been said, can judge for himself how far the attack is good. Bourrienne,
or his editor, may well have confused the date of his interviews, but he
will not be found much astray on many points. His account of the
conversation of Josephine after the death of the Due d'Eughien may be
compared with what we know from Madame de Remusat, who, by the way, would
have been horrified if she had known that he considered her to resemble
the Empress Josephine in character.

We now come to the views of Savary, the Due de Rovigo, who avowedly
remained on good terms with Bourrienne after his disgrace, though the
friendship of Savary was not exactly a thing that most men would have
much prided themselves on. "Bourrienne had a prodigious memory; he spoke
and wrote in several languages, and his pen ran as quickly as one could
speak. Nor were these the only advantages he possessed. He knew the
routine of public business and public law. His activity and devotion
made him indispensable to the First Consul. I knew the qualities which
won for him the unlimited confidence of his chief, but I cannot speak
with the same assurance of the faults which made him lose it. Bourrienne
had many enemies, both on account of his character and of his place"
(Savary, i. 418-19).

Marmont ought to be an impartial critic of the Memoirs. He says,
"Bourrienne . . . had a very great capacity, but he is a striking
example of the great truth that our passions are always bad counsellors.
By inspiring us with an immoderate ardour to reach a fixed end, they
often make us miss it. Bourrienne had an immoderate love of money. With
his talents and his position near Bonaparte at the first dawn of
greatness, with the confidence and real good-will which Bonaparte felt
for him, in a few years he would have gained everything in fortune and in
social position. But his eager impatience mined his career at the moment