laid for liberating
Ferdinand from his prison in France and placing him at the head of
affairs in Spain, but was detected by the emissaries of Bonaparte's
police. Ferdinand's sister, the ex-Queen of Etruria, had also
planned an escape to England. Her agents were betrayed, tried by a
military commission, and shot--the Princess herself was condemned to
close confinement in a Roman convent.--Editor of 1836 edition.]--

The Continental system was the cause, if not of the eventual fall, at
least of the rapid fall of Napoleon. This cannot be doubted if we
consider for a moment the brilliant situation of the Empire in 1811,
and the effect simultaneously produced throughout Europe by that system,
which undermined the most powerful throne which ever existed. It was the
Continental system that Napoleon upheld in Spain, for he had persuaded
himself that this system, rigorously enforced, would strike a death blow
to the commerce of England; and Duroc besides informed me of a
circumstance which is of great weight in this question. Napoleon one day
said to him, "I am no longer anxious that Joseph should be King of Spain;
and he himself is indifferent about it. I would give the crown to the
first comer who would shut his ports against the English."

Murat had come to Paris on the occasion of the Empress' accouchement, and
I saw him several times during his stay, for we had always been on the
best terms; and I must do him the justice to say that he never assumed
the King but to his courtiers, and those who had known him only as a
monarch. Eight or ten days after the birth of the King of Rome, as I was
one morning walking in the Champs Elysees, I met Murat. He was alone,
and dressed in a long blue overcoat. We were exactly opposite the
gardens of his sister-in-law, the Princess Borghese. "Well, Bourrienne,"
said Murat, after we had exchanged the usual courtesies, "well, what are
you about now?" I informed him how I had been treated by Napoleon, who,
that I might not be in Hamburg when the decree of union arrived there,
had recalled me to Paris under a show of confidence. I think I still see
the handsome and expressive countenance of Joachim when, having addressed
him by the titles of Sire and Your Majesty, he said to me, "Pshaw!
Bourrienne, are we not old comrades? The Emperor has treated you
unjustly; and to whom has he not been unjust? His displeasure is
preferable to his favour, which costs so dear! He says that he