s of Abrantes, who smarted under some severe comments he
had made about her husband (Junot), the Duke of Abrantes, while at St.
Helena, has been generous enough to say many kind things of him in her
memoirs. One of her references to him is to this effect:--"All I know
of him" (and she knew him well from childhood) "proves that he
possessed a great soul which quickly forgets and forgives." She is
very fond of repeating in her memoirs that Napoleon proposed marriage
to her mother, Madame Permon, who was herself a Corsican and knew the
Bonaparte family well.

Madame Junot relates another story which is characteristic of
Bonaparte. Such was the enthusiasm of the people on his march towards
Paris after landing from Elba, that when he was holding a review of
the National Guard at Grenoble, the people shouldered him, and a young
girl with a laurel branch in her hand approached him reciting some
verses. "What can I do for you, my pretty girl?" said the Emperor. The
girl blushed, then lifting her eyes to him replied, "I have nothing to
ask of your Majesty; but you would render me very happy by embracing
me." Napoleon kissed her, and turning his head to either side, said
aloud, with a fascinating smile, "I embrace in you all the ladies of
Grenoble."

That Napoleon made mistakes no one will dispute; indeed, he saw
clearly, and admitted freely, in his solitude, that he had made many.
His minor fault (if it be right to characterise it as such) was in
extending clemency to the many rascals that were plotting his ruin and
carrying on a system of peculation that was an abhorrence to him.
Talleyrand, Fouche, and Bourrienne frequently came under his
displeasure and were removed from his service, but were taken back
after his wrath had passed.

Miot de Melito speaks of them as "Bourrienne and other subordinate
scoundrels," and, indeed, Miot de Melito does not exaggerate in his
estimate of them. Fouche says that Bourrienne kept him advised of all
Napoleon's movements for 25,000 francs per month, besides being both
partner and patron in the house of Coulon Brothers, cavalry equipment
providers, who failed for L120,000.

In 1805, Bourrienne was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary at Hamburg,
and during his stay there he made L290,000 by delivering permits and
making what is known as "arbitrary stoppages," and besides betraying
Bonaparte to the Bourbons, this vile traitor wrote to Talleyrand, a
few days after the abdication at Fontaineble