Far from being looked on as the half-crazy fellow Bourrienne considered him at that time, Bonaparte was appointed, on the 21st of August 1795, one of four generals attached as military advisers to the Committee for the preparation of warlike operations, his own department being a most important one.

He himself at the time tells Joseph that he is attached to the topographical bureau of the Comite de Saint Public, for the direction of the armies in the place of Carnot.

It is apparently this significant appointment to which Madame Junot, wrongly dating it, alludes as "no great thing" (Junot, vol.i, p.

143).

Another officer was therefore substituted for him as commander of Roches artillery, a fact made use of in the Erreurs (p.