To show so much anxiety on so important a point is not one of the least glorious features in the life of a general placed at the head of a triumphant army.
The Directory had sent General Clarke -- [H.

J.G.Clarke, afterwards Minister of War under Napoleon, 1807-1814, acid under the Bourbons in 1816, when he was made a Marshal of France.

He was created Due de Feltre in 1819.]-- to treat for peace, as second plenipotentiary.

Bonaparte has often told me he had no doubt from the time of his arrival that General Clarke was charged with a secret mission to act as a spy upon him, and even to arrest him if an opportunity offered for so doing without danger.

That he had a suspicion of this kind is certain; but I must own that I was never by any means able to discover its grounds; for in all my intercourse since with Clarke he never put a single question to me, nor did I ever hear a word drop from his mouth, which savoured of such a character.