Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume I

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne (1769-1834), French diplomat, was born at Sens. He was educated at the military school of Brienne in Champagne along with Napoleon Bonaparte. Leaving Brienne in 1787, and conceiving a distaste for the army, Bourrienne proceeded to Vienna. He was pursuing legal and diplomatic studies there, and afterwards at Leipzig, when the French Revolution broke out. Not until the spring of 1792 did Bourrienne return to France; at Paris he renewed his acquaintance with Bonaparte. They led a Bohemian life together, witnessing the mobbing of the royal family in the Tuileries and the overthrow of the Swiss Guards at the same spot. In 1798 he accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt as his private secretary. He remained by the side of the First Consul in his former capacity, but in the autumn of 1802 incurred Bonaparte’s displeasure because of his very questionable financial dealings. In the spring of 1805 he was sent as French envoy to the free city of Hamburg. His fame rests not upon his achievements or his original works, which are insignificant, but upon his Mémoires (10 vols., 1829-1831), which have been frequently republished and translated.