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 hed, 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 the Court.
When the First Consul was s