Bonaparte then dictated to his friend Junot as follows:
“To the representatives Salicetti and Albitte:
“You have deprived me of my functions, you have arrested me and declared me suspected.
“I am, then, ruined without being condemned; or else, which is much more correct, I am condemned without being heard.
“In a revolutionary state exist two classes: the suspected and the patriots.
“When those of the first class are accused, they are treated as the common law of safety provides.
“The oppression of those of the second class is the ruin of public liberty. The judge must condemn only after mature deliberation, and when a series of unimpeachable facts reaches the guilty.
“To denounce a patriot as guilty is a condemnation which deprives him of what is most dear—confidence and esteem.
“In which class am I to be ranked?
“Have I not been, since the beginning of the revolution, faithful to its principles?