of authority, as terrify into
yielding every thing. I do not wish by that to say that Bonaparte
is not really passionate: what is not calculation in him is hatred,
and hatred generally expresses itself in rage: but calculation is in
him so much the strongest, that he never goes beyond what it is
convenient for him to show, according to circumstances and persons.
One day a friend of mine saw him storming at a commissary of war,
who had not done his duty; scarcely had the poor man retired,
trembling with apprehension, when Bonaparte turned round to one of
his aides-du-camp, and said to him, laughing, I hope I have given
him a fine fright; and yet the moment before, you would have
believed that he was no longer master of himself.

When it suited the first consul to exhibit his ill-humour against
me, he publicly reproached his brother Joseph for continuing to
visit me. Joseph felt it necessary in consequence to absent himself
from my house for several weeks, and his example was followed by
three fourths of my acquaintance. Those who had been proscribed on
the 18th Fructidor, pretended that at that period, I had been guilty
of recommending M. de Talleyrand to Barras, for the ministry of
foreign affairs: and yet, these people were then continually about
that same Talleyrand, whom they accused me of having served. All
those who behaved ill to me, were cautious in concealing that they
did so for fear of incurring the displeasure of the first consul.
Every day, however, they invented some new pretext to injure me,
thus exerting all the energy of their political opinions against a
defenceless and persecuted woman, and prostrating themselves at the
feet of the vilest Jacobins, the moment the first consul had
regenerated them by the baptism of his favor.

Fouche, the minister of police, sent for me to say, that the first
consul suspected me of having excited my friend who had spoken in
the tribunate. I replied to him, which was certainly the truth, that
M. Constant was a man of too superior an understanding to make his
opinions matter of reproach to a woman, and that besides, the speech
in question contained absolutely nothing but reflections on the
independence which every deliberative assembly ought to possess, and
that there was not a word in it which could be construed into a
personal reflection on the first consul. The minister admitted as
much. I ventured to add some words on the respect due to the liberty
of opinions in a