f the royal family, brilliant offers were held out for the
purpose of dazzling the First Consul. It was wished to retemper for him
the sword of the constable Duguesclin; and it was hoped that a statue
erected to his honour would at once attest to posterity his spotless
glory and the gratitude of the Bourbons. But when these offers reached
the ears of Bonaparte he treated them with indifference, and placed no
faith in their sincerity. Conversing on the subject one day with M. de
La Fayette he said, "They offer me a statue, but I must look to the
pedestal. They may make it my prison." I did not hear Bonaparte utter
these words; but they were reported to me from a source, the authenticity
of which may be relied on.

About this time, when so much was said in the Royalist circles and in the
Faubourg St. Germain, of which the Hotel de Luynes was the headquarters,
about the possible return of the Bourbons, the publication of a popular
book contributed not a little to direct the attention of the public to
the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. The book was the
historical romance of Madame de la Valloire, by Madame de Genlis, who had
recently returned to France. Bonaparte read it, and I have since
understood that he was very well pleased with it, but he said nothing to
me about it. It was not until some time after that he complained of the
effect which was produced in Paris by this publication, and especially by
engravings representing scenes in the life of Louis XIV., and which were
exhibited in the shop-windows. The police received orders to suppress
these prints; and the order was implicitly obeyed; but it was not
Fouche's police. Fouche saw the absurdity of interfering with trifles.
I recollect that immediately after the creation of the Legion of Honour,
it being summer, the young men of Paris indulged in the whim of wearing a
carnation in a button-hole, which at a distance had rather a deceptive
effect. Bonaparte took this very seriously. He sent for Fouche, and
desired him to arrest those who presumed thus to turn the new order into
ridicule. Fouche merely replied that he would wait till the autumn; and
the First Consul understood that trifles were often rendered matters of
importance by being honoured with too much attention.

But though Bonaparte was piqued at the interest excited by the engravings
of Madame de Genlis' romance he manifested no displeasure against that
celebrated woman, who had been recommen