he enlargement of our
territory, and the scope the war had given to our
industry, we must say, that it was also the result
of the succour, encouragement, and honorary
distinctions, which Napoleon knew how to bestow
appropriately on our manufacturers; and the return
for those enormous sacrifices he made, to create,
repair, and keep in order, those superb roads, and
those numerous canals, which rendered the
communications between France, and the countries
subjected to its empire, equally easy, safe, and
pleasant.]

The Emperor received a great number of petitions during his
excursions. Unable to read them all, he ordered me, to examine them
carefully, and give him an account of them. He loved to repay the
confidence that the people reposed in him; and frequently granted to
the request of an obscure and unknown citizen, what he would perhaps
have refused to the entreaties of a marshal or a minister. The utility
of these familiar communications between the nation and the sovereign
was not confined, in his eyes, to the solitary interests of the
petitioner. He considered them as efficacious means of coming at the
knowledge of abuses and acts of injustice, and of keeping the
depositaries of authority within the limits of their duty. He was
fond of encouraging them, that the phrase, If the Emperor knew it, or
The Emperor shall know it, might solace the heart of the oppressed,
and make the oppressor tremble.

In former days he had appointed a special commission, to receive
petitions, and give them suitable effect. This benefit not appearing
to him sufficiently complete, he would have them subjected to a
preliminary examination, under his own eye. He decided himself the
method to be followed: and directed me, to make known to him every
day, without disguise, the complaints, wants, and wishes, of the
French people. I made it a point of duty, of honour, to execute this
task in a proper manner, and to become the zealous protector of those
who had none. Every morning I laid before the Emperor an analytical
report of the requests capable of demanding his attention: he examined
them with care, made marginal notes on them with his own hand, and
sent them to his ministers with a favourable decision, or an order to
verify them, an