As soon as I returned home I wrote down this curious conversation and
this debate about supremacy. To what a degradation is the highest rank
in my unfortunate country reduced when two such personages seriously
contend about it! I collected more subjects for meditation and
melancholy in this low company (where, by the bye, I witnessed more
vulgarity and more indecencies than I had before seen during my life)
than from all former scenes of humiliation and disgust since my return
here. When I the next day mentioned it to General de M------, whom you
have known as an emigrant officer in your service, but whom policy has
since ranged under the colours of Bonaparte, he assured me that these
discussions about the Imperial throne are very frequent among the
superior officers, and have caused many bloody scenes; and that hardly
any of our generals of any talent exist who have not the same 'arriere
pensee of some day or other. Napoleon cannot, therefore, well be
ignorant of the many other dynasties here now rivalling that of the
Bonapartes, and who wait only for his exit to tear his Senatus Consultum,
his will, and his family, as well as each other, to pieces.