ty we learn from
Metternich, who writes in 1805: "I have sent an article to the newspaper
editors in Berlin and to M. de Hofer at Hamburg. I do not know whether
it has been accepted, for M. Bourrienne still exercises an authority so
severe over these journals that they are always submitted to him before
they appear, that he may erase or alter the articles which do not please
him."

His position at Hamburg gave him great opportunities for both financial
and political intrigues. In his Memoirs, as Meneval remarks, he or his
editor is not ashamed to boast of being thanked by Louis XVIII. at St.
Ouen for services rendered while he was the minister of Napoleon at
Hamburg. He was recalled in 1810, when the Hanse towns were united, or,
to use the phrase of the day, re-united to the Empire. He then hung
about Paris, keeping on good terms with some of the ministers--Savary,
not the most reputable of them, for example. In 1814 he was to be found
at the office of Lavallette, the head of the posts, disguising, his
enemies said, his delight at the bad news which was pouring in, by
exaggerated expressions of devotion. He is accused of a close and
suspicious connection with Talleyrand, and it is odd that when Talleyrand
became head of the Provisional Government in 1814, Bourrienne of all
persons should have been put at the head of the posts. Received in the
most flattering manner by Louis XVIII, he was as astonished as poor
Beugnot was in 1815, to find himself on 13th May suddenly ejected from
office, having, however, had time to furnish post-horses to Manbreuil for
the mysterious expedition, said to have been at least known to
Talleyrand, and intended certainly for the robbery of the Queen of
Westphalia, and probably for the murder of Napoleon.

In the extraordinary scurry before the Bourbons scuttled out of Paris in
1814, Bourrienne was made Prefet of the Police for a few days, his tenure
of that post being signalised by the abortive attempt to arrest Fouche,
the only effect of which was to drive that wily minister into the arms of
the Bonapartists.

He fled with the King, and was exempted from the amnesty proclaimed by
Napoleon. On the return from Ghent he was made a Minister of State
without portfolio, and also became one of the Council. The ruin of his
finances drove him out of France, but he eventually died in a madhouse at
Caen.

When the Memoirs first appeared in 1829 they made a great sensation.
Till then in most writing