Address to the Legislative Body, December, 1813.
"I have suppressed your address, it was incendiary. I called you round me to do good—you have done ill. Eleven-twelfths of you are well intentioned, the others, and above all, M. Lainé, are factious intriguers, devoted to England, to all my enemies, and corresponding, through the channel of the advocate Désege, with the Prince Regent, Return to your departments and feel that my eye will follow you; you have endeavored to humble me, you may kill me, but you shall not dishonor me. You make remonstrances; is this a time, when the stranger invades our provinces, and two hundred thousand Cossacks are ready to overflow our country? There may have been petty abuses; I never connived at them. You, M. Renouard, you said that Prince Massena robbed a man at Marseilles of his house. You lie! The general took possession of a vacant house, and my minister shall indemnify the proprietor. Is it thus that you dare affront a marshal of France who has bled for his country, and grown gray in victory? Why did you not make your complaints in secret to me? I would have
