"Citizen Consul," said he to him, "you have confided to me the office of Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I will justify your confidence; but I must declare to you that from this moment, I will not transact business with any but yourself. This determination does not proceed from any vain pride on my part, but is induced, by a desire to serve France. In order that France may be well governed, in order that there may be a unity of action in the government, you must be First Consul, and the First Consul must have the control over all that relates directly to politics; that is to say, over the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Police, for Internal Affairs, and over my department, for Foreign Affairs; and, lastly, over the two great means of execution, the military and naval forces. It will therefore be most convenient that the Ministers of those five departments should transact business with you. The Administration of Justice and the ordering of the Finances are objects certainly connected with State politics by numerous links, which, however, are not of so intimate a nature as those of the other departments. If you will allow me, General, I should advise that the control over the Administration of Justice be given to the Second Consul, who is well versed in jurisprudence; and to the Third Consul, who is equally well acquainted with Finance, the control over that department. That will occupy and amuse them, and you, General, having at your disposal all the vital parts of the government, will be able to reach the end you aim at, the regeneration of France."
Bonaparte did not hear these remarkable words with indifference. They were too much in accordance with his own secret wishes to be listened to without pleasure; and he said to me as soon as Talleyrand had taken leave, "Do you know, Bourrienne, I think Talleyrand gives good advice.
He is a man of great understanding."--"Such is the opinion," I replied, "of all who know him."-- He is perfectly right." Afterwards he added, smiling, "Tallyrand is evidently a shrewd man. He has penetrated my designs. What he advises you know I am anxious to do. But again I say, he is right; one gets on quicker by oneself. Lebrun is a worthy man, but he has no policy in his head; he is a book-maker. Cambaceres carries with him too many traditions of the Revolution. My government must be an entirely new one."
Talleyrand's advice had been so punctually followed that even on the occasion of the installation of the Consular Government, while Bonaparte was receiving all the great civil and military officers of the State in the hall of presentation, Cambaceres and Lebrun stood by more like spectators of the scene than two colleagues of the First Consul. The Minister of the Interior presented the civil authorities of Paris; the Minister of War, the staff of the 17th military division; the Minister of Marine, several naval officers; and the staff of the Consular Guard was presented by Murat. As our Consular republicans were not exactly Spartans, the ceremony of the presentations was followed by grand dinner- parties. The First Consul entertained at his table, the two other Consuls, the Ministers, and the Presidents of the great bodies of the State. Murat treated the heads of the army; and the members of the Council of State, being again seated in their hackney-coaches with covered numbers, drove off to dine with Lucien.
Before taking possession of the Tuileries we had frequently gone there to see that the repairs, or rather the whitewashing, which Bonaparte had directed to be done, was executed. On our first visit, seeing a number of red caps of liberty painted on the walls, he said to M. Lecomte, at that time the architect in charge, "Get rid of all these things; I do not like to see such rubbish."
The First Consul gave directions himself for what little alterations he wanted in his own apartments. A state bed--not that of Louis XVI.--was placed in the chamber next his cabinet, on the south side, towards the grand staircase of the Pavilion of Flora. I may as well mention here that he very seldom occupied that bed, for Bonaparte was very simple in his manner of living in private, and was not fond of state, except as a means of imposing on mankind. At the Luxembourg, at Malmaison, and during the first period that he occupied the Tuileries, Bonaparte, if I may speak in the language of common life, always slept with his wife.
He went every evening down to Josephine by a small staircase leading from a wardrobe attached to his cabinet, and which had formerly been the chapel of Maria de Medici. I never went to Bonaparte's bedchamber but by this staircase; and when he came to our cabinet it was always by the wardrobe which I have mentioned. The door opened opposite the only window of our room, and it commanded a view of the garden.
As for our cabinet, where so many great, and also small events were prepared, and where I passed so many hours of my life, I can, even now, give the most minute description of it to those who like such details.
There were two tables. The best, which was the First Consul's, stood in the middle of the room, and his armchair was turned with its back to the fireplace, having the window on the right. To the right of this again was a little closet where Duroc sat, through which we could communicate with the clerk of the office and the grand apartments of tile Court.
When the First Consul was seated at his table in his chair (the arms of which he so frequently mutilated with his penknife) he had a large bookcase opposite to him. A little to the right, on one side of the bookcase, was another door, opening into the cabinet which led directly to the state bedchamber which I have mentioned. Thence we passed into the grand Presentation Saloon, on the ceiling of which Lebrun had painted a likeness of Louis XIV. A tri-coloured cockade placed on the forehead of the great King still bore witness of the imbecile turpitude of the Convention. Lastly came the hall of the Guards, in front of the grand staircase of the Pavilion of Flora.
My writing-table, which was extremely plain, stood near the window, and in summer I had a view of the thick foliage of the chestnut-trees; but in order to see the promenaders in the garden I was obliged to raise myself from my seat. My back was turned to the General's side, so that it required only a slight movement of the head to speak to each other.
Duroc was seldom in his little cabinet, and that was the place where I gave some audiences. The Consular cabinet, which afterwards became the Imperial, has left many impressions on my mind; and I hope the reader, in going through these volumes, will not think that they have been of too slight a description.
