o answer the bell and afterwards to return
and to tell me I was wanted. Impatient at the delay occasioned by this
running about, Bonaparte, without saying anything to me, ordered the bell
to be altered so that it should ring within the cabinet; and exactly
above my table. Next morning when I entered the cabinet I saw a man
mounted-upon a ladder. "What are you doing here?" said I. "I am hanging
a bell, sir." I called Landoire and asked him who had given the order.
"The First Consul," he replied. I immediately ordered the man to come
down and remove the ladder, which he accordingly did. When I went,
according to custom, to awaken the First Consul and read the newspapers
to him I said, "General, I found a man this morning hanging a bell in
your cabinet. I was told it was by your orders; but being convinced
there must be some mistake I sent him away. Surely the bell was not
intended for you, and I cannot imagine it was intended for me: who then
could it be for?--" "What a stupid fellow that Landoire is!" said
Bonaparte. "Yesterday, when Cambaceres was with me, I wanted you.
Landoire did not come when I touched the bell. I thought it was broken,
and ordered him to get it repaired. I suppose the bell-hanger was doing
it when you saw him, for you know the wire passes through the cabinet."
I was satisfied with this explanation, though I was not deceived, by it.
For the sake of appearance he reproved Landoire, who, however, had done
nothing more than execute the order he had received. How could he
imagine I would submit to such treatment, considering that we had been
friends since our boyhood, and that I was now living on full terms of
confidence and familiarity with him?

Before I speak of the conspiracy of Ceracchi, Arena, Topino-Lebrun, and
others, I must notice a remark made by Napoleon at St. Helena. He said,
or is alleged to have said, "The two attempts which placed me in the
greatest danger were those of the sculptor Ceracchi and of the fanatic of
Schoenbrun." I was not at Schoenbrun at the time; but I am convinced
that Bonaparte was in the most imminent danger. I have been informed on
unquestionable authority that Staps set out from Erfurth with the
intention of assassinating the Emperor; but he wanted the necessary
courage for executing the design. He was armed with a large dagger, and
was twice sufficiently near Napoleon to have struck him. I heard this
from Rapp, who seized Stags, and felt the hilt of the dagger under