provoked by his own insolence, he demanded the immediate dismissal of the
Austrian Minister, Baron Thugut, and threatened, in case of refusal, to
leave Vienna, which he did on the next day. So disgraceful was his
conduct regarded, even by the Directory, that this event made but little
impression, and no alteration in the continuance of their intercourse
with the Austrian Government.

In 1799, he was for some weeks a Minister of the war department, from
which his incapacity caused him to be dismissed. When Bonaparte intended
to seize the reins of State, he consulted Bernadotte, who spoke as an
implacable Jacobin until a douceur of three hundred thousand
livres--calmed him a little, and convinced him that the Jacobins were not
infallible or their government the best of all possible governments. In
1801, he was made the commander-in-chief in the Western Department, where
he exercised the greatest barbarities against the inhabitants, whom he
accused of being still chouans and royalists.

With Augereau and Massena, Bernadotte is a merciless plunderer. In the
summer, 1796, he summoned the magistrates of the free and neutral city of
Nuremberg to bring him, under pain of military execution, within
twenty-four hours, two millions of livres. With much difficulty this sum
was collected. The day after he had received it, he insisted upon
another sum to the same amount within another twenty-four hours, menacing
in case of disobedience to give the city up to a general pillage by his
troops. Fortunately, a column of Austrians advanced and delivered them
from the execution of his threats. The troops under him were, both in
Italy and in Germany, the terror of the inhabitants, and when defeated
were, from their pillage and murder, hunted like wild beasts. Bernadotte
has by these means within ten years become master of a fortune of ten
millions of livres.