“Historian Jean Tulard has… observ[ed] that “no period has given impetus to as large a number of memoirs as has the Consulate and Empire.” They began to appear under the next regime, the Restoration (1814–30), and to multiply under the subsequent regime, the July Monarchy (1830–48). Artisanal gave way to industrial production. Publishers hired teinturiers, or “dyers,” who added bright colors to the plain fabric of the narratives furnished by insufficiently literary authors. Sometimes the cloth had to be unraveled and rewoven again a little differently. Sometimes the publishers had to make the fabric for themselves in the first place. Ladvocat created a sort of memoir-factory, turning them out one after another. He employed a teinturier named Villemarest who produced at least three best-sellers, including the memoirs of Bourrienne.” -Metzner, Paul. Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill, and Self-Promotion in Paris during the Age of Revolution. Univ. of Calif., 1998. P.284

"Publiés en 1829, ces mémoires firent sensation. Ils ont été depuis cette date, constamment utilisés par les historiens de Napoléon, surtout pour la jeunesse de Bonaparte. Ils appellent pourtant de graves réserves. Ils auraient été composés sous le ministère Martignac, après l'élimination de Bourrienne de la vie politique. En réalité, selon Méneval qui connaissait bien Bourrienne, celui-ci victime d'embarras financiers et déjà malade, a simplement consenti ' à couvrir de l'authorité de son nom des mémoires à la composition desquels il n'a coopéré que par des notes confuses, incomplètes, pièces que des hommes de lettres furent chargés de mettre en oeuvre '. Ces rédacteurs ont dû suppléer à l'insuffisance de ces notes par leurs propres recherches et à l'aide de documents qui leur ont été fournis par l'éditeur Ladvocat. Ainsi la célèbre bataille de boules de neige à Brienne a-t-elle été empruntée, non aux souvenirs de Bourrienne, mais à la traduction française par Bourgoing d'une brochure anonyme anglais, "Quelques notions sur les premières années de Bonaparte." D'autres emprunts proviennent de Salgues (Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France). Certains documents, comme la lettre de Christine (sic) Bonaparte, semblent apocryphes." -Nouvelle Bibliographie Critique des Mémoires sur l'Époque Napoléonienne... by Jean Tulard (Droz, 1991)

My rough translation:

"Published in 1829, these memoirs created a sensation. Since that time they have been used constantly by the historians of Napoleon, especially for the youth of Bonaparte. They however call for serious reservations. They would have been composed under the Martignac ministry, after the elimination of Bourrienne from political life. Actually, according to Méneval who knew Bourrienne well, this victim of financial embarrassments and already ill, simply agreed 'to lend the authority of his name to the memoirs, the composition of which he cooperated only by supplying the confused notes, incomplete, that men of letters were hired to use.' These writers had to compensate for the insufficiency of these notes by their own research and using documents which were provided to them by Ladvocat, the editor. Thus the celebrated battle of the snowballs at Brienne was borrowed, not from the memoirs of Bourrienne, but from the French translation by Bourgoing of an English anonymous pamphlet, "Quelques notions sur les premières années de Bonaparte." Other borrowings came from Salgues ("Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France"). Certain documents, such as the letter of Christine (sic) Bonaparte, seem apocryphal."