do. On his return to France he wrote to
Bonaparte: "Bourrienne is erased." But this was untrue. I was not
erased until November 1797, upon the reiterated solicitations of General
Bonaparte.

It was during my absence from France that Bonaparte, in the rank of 'chef
de bataillon', performed his first campaign, and contributed so
materially to the recapture of Toulon. Of this period of his life I have
no personal knowledge, and therefore I shall not speak of it as an
eye-witness. I shall merely relate some facts which fill up the interval
between 1793 and 1795, and which I have collected from papers which he
himself delivered to me. Among these papers is a little production,
entitled 'Le Souper de Beaucaire', the copies of which he bought up at
considerable expense, and destroyed upon his attaining the Consulate.
This little pamphlet contains principles very opposite to those he wished
to see established in 1800, a period when extravagant ideas of liberty
were no longer the fashion, and when Bonaparte entered upon a system
totally the reverse of those republican principles professed in
'Le Souper de Beaucaire.

--[This is not, as Sir Walter says, a dialogue between Marat and a
Federalist, but a conversation between a military officer, a native
of Nismes, a native of Marseilles, and a manufacturer from
Montpellier. The latter, though he takes a share in the
conversation, does not say much. 'Le Souper de Beaucaire' is given
at full length in the French edition of these Memoirs, tome i. pp.
319-347; and by Iung, tome ii. p. 354, with the following remarks:
"The first edition of 'Le Souper de Beaucaire' was issued at the
cost of the Public Treasury, in August 1798. Sabin Tournal, its
editor, also then edited the 'Courrier d'Avignon'. The second
edition only appeared twenty-eight years afterwards, in 1821,
preceded by an introduction by Frederick Royou (Paris: Brasseur
Aine, printer, Terrey, publisher, in octavo). This pamphlet did not
make any sensation at the time it appeared. It was only when
Napoleon became Commandant of the Army of Italy that M. Loubet,
secretary and corrector of the press for M. Tournal, attached some
value to the manuscript, and showed it to several persona. Louis
Bonaparte, later, ordered several copies from M. Aurel. The
pamphlet, dated 29th duly 1793, is in the form of a dialogue between
an officer of the army, a citizen of Nismes, a manufa