no
investigation of my conduct. When in the service of Bonaparte I caused
many appointments to be made, and many names to be erased from the
emigrant list before the 'Senatus-consulte' of the 6th Floreal, year X.;
but I never counted upon gratitude, experience having taught me that it
was an empty word.

The Duc de Rovigo attributed my disgrace to certain intercepted letters
which injured me in the eyes of the First Consul. I did not know this at
the time, and though I was pretty well aware of the machinations of
Bonaparte's adulators, almost all of whom were my enemies, yet I did not
contemplate such an act of baseness. But a spontaneous letter from M. de
Barbe Marbois at length opened my eyes, and left little doubt on the
subject. The following is the postscript to that noble peer's letter:

I recollect that one Wednesday the First Consul, while presiding at
a Council of Ministers at St. Cloud, opened a note, and, without
informing us what it contained, hastily left the Board, apparently
much agitated. In a few minutes he returned and told us that your
functions had ceased.

Whether the sudden displeasure of the First Consul was excited by a false
representation of my concern in the transaction which proved so
unfortunate to me, or whether Bonaparte merely made that a pretence for
carrying into execution a resolution which I am convinced had been
previously adopted, I shall not stop to determine; but the Due de Rovigo
having mentioned the violation of the secrecy of letters in my case, I
shall take the opportunity of stating some particulars on that subject.

Before I wrote these Memoirs the existence in the Post Office of the
cabinet, which had obtained the epithet of black, had been denounced in
the chamber of deputies, and the answer was, that it no longer existed,
which of course amounted to an admission that it had existed. I may
therefore, without indiscretion, state what I know respecting it.

The "black cabinet" was established in the reign of Louis XV., merely for
the purpose of prying into the scandalous gossip of the Court and the
capital. The existence of this cabinet soon became generally known to
every one. The numerous postmasters who succeeded each other, especially
in latter times, the still more numerous Post Office clerks, and that
portion of the public who are ever on the watch for what is held up as
scandalous, soon banished all the secrecy of the affair, and none but
fools we