BOURRIENNE. LOUIS ANTOINE FAL'VELET DE, the secretary and early friend of Napoleon I., was b. at Sens, 9th July, 1769, and received his education in the military school at Brienne, where he formed the closest intimacy with the future emperor. He became, in 1792. secretary to the embassy at Stuttgart. Deprived of this office by the breaking out of war, he lived for some time a rather retired life, until, in 1797, his former school-fellow appointed him his secretary. He accompanied him to Egypt and to Italy, and in 1801 was nominated a councilor of state. In 1802 he was dismissed from his office, for being implicated in the dishonorable bankruptcy of the house of Coulon, army-contractors; but in 1805 he was appointed ambassador to the states of the Circle of Lower Saxony. and in this capacity resided long at Hamburg. His tendency to peculation, however, necessitated his return to France, where he had to refund 1,000,000 francs into the public treasury. He now decidedly joined the party which sought the overthrow of the emperor and the restoration of the Bourbons. He was treated with little consideration by them during the first restoration, yet he followed Louis XVIII. in his flight to the Netherlands upon Napoleon's return, and upon the
sceond restoration was hanored with the title of a minister of state. As deputy from the department of Yonne in 1815 and 1821, he showed his weakness of character by oppos ing all liberal measures, and even institutions for the promotion of science and popular education. The revolution of 1830, and the loss of his fortune (occasioned by extrava gance), caused his reason to give way, and he died in a lunatic asylum at Caen, 7th Feb., 1834. His Memoirs concerning Napoleon, the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Restoration (Memoires our Napoleon., etc.,10 yobs., Par. 1829), gave many new explanations of his events of the time, but were declared by contemporaries to be in many respects untrustworthy. See the article BOULAY DE LA MEURTRE. The work, however, is one which must always constitute an important part of the materials of history. A work entitled Histoire de Bonaparte par an Honme qui lie l'a pas quitti depuis 15 Arts, has been erroneously ascribed to him.