but the system was in operation at the period when M. de Bourrienne was disgraced; his enemies took care to avail themselves of it; they blackened his character with M. de Barbe Marbois, who added to their accusations all the weight of his unblemished character.  The opinion entertained by this rigid public functionary, and many other circumstances, induced the First Consul to part with his secretary (tome i. p. 418).

Peculation is the crime of those who make a fraudulent use of the public money.  But as it was not in my power to meddle with the public money, no part of which passed through my hands, I am at loss to conceive how I can be charged with peculation!  The Due de Rovigo is not the author, but merely the echo, of this calumny; but the accusation to which his Memoirs gave currency afforded M. de Barbe Marbois an opportunity of adding one more to the many proofs he has given of his love of justice.

I had seen nothing of the Memoirs of the Due de Rovigo except their announcement in the journals, when a letter from M. de Barbe Marbois was transmitted to me from my family.  It was as follows: 

Sir—­My attention has been called to the enclosed article in a
recent publication.  The assertion it contains is not true, and I
conceive it to be a duty both to you and myself to declare that I
then was, and still am, ignorant of the causes of the separation in
question:—­I am, etc. 

                              (Signed) Marbois

I need say no more in my justification.  This unsolicited testimony of M. de Marbois is a sufficient contradiction to the charge of peculation which has been raised against me in the absence of correct information respecting the real causes of my rupture with the First Consul.

M. le Due de Rovigo also observes that my enemies were numerous.  My concealed adversaries were indeed all those who were interested that the sovereign should not have about him, as his confidential companion, a man devoted to his glory and not to his vanity.  In expressing his dissatisfaction with one of his ministers Bonaparte had said, in the presence of several individuals, among whom was M. Maret, “If I could find a second Bourrienne I would get rid of you all.”  This was sufficient to raise against me the hatred of all who envied the confidence of which I was in possession.

The failure of a firm in Paris in which I had invested a considerable sum of money afforded an opportunity for envy and malignity to irritate the First Consul against me.  Bonaparte, who had not yet forgiven me for wishing to leave him, at length determined to sacrifice my services to a new fit of ill-humour.