Memoirs which relates to Hamburg, "I must acknowledge that generally his
assertions are well founded. This former companion of Napoleon has only
forgotten to speak of the opinion that they had of him in this town.

"The truth is, that he was believed to have made much money there."

Thus we may take Bourrienne as a clever, able man, who would have risen
to the highest honours under the Empire had not his short-sighted
grasping after lucre driven him from office, and prevented him from ever
regaining it under Napoleon.

In the present edition the translation has been carefully compared with
the original French text. Where in the original text information is
given which has now become mere matter of history, and where Bourrienne
merely quotes the documents well enough known at this day, his possession
of which forms part of the charges of his opponents, advantage has been
taken to lighten the mass of the Memoirs. This has been done especially
where they deal with what the writer did not himself see or hear, the
part of the Memoirs which are of least valve and of which Marmont's
opinion has just been quoted. But in the personal and more valuable part
of the Memoirs, where we have the actual knowledge of the secretary
himself, the original text has been either fully retained, or some few
passages previously omitted restored. Illustrative notes have been added
from the Memoirs of the successor of Bourrienne, Meneval, Madame de
Remusat, the works of Colonel Iung on 'Bonaparte et Son Temps', and on
'Lucien Bonaparte', etc., and other books. Attention has also been paid
to the attacks of the 'Erreurs', and wherever these criticisms are more
than a mere expression of disagreement, their purport has been recorded
with, where possible, some judgment of the evidence. Thus the reader
will have before him the materials for deciding himself how far,