ke it my prison." I did not hear Bonaparte utter
these words; but they were reported to me from a source, the authenticity
of which may be relied on.

About this time, when so much was said in the Royalist circles and in the
Faubourg St. Germain, of which the Hotel de Luynes was the headquarters,
about the possible return of the Bourbons, the publication of a popular
book contributed not a little to direct the attention of the public to
the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. The book was the
historical romance of Madame de la Valloire, by Madame de Genlis, who had
recently returned to France. Bonaparte read it, and I have since
understood that he was very well pleased with it, but he said nothing to
me about it. It was not until some time after that he complained of the
effect which was produced in Paris by this publication, and especially by
engravings representing scenes in the life of Louis XIV., and which were
exhibited in the shop-windows. The police received orders to suppress
these prints; and the order was implicitly obeyed; but it was not
Fouche's police. Fouche saw the absurdity of interfering with trifles.
I recollect that immediately after the creation of the Legion of Honour,
it being summer, the young men of Paris indulged in the whim of wearing a
carnation in a button-hole, which at a distance had rather a deceptive
effect. Bonaparte took this very seriously. He sent for Fouche, and
desired him to arrest those who presumed thus to turn the new order into
ridicule. Fouche merely replied that he would wait till the autumn; and
the First Consul understood that trifles were often rendered matters of
importance by being honoured with too much attention.

But though Bonaparte was piqued at the interest excited by the engravings
of Madame de Genlis' romance he manifested no displeasure against that
celebrated woman, who had been recommended to him by MM. de Fontanes and
Fievee and who addressed several letters to him. As this sort of
correspondence did not come within the routine of my business I did not
see the letters; but I heard from Madame Bonaparte that they contained a
prodigious number of proper names, and I have reason to believe that they
contributed not a little to magnify, in the eyes of the First Consul, the
importance of the Faubourg St. Germain, which, in spite of all his
courage, was a scarecrow to him.

Bonaparte regarded the Faubourg St. Germain as representing the whole
mass of