These are the only authentic Memoirs of Napoleon which have yet appeared.

The style is not brilliant, but that only makes them the mere trustworthy." Indeed, Metternich himself in his own Memoirs often follows a good deal in the line of Bourrienne: among many formal attacks, every now and then he lapses into half involuntary and indirect praise of his great antagonist, especially where he compares the men he had to deal with in aftertimes with his former rapid and talented interlocutor.

To some even among the Bonapartists, Bourrienne was not altogether distasteful.

Lucien Bonaparte, remarking that the time in which Bourrienne treated with Napoleon as equal with equal did not last long enough for the secretary, says he has taken a little revenge in his Memoirs, just as a lover, after a break with his mistress, reveals all her defects.

But Lucien considers that Bourrienne gives us a good enough idea of the young officer of the artillery, of the great General, and of the First Consul.