Memoirs of Napoleon, vol 15 | Page 7

agents with having uttered
seditious cries. A friend of mine, whose Royalist opinions were well
known, and whose father had been massacred during the Revolution,
told me that while walking with two ladies he heard some individuals
near him crying out "Vive l'Empereur!" This created a great
disturbance. The sentinel advanced to the spot, and those very
individuals themselves had the audacity to charge my friend with being
guilty of uttering the offensive cry. In vain the bystanders asserted the
falsehood of the accusation; he was seized and dragged to the
guard-house, and after being detained for some hours he was liberated
on the application of his friends. By dint of such wretched manoeuvres
Fouche triumphed. He contrived to make it be believed that he was the
only person capable of preventing the disorders of which he himself
was the sole author: He got the Police of the Tuileries under his control.
The singing and dancing ceased, and the Palace was the abode of
dulness.
While the King was at St. Denis he restored to General Dessoles the
command of the National Guard. The General ordered the barriers to be
immediately thrown open. On the day of his arrival in Paris the King
determined, as a principle, that the throne should be surrounded by a
Privy Council, the members of which were to be the princes and

persons whom his Majesty might appoint at a future period. The King
then named his new Ministry, which was thus composed:
Prince Talleyrand, peer of France, President of the Council of Ministers,
and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Baron Louis, Minister of Finance.
The Duke of Otranto, Minister of the Police.
Baron Pasquier, Minister of Justice, and Keeper of the Seals.
Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, War Minister.
Comte de Jaucourt, peer of France, Minister of the Marine.
The Duc de Richelieu, peer of France, Minister of the King's
Household.
The portfolio of the Minister of the Interior, which was not
immediately disposed of, was provisionally entrusted to the Minister of
Justice. But what was most gratifying to the public in the composition
of this new ministry was that M. de Blacas, who had made himself so
odious to everybody, was superseded by M. de Richelieu, whose name
revived the memory of a great Minister, and who, by his excellent
conduct throughout the whole course of his career, deserves to be
distinguished as a model of honour and wisdom.
General satisfaction was expressed on the appointment of Marshal
Macdonald to the post of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour in
lieu of M. de Pradt. M. de Chabrol resumed the Prefecture of the Seine,
which, during the Hundred Days, had been occupied by M. de Bondi,
M. de Mole was made Director-General of bridges and causeways. I
was superseded in the Prefecture of Police by M. Decazes, and M.
Beugnot followed M. Ferrand as Director-General of the Post-office.
I think it was on the 10th of July that I went to St. Cloud to pay a visit
of thanks to Blucher. I had been informed that as soon as he learned I

had a house at St. Cloud he sent a guard to protect it. This spontaneous
mark of attention was well deserving of grateful acknowledgment,
especially at a time when there was so much reason to complain of the
plunder practised by the Prussians. My visit to Blucher presented to
observation a striking instance of the instability of human greatness. I
found Blucher residing like a sovereign in the Palace of St. Cloud,
where I had lived so long in the intimacy of Napoleon, at a period when
he dictated laws to the Kings of Europe before he was a monarch
himself.
--[The English occupied St. Cloud after the Prussians. My large house,
in which the children of the Comte d'Artois were inoculated, was
respected by them, but they occupied a small home forming part of the
estate. The English officer who commanded the troops stationed a
guard at the large house. One morning we were informed that the door
had been broken open and a valuable looking-glass stolen. We
complained to the commanding officer, and on the affair being inquired
into it was discovered that the sentinel himself had committed the theft.
The man was tried by a court-martial, and condemned to death, a
circumstance which, as may naturally be supposed, was very
distressing to us. Madame de Bourrienne applied to the commanding
officer for the man's pardon, but could only obtain his reprieve. The
regiment departed some weeks after, and we could never learn what
was the fate of the criminal.--Bourrienne.]--
In that cabinet in which Napoleon and I had passed so many busy hours,
and where so many great plans had their birth, I was received by the
man who