circumstances."]--

Bonaparte, as I have before observed, loved contrasts; and I remember at
the very time he was acting so violently against Latour-Foissac he
condescended to busy himself about a company of players which he wished
to send to Egypt, or rather that he pretended to wish to send there,
because the announcement of such a project conveyed an impression of the
prosperous condition of our Oriental colony. The Consuls gravely
appointed the Minister of the Interior to execute this business, and the
Minister in his turn delegated his powers to Florence, the actor. In
their instructions to the Minister the Consuls observed that it would be
advisable to include some female dancers in the company; a suggestion
which corresponds with Bonaparte's note, in which were specified all that
he considered necessary for the Egyptian expedition.

The First Consul entertained singular notions respecting literary
property. On his hearing that a piece, entitled 'Misanthropie et
Repentir', had been brought out at the Odeon, he said to me, "Bourrienne,
you have been robbed."--"I, General? how?"--"You have been robbed,
I tell you, and they are now acting your piece." I have already
mentioned that during my stay at Warsaw I amused myself with translating
a celebrated play of Kotzebue. While we were in Italy I lent Bonaparte
my translation to read, and he expressed himself much pleased with it.
He greatly admired the piece, and often went to see it acted at the
Odeon. On his return he invariably gave me fresh reasons for my claiming
what he was pleased to call my property. I represented to him that the
translation of a foreign work belonged to any one who chose to execute
it. He would not, however, give up his point, and I was obliged to
assure him that my occupations in his service left me no time to engage
in a literary lawsuit. He then exacted a promise from me to translate
Goethe's 'Werther'. I told him it was already done, though
indifferently, and that I could not possibly devote to the subject the
time it merited. I read over to him one of the letters I had translated
into French, and which he seemed to approve.

That interval of the Consular Government during which Bonaparte remained
at the Luxembourg may be called the preparatory Consulate. Then were
sown the seeds of the great events which he meditated, and of those
institutions with which he wished to mark his possession of power. He
was then, if I may use the expres