st whom they were directed. In scenes of this sort I have
frequently observed that the presence of a third person seemed to give
him confidence. Consequently, in a 'tete-a-tete' interview, any one who
knew his character, and who could maintain sufficient coolness and
firmness, was sure to get the better of him. He told his friends at St.
Helena that he admitted a third person on such occasions only that the
blow might resound the farther. That was not his real motive, or the
better way would have been to perform the scene in public. He had other
reasons. I observed that he did not like a 'tete-a-tete'; and when he
expected any one, he would say to me beforehand, "Bourrienne, you may
remain;" and when any one was announced whom he did not expect, as a
minister or a general; if I rose to retire he would say in a
half-whisper, "Stay where you are." Certainly this was not done with the
design of getting what he said reported abroad; for it belonged neither
to my character nor my duty to gossip about what I had heard. Besides,
it may be presumed, that the few who were admitted as witnesses to the
conferences of Napoleon were aware of the consequences attending
indiscreet disclosures under a Government which was made acquainted with
all that was said and done.

Bonaparte entertained a profound dislike of the sanguinary men of the
Revolution, and especially of the regicides. He felt, as a painful
burden, the obligation of dissembling towards them. He spoke to me in
terms of horror of those whole he celled the assassins of Louis XVI, and
he was annoyed at the necessity of employing them and treating them with
apparent respect. How many times has he not said to Cambaceres, pinching
him by the ear, to soften, by that habitual familiarity, the bitterness
of the remark, "My dear fellow, your case is clear; if ever the Bourbons
come back you will be hanged!" A forced smile would then relax the livid
countenance of Cambaceres, and was usually the only reply of the Second
Consul, who, however, on one occasion said in my hearing, "Come, come,
have done with this joking."

One thing which gave Bonaparte great pleasure when in the country was to
see a tall, slender woman, dressed in white, walking beneath an alley of
shaded trees. He detested coloured dresses, and especially dark ones.
To fat women he had an invincible antipathy, and he could not endure the
sight of a pregnant woman; it therefore rarely happened that a female in
that si