They undoubtedly contain plenty of faults.

The editor (Villemarest, it is said) probably had a large share in the work, and Bourrienne must have forgotten or misplaced many dates and occurrences.
In such a work, undertaken so many years after the events, it was inevitable that many errors should be made, and that many statements should be at least debatable.

But on close investigation the work stands the attack in a way that would be impossible unless it had really been written by a person in the peculiar position occupied by Bourrienne.

He has assuredly not exaggerated that position: he really, says Lucien Bonaparte, treated as equal with equal with Napoleon during a part of his career, and he certainly was the nearest friend and confidant that Napoleon ever had in his life.
Where he fails, or where the Bonapartist fire is most telling, is in the account of the Egyptian expedition.

It may seem odd that he should have forgotten, even in some thirty years, details such as the way in which the sick were removed; but such matters were not in his province; and it would be easy to match similar omissions in other works, such as the accounts of the Crimea, and still more of the Peninsula.