ersation at headquarters after the battle of Wagram. Bernadotte
placed no faith in the report, and I am pretty sure that Napoleon also
disbelieved it. However, this matter is still involved in the obscurity
from which it will only be drawn when some person acquainted with the
intrigue shall give a full explanation of it.

Since I have, with reference to Soult, touched upon the subject of his
supposed ambition, I will mention here what I know of Murat's expectation
of succeeding the Emperor. When Romanzow returned from his useless
mission of mediation to London the Emperor proceeded to Bayonne.
Bernadotte, who had an agent in Paris whom he paid highly, told me one
day that he had received a despatch informing him that Murat entertained
the idea of one day succeeding the Emperor. Sycophants, expecting to
derive advantage from it, encouraged Murat in this chimerical hope.
I know not whether Napoleon was acquainted with this circumstance, nor
what he said of it, but Bernadotte spoke of it to me as a certain fact.
It would, however, have been very wrong to attach great importance to an
expression which, perhaps, escaped Murat in a moment of ardour, for his
natural temperament sometimes betrayed him into acts of imprudence, the
result of which, with a man like Napoleon, was always to be dreaded.

It was in the midst of the operations of the Spanish war, which Napoleon
directed in person, that he learned Austria had for the first time raised
the landwehr. I obtained some very curious documents respecting the
armaments of Austria from the Editor of the Hamburg 'Correspondent'.
This paper, the circulation of which amounted to not less than 60,000,
paid considerable sums to persons in different parts of Europe who were
able and willing to furnish the current news. The Correspondent paid
6000 francs a year to a clerk in the war department at Vienna, and it was
this clerk who supplied the intelligence that Austria was preparing for
war, and that orders had been issued in all directions to collect and put
in motion all the resources of that powerful monarchy. I communicated
these particulars to the French Government, and suggested the necessity
of increased vigilance and measures of defence. Preceding aggressions,
especially that of 1805, were not to be forgotten. Similar information
probably reached the French Government from many quarters. Be that as it
may, the Emperor consigned the military operations in Spain to his
generals, a