made us
Kings; but did we not make him an Emperor? To you, my friend, whom I
have known long and intimately, I can make my profession of faith. My
sword, my blood, my life belong to the Emperor. When he calls me to the
field to combat his enemies and the enemies of France I am no longer a
King, I resume the rank of a Marshal of the Empire; but let him require
no more. At Naples I will be King of Naples, and I will not sacrifice to
his false calculations the life, the well-being, and the interests of my
subjects. Let him not imagine that he can treat me as he has treated
Louis! For I am ready to defend, even against him, if it must be so, the
rights of the people over whom he has appointed me to rule. Am I then an
advance-guard King?" These last words appeared to me peculiarly
appropriate in the mouth of Murat, who had always served in the
advance-guard of our armies, and I thought expressed in a very happy
manner the similarity of his situation as a king and a soldier.

I walked with Murat about half an hour. In the course of our
conversation he informed me that his greatest cause of complaint against
the Emperor was his having first put him forward and then abandoned him.
"Before I arrived in Naples," continued he, "it was intimated to me that
there was a design of assassinating me. What did I do? I entered that
city alone, in full daylight, in an open carriage, for I would rather
have been assassinated at once than have lived in the constant fear of
being so. I afterwards made a descent on the Isle of Capri, which
succeeded. I attempted one against Sicily, and am curtain it would have
also been successful had the Emperor fulfilled his promise of sending the
Toulon fleet to second my operations; but he issued contrary orders: he
enacted Mazarin, and unshed me to play the part of the adventurous Duke
of Guise. But I see through his designs. Now that he has a son, on whom
he has bestowed the title of King of Rome, he merely wishes the crown of
Naples to be considered as a deposit in my hands. He regards Naples as a
future annexation to the Kingdom of Rome, to which I foresee it is his
design to unite the whole of Italy. But let him not urge me too far, for
I will oppose him, and conquer, or perish in the attempt, sword in hand."

I had the discretion not to inform Murat how correctly he had divined the
plans of the Emperor and his projects as to Italy, but in regard to the
Continental system, which, perhaps, the reader w