Advise the Directory, then: I repeat it, they have need of information, and it is to you they look for it." The assertion regarding me was false.

For six months Bonaparte demanded my erasure without being able to obtain it.

I was not struck off the list until the 11th of November 1797.
Just before the close of the negotiation Bonaparte, disgusted at the opposition and difficulties with which he was surrounded, reiterated again and again the offer of his resignation, and his wish to have a successor appointed.

What augmented his uneasiness was an idea he entertained that the Directory had penetrated his secret, and attributed his powerful concurrence on the 18th Fructidor to the true cause--his personal views of ambition.

In spite of the hypocritical assurances of gratitude made to him in writing, and though the Directory knew that his services were indispensable, spies were employed to watch his movements, and to endeavour by means of the persons about him to discover his views.
Some of the General's friends wrote to him from Paris, and for my part I never ceased repeating to him that the peace, the power of making which he had in his own hands, would render him far more popular than the renewal of hostilities undertaken with all the chances of success and reverse.