refused to aid his first steps in his adventurous career. At the same
time the persons about Bonaparte who practised the art of flattering
failed not to multiply reports and insinuations against Bernadotte.
I recollect one day, when there was to be a grand public levee, seeing
Bonaparte so much out of temper that I asked him the cause of it. "I can
bear it no longer," he replied impetuously. "I have resolved to have a
scene with Bernadotte to-day. He will probably be here. I will open the
fire, let what will come of it. He may do what he pleases. We shall
see! It is time there should be an end of this."

I had never before observed the First Consul so violently irritated.
He was in a terrible passion, and I dreaded the moment when the levee was
to open. When he left me to go down to the salon I availed myself of the
opportunity to get there before him, which I could easily do, as the
salon was not twenty steps from the cabinet. By good luck Bernadotte was
the first person I saw. He was standing in the recess of a window which
looked on the square of the Carrousel. To cross the salon and reach the
General was the work of a moment. "General!" said I, "trust me and
retire!--I have good reasons for advising it!" Bernadotte, seeing my
extreme anxiety, and aware of the sincere sentiments of esteem end
friendship which I entertained for him, consented to retire, and I
regarded this as a triumph; for, knowing Bernadotte's frankness of
character and his nice sense of honour, I was quite certain that he would
not submit to the harsh observations which Bonaparte intended to address
to him. My stratagem had all the success I could desire. The First
Consul suspected nothing, and remarked only one thing, which was that his
victim was absent. When the levee was over he said to me, "What do you
think of it, Bourrienne?---Bernadotte did not come."--"So much the better
for him, General," was my reply. Nothing further happened. The First
Consul on returning from Josephine found me in the cabinet, and