He was French Consul-General at Warsaw, was seized at the mansion of the French Embassy in that capital, about the end of the
he was surrounded with Poles, who had taken refuge in France, to labour for the restoration of their country. Bonneau, from being French Ambassador at Warsaw, became, I may say, Polish Ambassador to the French republic. He shared the counsels, projects, and hopes of the Polish emigrants. On the occasion of the foundation of the Polish Legions, he wrote to General Dombrowski as follows: “What sensitive heart, what man who can appreciate the illustrious and valiant nation, worthy of a happier lot, does not share with me the same sentiments? Living for a long time amongst you, I have enjoyed the advantage of being able to appreciate you more highly, because I have been able to know you better. Your nation did too great honour to herself in falling, her existence becomes too necessary to Europe to be forgotten. Accept my best wishes in that respect, and share the hope which animates me.” He speaks with the same warmth in his letter addressed in 1798 to General Bernadotte, then the Ambassador of the French republic at the court of Vienna. “I thought, indeed, that among the interests intrusted at this moment to your care, those of unhappy Poland, so important in themselves, and in respect to the general system,
