Note 113 — SECTION XXXIV: CHAPTER IV
Reading edition
Deprez, travelling with great speed, reached Paris and interviewed Clarke on September 21. The Minister, who was no friend of Soult’s, told him that neither he himself nor the King could dare to depose the Marshal without the Emperor’s permission. Deprez then posted on to Moscow, and overtook the Emperor there on October 18. Napoleon in his reply practically ignored the quarrel, contented himself with administering a general scolding to all parties, and directed them to ‘unite, and diminish as far as possible the evils that a bad system had caused.’ But who had inaugurated the system? He himself!