ou allege that these men, in
the space of four-and-twenty hours, formed the project of raising me to
the Dictatorship! It is madness to think of it! My fortune and my pay
have been alluded to; I began the world with nothing; I might have had
by this time fifty millions; I have merely a house and a bit of ground;
as to my pay, it is forty thousand francs. Surely that sum will not be
compared with my services."

During the trial Moreau delivered a defence, which I knew had been
written by his friend Garat, whose eloquence I well remember was always
disliked by Bonaparte. Of this I had a proof on the occasion of a grand
ceremony which took place in the Place des Victoires, on laying the first
stone of a monument which was to have been erected to the memory of
Desaix, but which was never executed. The First Consul returned home in
very ill-humour, and said to me, "Bourrienne, what a brute that Garat is!
What a stringer of words! I have been obliged to listen to him for
three-quarters of an hour. There are people who never know when to hold
their tongues!"

Whatever might be the character of Garat's eloquence or Bonaparte's
opinion of it, his conduct was noble on the occasion of Moreau's trial;
for he might be sure Bonaparte would bear him a grudge for lending the
aid of his pen to the only man whose military glory, though not equal to
that of the First Consul, might entitle him to be looked upon as his
rival in fame. At one of the sittings a circumstance occurred which
produced an almost electrical effect. I think I still see General
Lecourbe, the worthy friend of Moreau, entering unexpectedly into the
Court, leading a little boy. Raising the child in his arms, he exclaimed
aloud, and with considerable emotion, "Soldiers, behold the son of your
general!"

--[This action of Lecourbe, together with the part played in this
trial by his brother, one of the judges, was most unfortunate, not
only for Lecourbe but for France, which consequently lost the
services of its best general of mountain warfare. His campaigns of
Switzerland in 1799 on the St. Gothard against Suwarrow are well
known. Naturally disgraced for the part he took with Moreau, he was
not again employed till the Cent Jours, when he did good service,
although he had disapproved of the defection of Ney from the
Royalist cause. He died in 1816; his brother, the judge, had a most
furious reception from Napoleon, who called him a prevaric