territory had any manufacture of
cloth. All woollen stuffs were prohibited, according to M. Eudel, and
still my duty was to furnish, and I had furnished, 50,000 cloaks for the
Grand Army. In compliance with a recent Imperial decree I had to have
made without delay 16,000 coats, 37,000 waistcoats, and the Emperor
required of me 200,000 pairs of boots, besides the 40,000 pairs I had
sent in. Yet M. Eudel said that tanned and worked leather ought not to
enter Hamburg! If such a ridiculous application of the law of 1796 had
been made it would have turned the decree of 21st November 1796 against
France, without fulfilling its object.

These reflections, to which I added other details, made the Government
conclude that I was right, and I traded with England to the great
advantage of the armies, which were well clothed and shod. What in the
world can be more ridiculous than commercial laws carried out to one's
own detriment?

At the beginning of 1807 my occupations at Hamburg were divided between
the furnishing of supplies for the army and the inspection of the
emigrants, whom Fouche pretended to dread in order to give greater
importance to his office.

I never let slip an opportunity of mitigating the rigour of Fouche's
orders, which, indeed, were sometimes so absurd that I did not attempt to
execute them. Of this an instance occurs to my recollection. A printer
at Hamburg had been arrested on the charge of having printed a libel in
the German language. The man was detained in prison because, very much
to his honour, he would not disclose the name of the writer of the
pamphlet. I sent for him and questioned him. He told me, with every
appearance of sincerity, that he had never but once seen the man who had
brought him the manuscript. I was convinced of the truth of what he
said, and I gave an order for his liberation. To avoid irritating the
susceptibility of the Minister of Police I wrote to him the following few
lines:--"The libel is the most miserable rhapsody imaginable. The author,
probably with the view of selling his pamphlet in Holstein, predicts that
Denmark will conquer every other nation and become the greatest kingdom
in the world. This alone will suffice to prove to you how little clanger
there is in rubbish written in the style of the Apocalypse."

After the battle of Eylau I received a despatch from M. de Talleyrand, to
which was added an account in French of that memorable battle, which was
more fatal to