many good qualities; his bravery
is undoubted; but he has more courage than energy; he is indolent and
effeminate. When with the army he lived like a pasha; he smoked, was
almost constantly in bed, and gave himself up to the pleasures of the
table. His dispositions are naturally good; but he is too indolent for
study; he does not read, and since he has been tied to his wife's
apronstrings is fit for nothing. He sees only with the eyes of his wife
and her mother, who have had a hand in all these late plots; and then,
Bourrienne, is it not very strange that it was by my advice that he
entered into this union? I was told that Mademoiselle Hulot was a
creole, and I believed that he would find in her a second Josephine; how
greatly was I mistaken! It is these women who have estranged us from
each other, and I regret that he should have acted so unworthily. You
must remember my observing to you more than two years ago that Moreau
would one day run his head against the gate of the Tuileries; that he has
done so was no fault of mine, for you know how much I did to secure his
attachment. You cannot have forgotten the reception I gave him at
Malmaison. On the 18th Brumaire I conferred on him the charge of the
Luxembourg, and in that situation he fully justified my choice. But
since that period he has behaved towards me with the utmost
ingratitude--entered into all the silly cabala against me, blamed all my
measures, and turned into ridicule the Legion of Honour. Have not some
of the intriguers put it into his head that I regard him with jealousy?
You must be aware of that. You must also know as well as I how anxious
the members of the Directory were to exalt the reputation of Moreau.
Alarmed at my success in Italy, they wished to have in the armies a
general to serve as a counterpoise to my renown. I have ascended the
throne and he is the inmate of a prison! You are aware of the incessant
clamouring raised against me by the whole family, at which I confess I
was very much displeased; coming from those whom I had treated so well!
Had he attached himself to me, I would doubtless have conferred on him
the title of First Marshal of the Empire; but what could I do? He
constantly depreciated my campaigns and my government. From discontent
to revolt there is frequently only one step, especially when a man of a
weak character becomes the tool of popular clubs; and therefore when I
was first informed that Moreau was implicated in the conspi