[Footnote 1240: Madame de Rémusat, I., 142. "Josephine laid great stress on the Egyptian expedition as the cause of his change of temper and of the daily despotism which made her suffer so much."--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon," 325 by the count Chaptal. (Bonaparte's own words to the poet Lemercier who might have accompanied him to the Middle East and there would have learned many things about human nature): "You would have seen a country where the sovereign takes no account of the lives of his subjects, and where the subject himself takes no account of his own life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic 'notions."] [Footnote 1241: Roederer, III., 461 (Jan. 12, 1803)] [Footnote 1242: Cf. "The Revolution," Vol. p. 773. (Note I., on the situation, in 1806, of the Conventionalists who had survived the revolution.) For instance, Fouché is minister; Jeanbon-Saint-André, prefect; Drouet (de Varennes), sub-prefect; Chépy (of Grenoble), commissary-general of the police at Brest; 131 regicides are functionaries, among whom we find twenty one prefects and forty-two magistrates.--Occasionally, a chance document that has been preserved allows one to catch "the man in the act." ("Bulletins hebdomadaires de la censure, 1810 and 1814," published by M. Thurot, in the Revue Critique, 1871): "Seizure of 240 copies of an indecent work printed for account of M. Palloy, the author. This Palloy enjoyed some celebrity during the Revolution, being one of the famous patriots of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The constituent Assembly had conceded to him the ownership of the site of the Bastille, of which he distributed its stones among all the communes. He is a bon vivant, who took it into his head to write out in a very bad style the filthy story of his amours with a prostitute of the Palais-Royal. He was quite willing that the book should be seized on condition that he might retain a few copies of his jovial production. He professes high admiration for, and strong attachment to His Majesty's person, and expresses his sentiments piquantly, in the style of 1789."] [Footnote 1243: "Mémorial," June 12, 1816.] [Footnote 1244: Mathieu Dumas, III., 363 (July 4, 1809, a few days before Wagram).--Madame de Rémusat," I., 105: "I have never heard him express any admiration or comprehension of a noble action."--I., 179: On Augustus's clemency and his saying, "Let us be friends, Cinna," the following is his interpretation of it: "I understand this action simply as the feint of a tyrant, and approve as calculation what I find puerile as sentiment."--"Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "He believed neither in virtue nor in probity, often calling these two words nothing but abstractions; this is what rendered him so distrustful and so immoral.... He never experienced a generous sentiment; this is why he was so cold in company, and why he never had a friend. He regarded men as so much counterfeit coin or as mere instruments."]