replied to their acclamations, and he thought he saw the possibility of turning to account the attachment which the people evinced for him.  On his return to the Palace some prudent persons ventured to represent to him that, instead of courting this absurd sort of popularity it would be more advisable to rely on the nobility and the higher classes of society.  “Gentlemen,” replied he, “you may say what you please, but in the situation in which I stand my only nobility is the rabble of the faubourgs, and I know of no rabble but the nobility whom I have created.”  This was a strange compliment to all ranks, for it was only saying that they were all rabble together.

At this time the Jacobins were disposed to exert every effort to serve him; but they required to have their own way, and to be allowed freely to excite and foster revolutionary sentiments.  The press, which groaned under the most odious and intolerable censorship, was to be wholly resigned to them.  I do not state these facts from hearsay.  I happened by chance to be present at two conferences in which were set forward projects infected with the odour of the clubs, and these projects were supported with the more assurance because their success was regarded as certain.  Though I had not seen Napoleon since my departure for Hamburg, yet I was sufficiently assured of his feeling towards the Jacobins to be convinced that he would have nothing to do with them.  I was not wrong.  On hearing of the price they set on their services he said, “This is too much; I shall have a chance of deliverance in battle, but I shall have none with these furious blockheads.  There can be nothing in common between the demagogic principles of ’93 and the monarchy, between clubs of madmen and a regular Ministry, between a Committee of Public Safety and an Emperor, between revolutionary tribunals and established laws.  If fall I must, I will not bequeath France to the Revolution from which I have delivered her.”

These were golden words, and Napoleon thought of a more noble and truly national mode of parrying the danger which threatened him.  He ordered the enrolment of the National Guard of Paris, which was placed under the command of Marshal Moncey.  A better choice could not have been made, but the staff of the National Guard was a focus of hidden intrigues, in which the defence of Paris was less thought about than the means of taking advantage of Napoleon’s overthrow.  I was made a captain in this Guard, and, like the rest of the officers, I was summoned to the Tuileries, on the 23d of January, when the Emperor took leave of the National Guard previously to his departure from Paris to join the army.

Napoleon entered with the Empress.  He advanced with a dignified step, leading by the hand his son, who was not yet three years old.  It was long since I had seen him.  He had grown very corpulent, and I remarked on his pale countenance an expression of melancholy and irritability.