Later on, discovering his error, Bonaparte made a memorandum
concerning Junot, which was the first link in the chain which
ultimately bound the stenographer to fame as a marshal of France.

There have been various other versions of this anecdote, but this is
the only correct one, and is now published for the first time on the
authority of M. le Comte de B--, whose grandfather was the bass
drummer upon whose drum Junot was writing the now famous letter, and
who was afterwards ennobled by Napoleon for his services in Egypt,
where, one dark, drizzly night, he frightened away from Bonaparte's
tent a fierce band of hungry lions by pounding vigorously upon his
instrument.

About this time Napoleon, who had been spelling his name in various
ways, and particularly with a "u," as Buonaparte, decided to settle
finally upon one form of designation.

"People are beginning to bother the life out of me with requests for
my autograph," he said to Bourrienne, "and it is just as well that I
should settle on one. If I don't, they'll want me to write out a
complete set of them, and I haven't time to do that."

"Buonaparte is a good-looking name," suggested Bourrienne. "It is
better than Bona Parte, as you sometimes call yourself. If you
settle on Bona Parte, you'd have really three names; and as you don't
write society verse for the comic papers, what's the use? Newspaper
reporters will refer to you as Napoleon B. Parte or N. Bona Parte,
and the public hates a man who parts his name in the middle. Parte
is a good name in its way, but it's too short and abrupt. Few men
with short, sharp, decisive names like that ever make their mark.