Piombo made him obnoxious to most courtiers. In spite of the fact that
delicate missions were constantly intrusted to his discretion which to
any other man about the court would have proved lucrative, he
possessed an income of not more than thirty thousand francs from an
investment in the Grand Livre. If we recall the cheapness of
government securities under the Empire, and the liberality of Napoleon
towards those of his faithful servants who knew how to ask for it, we
can readily see that the Baron di Piombo must have been a man of stern
integrity. He owed his plumage as baron to the necessity Napoleon felt
of giving him a title before sending him on missions to foreign
courts.

Bartolomeo had always professed a hatred to the traitors with whom
Napoleon surrounded himself, expecting to bind them to his cause by
dint of victories. It was he of whom it is told that he made three
steps to the door of the Emperor's cabinet after advising him to get
rid of three men in France on the eve of Napoleon's departure for his
celebrated and admirable campaign of 1814. After the second return of
the Bourbons Bartolomeo ceased to wear the decoration of the Legion of
honor. No man offered a finer image of those old Republicans,
incorruptible friends to the Empire, who remained the living relics of
the two most energetic governments the world has ever seen. Though the
Baron di Piombo displeased mere courtiers, he had the Darus, Drouots,
and Carnots with him as friends. As for the rest of the politicians,
he cared not a whiff of his cigar's smoke for them, especially since
Waterloo.

Bartolomeo di Piombo had bought, for the very moderate sum which
Madame Mere, the Emperor's mother, had paid him for his estates in
Corsica, the old mansion of the Portenduere family, in which he had