January 2d, Paris:
Moreau is not more than five days' march from Vienna, and in control of all the magazines of the enemy.

M. de Cobenzl, the Emperor's plenipotentiary at Lunéville, has declared, in a note dated the 31st of December, that he was prepared to negotiate a separate peace. Austria is thus free from the influence of the English Government.

9th. (To General Moreau.) I need not express how much interest I have taken in your skilful and beautiful manœuvres; you have surpassed yourself this campaign. The wretched Austrians are very obstinate; they were counting on the ice and snow; they don't really know you yet.

13th. (To Forfait.) Citoyen Ministre: Kindly draw me up a report on Madagascar. Pray order Vice-Admiral Bruix to The Hague. His special business will be to concert measures with the Dutch Minister of the Navy for the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope.

15th. The great thing is to support (the army in) Egypt.

19th. (To Talleyrand.) Please prepare the draft of a treaty with Switzerland, so as to obtain the cession of the Valais up to Brieg.

21st. A courier arrived from Russia yesterday, who had done the journey in fifteen days; he brought me a very friendly letter in the Emperor's own hand. Russia is inclined to be hostile to England.

(To Forfait.) I inclose your report on Madagascar; I find it insufficient.

25th. Are you rich, Maret?

(No, general.)

So much the worse for you, a man ought to be independent.

(General, I wish never to be dependent on any one but you.)

Hem! -- Not so bad!
 

Maret is a good fellow, he's no fool; he answered me cleverly.

February 10th, St. Quentin:
I arrived at St. Quentin yesterday, at four in the afternoon. I was on horseback all the morning inspecting the canal. The weather is cold, and there has been much snow. All I have seen of the plans and the preliminary works of the St. Quentin canal appears satisfactory. I went down the stairway into the tunnel. The manufactures of the city, which formerly gave employment to 70,000 work-people and brought fifteen millions of money into France, have gone down five sixths. The hope of restoring one of our most important and exclusive manufactures, and of giving a livelihood to so many French families, is just the thing to bring cambric into fashion again.

13th, Paris:
Peace has been signed for the continent at Lunéville; its terms are such as the French people desired.
By our secret treaty with Spain, she is to give us six men-of-war.

25th. General Murat is sending a division of 10,000 men to occupy Taranto, Brindisi, and all the smaller ports of the peninsula beyond the line Taranto Brindisi.

27th. (To the Emperor of Russia.) The pride and arrogance of the English are unparalleled. I will bring together, as Your Majesty appears to wish, 300 or 400 gunboats in the ports of Flanders, where I will collect an army. I have given orders for concentrating an army in Brittany that can be put on board ship at Brest.

The English have attempted to land in Egypt. The interest of all the Mediterranean and Black Sea Powers is that Egypt should remain in the possession of France. The Suez canal, which would join the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean is already surveyed; the work is easy and will not take long, it will confer incalculable benefits on Russian commerce.

March 1st. Lafayette is an obstinate political monomaniac; he cannot understand me; I regret it, because he is an honest man. I wanted to make him Senator; he refused. Let him go his own way then, I can get on without him.
4th. There shall be held in Paris, each year, an exhibition of the products of French industry.

20th. Do you know why I allow such free discussion in the Council of State? It's because I'm the best of them all in an argument. I let them attack me because I know how to defend myself.
I am a doctor of laws!

(To a Tribune.) Why don't you come and discuss things with me in my study? We might have little fireside conversations.

21st. If the minutes of the Council of State are well drafted, they will constitute a document worthy of posterity. If we turn over the minutes of the reign of Louis XVI, we find only chatter. The little slips our jurists make must not appear in ours, for during protracted sessions inattention may occur at times. As for me, a man of the sword and of finance, not a jurist but a legislator, my opinions matter little. In an argument I may say things that fifteen minutes later I disapprove; but I do not wish to be made to appear any better than I am.
 

The woman owes obedience to her husband. The civil magistrate should have a formula covering the woman's oath of obedience and faithfulness. She must be instructed that on passing out of the care of her family she enters under that of her husband. The civil magistrate celebrates marriage without any solemnity, which is too arid. There should be some moral appeal; -- look at the priests.

(A Councillor of State: Did the old laws prescribe obedience?)

The angel declared it to Adam and Eve. In the marriage ceremony it was said in Latin, so the woman understood nothing. But the word is well suited to Paris, where the women think they can do what they like. I don't say that it will have any effect on all of them, but it will on some.

(To Portalis.) If you were in power, you would permit no divorce, for it comes to the same thing to make it so degrading to apply for it that none but a man with a brazen face would do so. That's your scheme, isn't it?

(Portalis: If we were dealing with a brand new people I would not admit divorce.)

If the marriage is unhappy, should not the civil law, which has no cognizance of the lofty sacramental theory, provide for the happiness of the individuals?

(Portalis: Man is sociable, and marriage is in nature.)

I deny that! Marriage does not derive from nature, but from society and from morality. I do not accept the opinion that the family proceeds from civil law, and civil law from the law of nature.

Divorce was bound to come into our legislation, freedom of religion implied it; but it would be a great misfortune if it became a national habit. What becomes of the family when it is broken asunder? What are husbands and wives who, after having lived in the closest union that nature and law can tie, suddenly become strangers, yet unable to forget one another? What are children without a father, who cannot join in the same embrace their disunited parents? Ah! let us do nothing to encourage divorce! Of all social habits it would be the most fatal. Let us not brand with shame the man who demands it; but let us rather pity him as the victim of a great misfortune. And custom must frown down the sad resource which the law cannot refuse to the unfortunate.

2 A.M.
Come, come, citoyens, wake up; it's only two o'clock; we must earn the money the French people pay us!

March 22d. (To General Murat.) Should the negotiations drag, enter the Neapolitan state, place your headquarters at Aquila, and raise all obstacles. If on your arrival the King declines to accept the moderate terms proposed by citoyen Alquier, march on Naples.

April 12th. The Emperor of Russia died on the night of the 24th or 25th of March of an attack of apoplexy. The lively sorrow I feel at the death of a prince whom I valued so highly prevents my entering into details. His eldest son has succeeded and has been recognised by the army and the capital.

26th. (To the Emperor of Russia.) M. de Kalitchy has handed us the letter in which Your Majesty announces his accession to the throne of all the Russias and the death of his father. We have been profoundly affected by the unexpected loss which Your Majesty has suffered. Our only consolation is in learning the accession of Your Majesty to the Empire.

July 10th. (To Talleyrand.) I have read the note of General the Prince of Peace; it is so ridiculous that it is not worth a serious answer. But if this Prince, paid by England, should persuade the King and Queen into steps contrary to the dignity and interests of the Republic, the last hour of the Spanish monarchy has rung.

20th. (To Joseph Bonaparte.) Please continue your negotiations with Cardinal Consalvi and your other colleagues. I would like the bull to be published in France as soon as possible, so that I can make nominations to the archbishoprics and bishopries at once. I would like it if we could publish the bull in Paris on the 15th of August.

August 6th. (To Fouché.) The First Consul wants you to inform the journalists, political and literary, that they must abstain from discussing religion, its priests and ceremonies.

16th. (To Jerome Bonaparte.) I learn with pleasure that you are becoming accustomed to the sea; there only can the greatest glory he won.

25th. (To the men of the 1st Artillery.) Soldiers, your conduct in the citadel of Turin is known throughout Europe. You forced your way into a fortress in a disorderly and tumultuous manner, disregarding the French flag which floated there. You killed the brave officer whose duty it was to defend it. You passed over his body. You are all guilty! The officers who failed to keep you under control are unfit to command you. The flag which you have deserted, to which you refused to rally, will be placed in the temple of Mars and hung with crape. Your regiment is disbanded!

30th. Cardinal Caprara is coming to Paris as papal legate.

October 6th. (To Talleyrand.) I inclose the ratifications of the peace preliminaries signed at London on the 1st, and of the secret clause.

10th. (To His Holiness the Pope.) I have received Cardinal Caprara, Your Holiness' legate, with great pleasure. Peace has been signed with England, Portugal, Russia, and the Porte. I hasten to send this information, well knowing the interest. Your Holiness takes in the happiness and peace of nations.

(To the Emperor of Russia.) In the peace preliminaries happily signed between France and England it is provided that Malta shall be restored to the Order under the protection of a great Power. Will Your Majesty let me know your views relatively to the island and to the Order of Malta, of which your, august father was recognised as Grand Master.

December 1st. (To Lucien Bonaparte.) I can't in the least make out the conduct of the Cabinet of Madrid. Please express to Their Majesties my extreme dissatisfaction with the wrongful and illogical action of the Prince of Peace. During these six months past this minister has not spared us insulting notes and rash steps; all that could be done against France, he has done; speak out and tell the Queen and the Prince of Peace that if things go on this way the end will come like a thunderbolt.