e liberty thus to speak of a scourge of society of which
I have been a victim. What I here state may be relied on. I shall not
speak of the week during which I had to discharge the functions of
Prefect of Police, namely, from the 13th to the 20th of March 1816.
It may well be supposed that though I had not held in abhorrence the
infamous system which I have described, the important nature of the
circumstances and the short period of my administration must have
prevented me from making complete use of the means placed at my disposal.
The dictates of discretion, which I consider myself bound to obey,
forbid me giving proofs of what I advance. What it was necessary to do
I accomplished without employing violent or vexatious means; and I can
take on myself to assert that no one has cause to complain of me. Were I
to publish the list of the persons I had orders to arrest, those of them
who are yet living would be astonished that the only knowledge they had
of my being the Prefect of Police was from the Moniteur. I obtained by
mild measures, by persuasion, and reasoning what I could never have got
by violence. I am not divulging any secrets of office, but I believe I
am rendering a service to the public in pointing out what I have often
observed while an unwilling confidant in the shameful manoeuvres of that
political institution.

The word ideologue was often in Bonaparte's mouth; and in using it he
endeavoured to throw ridicule on those men whom he fancied to have a
tendency towards the doctrine of indefinite perfectibility. He esteemed
them for their morality, yet he looked on them as dreamers seeking for
the type of a universal constitution, and considering the character of
man in the abstract only. The ideologues, according to him, looked for
power in institutions; and that he called metaphysics. He had no idea of
power except in direct force: All benevolent men who speculate on the
amelioration of human society were regarded by Bonaparte as dangerous,
because their maxims and principles were diametrically opposed to the
harsh and arbitrary system he had adopted. He said that their hearts
were better than their heads, and, far from wandering with them in
abstractions, he always said that men were only to be governed by fear
and interest. The free expression of opinion through the press has been
always regarded by those who are not led away by interest or power as
useful to society. But Bonaparte held the liberty of the pr