obstacles opposed all he attempted.

Women are better judges of character than men.  Madame de Bourrienne, knowing the intimacy which subsisted between us, preserved some notes which she made upon Bonaparte, and the circumstances which struck her as most remarkable, during her early connection with him.  My wife did not entertain so favourable an opinion of him as I did; the warm friendship I cherished for him probably blinded me to his faults.  I subjoin Madame de Bourrienne’s notes, word for word: