han we had in the Rue Grenier St.
Lazare, which we only had temporarily. Bonaparte used to assist us in
our researches. At last we took the first floor of a handsome new house,
No. 19 Rue des Marais. Bonaparte, who wished to stop in Paris, went to
look at a house opposite to ours. Ha had thoughts of taking it for
himself, his uncle Fesch (afterwards Cardinal Fesch), and a gentleman
named Patrauld, formerly one of his masters at the Military School. One
day he said, "With that house over there, my friends in it, and a
cabriolet, I shall be the happiest fellow in the world."

We soon after left town for Sens. The house was not taken by him, for
other and great affairs were preparing. During the interval between our
departure and the fatal day of Vendemiaire several letters passed between
him and his school companion. These letters were of the most amiable and
affectionate description. They have been stolen. On our return, in
November of the same year, everything was changed. The college friend
was now a great personage. He had got the command of Paris in return for
his share in the events of Vendemiaire. Instead of a small house in the
Rue des Marais, he occupied a splendid hotel in the Rue des Capucines;
the modest cabriolet was converted into a superb equipage, and the man
himself was no longer the same. But the friends of his youth were still
received when they made their morning calls. They were invited to grand
dejeuners, which were sometimes attended by ladies; and, among others, by
the beautiful Madame Tallien and her friend the amiable Madame de
Beauharnais, to whom Bonaparte had begun to pay attention. He cared
little for his friends, and ceased to address them in the style of
familiar equality.

After the 13th of Vendemiaire M. de Bourrienne saw Bonaparte only at
distant periods. In the month of February 1796 my husband was arrested,
at seven in the morning, by a party of men, armed with muskets, on the
charge of being a returned emigrant. He was torn from his wife and his
child, only six months old, being barely allowed time to dress himself.
I followed him. They conveyed him to the guard-house of the Section, and
thence I know not whither; and, finally, in the evening, they placed him
in the lockup-house of the prefecture of police, which, I believe, is now
called the central bureau. There he passed two nights and a day, among
men of the lowest description, some of whom were even malefactors. I and
his friend