The Recollections of Constant, Valet to the Emperor Napoleon Volume 1: 1790 - 1809

Valet to the Emperor Napoleon

"Attached to the person of the Emperor Napoleon for fifteen years, I have seen all the men, and witnessed all the important events, which centred around him. I have seen far more than that; for I have had under my eyes all the circumstances of his life, the least as well as the greatest, the most secret as well as those which are known to history, -I have had, I repeat, incessantly under my eyes the man whose name, solitary and alone, fills the most glorious pages of our history. Fifteen years I followed him in his travels and his campaigns, was at his court, and saw him in the privacy of his family. Whatever step he wished to take, whatever order he gave, it was necessarily very difficult for the Emperor not to admit me, even though involuntarily, into his confidence; so that without desiring it, I have more than once found myself in the possession of secrets I should have preferred not to know. What wonderful things happened during those fifteen years! I had been an eye-witness, had seen everything, and could say, 'I was there.'"