Worlds Best Histories France Vol 7 by M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

M >> M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt >> Worlds Best Histories France Vol 7

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Europe was agitated and disquieted, still entrenched in its neutrality,
more or less malevolent, and terrified at the consequences it foresaw from
the renewal of the strife between France and England. "If General
Bonaparte does not accomplish the miracle that he is preparing at this
moment," said the Emperor of Germany, Francis II., "if he does not pass
the straits, he will throw himself upon us, and will fight England in
Germany." "You inspire too much fear in all the world, for it to dream now
of fearing England," cried Philippe de Cobentzel, ambassador of Austria at
Paris. It was upon this universal fear that the First Consul had counted.
Already his troops had invaded Hanover, without England thinking it
possible to defend the patrimonial domains of its sovereign. The
Hanoverian army did not attempt to resist: Marshal de Walmoden concluded
with General Mortier at Suhlingen a convention which permitted the former
to retire beyond the Elbe with arms and baggage, on condition of not
serving against France in the present war. These resolutions not having
been ratified by George III., the Hanoverian army was disbanded after
laying down its arms; 30,000 Frenchmen continued to occupy Hanover. The
uneasiness of Germany continued to increase. The Emperor of Russia offered
himself as mediator; the King of Prussia offered to arrange for the
neutrality of the north; but the First Consul remained deaf to these
advances. He sent Gouvion de Saint Cyr into the gulf of Tarento, formerly
evacuated after the peace of Amiens. The forces intended for this
expedition were to live at the expense of the kingdom of Naples. "I will
no more suffer the English in Italy than in Spain or Portugal," he had
said to Queen Caroline. "At the first act of complicity with England, war
will give me redress for your enmity."

The attitude of Spain was doubtful, and its language little satisfactory.
By the threat of invasion by Augereau, whose forces were already collected
at Bayonne, the First Consul acted on the disgraceful terrors of the
Prince de la Paix; he only exacted money from his powerless ally. As he
now found it impossible to occupy Louisiana, Bonaparte conceived the idea
of ceding it to the United States for a sum of 80,000,000 francs, which
the Americans hastened to pay. Holland was to furnish troops and vessels,
Etruria and Switzerland soldiers.

It was upon a maritime enterprise that the efforts and thoughts of the
First Consul were at this moment entirely concentrated. The attempt at an
invasion of England which the Directory had formerly wished to impose on
him, and which he had rejected with scorn on the eve of the campaign in
Egypt, had become the object of his most serious hopes. To throw 150,000
men into England on a calm day by means of a flotilla of flat-bottomed
boats, which should be rowed across whilst the great vessels of the
English navy would be immovable through the absence of wind--such was the
primitive conception of the enterprise. Bonaparte prepared for it with
that persevering activity, and that marvellous pre-arrangement of details
with a view to the entire plan, which he knew how constantly to carry out
in administration as in war. To the original project of the Directory he
had added more masterly combinations, which still remained secret. A
squadron was preparing at Brest, under the orders of Admiral Ganteaume;
the Dutch vessels, commanded by Admiral Verhuell, were collected at Texel;
Admiral Latouche-Treville, clever and daring, was to direct the squadron
of Toulon destined for a decisive manoeuvre. Admiral Brueix was entrusted
with the conduct of the flotilla of the Channel; everywhere boats had been
requisitioned, gun-boats and pinnaces were in course of construction; the
departments, the cities, the corporate bodies, offered gifts of vessels or
maritime provisions; the forests of the departments of the north fell
under the axe. Camps had been formed at Boulogne, at Etaples, at St. Omer;
fortifications rose along the coast; the First Consul undertook a journey
through the Flemish and Belgian departments, accompanied by Madame
Bonaparte and all the splendor of a royal household. The presence of the
Legate in the _cortege_ was to impress with respect and confidence the
minds of the devout populations of the north. The first point at which
Napoleon Bonaparte stayed his progress was at Boulogne; he pressed forward
the works, commenced, and ordered new ones. On his return from the
triumphal march to Brussels and back, he resumed himself the direction of
his great enterprise. Established in the little chateau of Pont de Briques
at the gate of Boulogne, he hastened over to St. Cloud, and returned, with
a rapidity which knew no fatigue. Without cessation, on the shore, in the
workshops, in the camps, he animated the sailors, the workmen, and the
soldiers with the indomitable activity of his soul. The minister of
marine, Decres, clever, penetrating, with a nature gloomy and mournful,
suggested all the difficulties of the expedition, and yielded to the
imperial will that dominated all France. Admiral Brueix, already ill, and
soon afterwards dying, was installed in a little house which overlooked
the sea, witnessing the frequent experiments tried on the new vessels,
sometimes even the little encounter that took place with the English
ships. The First Consul braved all inclemencies of weather; he was eager
"to play his great game." "I received your letter of the 18th Brumaire,"
wrote he to Cambaceres. "The sea continues to be very bad, and the rain to
fall in torrents. Yesterday I was on horseback or in a boat all day. That
is the same thing as telling you I was continually wet. At this season
nothing can be accomplished without braving the water. Fortunately for my
purpose, it suits me perfectly, and I was never better in health."

Already the night expeditions, intended to exercise the sailors and inure
the soldiers, had commenced; the ardor of the chief spread to the army. On
the 7th of January, 1804, the minister of marine wrote from Boulogne to
the First Consul: "In the flotilla they are beginning to believe firmly
that the departure will be more immediate than is generally supposed, and
they have promised to prepare seriously for it. They shake off all
thoughts of danger, and each man sees only Caesar and his fortunes. The
ideas of all the subalterns do not pass the limits of the roadstead and
its currents. They argue about the wind, and the anchorage, and the line
of bearing. As for the crossing, that is your affair. You know more about
it than they do, and your eyes are worth more than their telescopes. They
have implicit faith in everything that you do. The admiral himself is in
just the same condition. He has never presented you any plan, because in
fact he has none. Besides, you have not yet asked him for it; it will be
the moment of execution which will decide him. Very possibly he will be
obliged to sacrifice a hundred vessels to draw down the enemy upon them,
whilst the rest, setting out at the moment of the defeat of the others,
will go across without hindrance."

The First Consul, ceasingly watching the sea which protected his enemies,
wrote to Cambaceres on November 16th: "I have passed these three days in
the midst of the camp and the port. I have seen from the heights of
Ambleteuse the coasts of England, as one sees the Calvaire from the
Tuileries. You can distinguish the houses, and the movements going on. It
is a ditch, which shall be crossed as soon as we shall have the audacity
to attempt it."

So many preparations, pushed forward with such ardor, disquieted England.
The most illustrious of her naval officers--Nelson, Lord Cornwallis, and
Lord Keith--were ordered to blockade the French ports, and hinder the
return of distant squadrons. Everywhere corps of volunteers were formed,
and actively exercised on the coasts. Men of considerable note in the
political or legal world--Pitt and Addington, as well as the great lords
and the great judges--clothed themselves in uniform, and commanded
regiments. Pitt proposed to fortify London. Insurrectionary movements were
being fomented in Ireland; the French squadron at Brest was destined to
aid them.

In the midst of this warlike and patriotic agitation, it was only natural
that the excitement should gain a party, naturally restless and credulous.
The French emigrants could not but feel a desire for action, in the hope
of taking an active part in the general struggle waged against the enemy
who kept them far from their country by the very fact of his existence and
his power. The First Consul had offered an amnesty to all the emigrants,
restored their property to some, and attracted a certain number of them
round his own person; he had recalled the priests, and re-established the
Catholic religion; but he had repelled the advances of the House of
Bourbon. His hostility to the restoration of the monarchy had always been
flagrant; the throne might be re-erected, but it should be for his own
profit. He alone was the obstacle to the hopes cherished by the exiled
princes and their friends, in presence of the re-establishment of order
and the public prosperity. Delivered from his yoke, that pressed heavily
upon her, France would salute with enthusiasm the return of her legitimate
sovereign.

It was in England even, and amongst the circle that surrounded the Count
d'Artois, that expression was given to these hopes and ignorant illusions
as to the true state of men's minds in France. The Princes of the House of
Conde, recently enrolled with their little army in the service of England,
held themselves ready to fight, without conspiring. Louis XVIII. lived in
Germany, withdrawn from the centre of warlike preparations; he was cold,
sensible, and prudent; he thought little of plots, and had a healthier
judgment than his brother as to the chances which might restore his
fortune. The actual resources, the noisy agents of the emigration, were
collected in England: there were found the chiefs of the Chouans, with
Georges Cadoudal at their head; there dwelt the generals who had had the
misfortune to abandon their country or betray their honor--Willot,
Dumouriez, Pichegru; there were hatched chimerical projects, impressed
from the first with the fatal errors and the terrible ignorance which doom
to inevitable sterility the hopes and the efforts of exiles.

By his counsels, or his orders, Georges Cadoudal had taken part in the
plot which had been discovered in 1801. After the failure of the infernal
machine of St. Rejant he had felt regret, and some repugnance, for such
proceedings. He proposed to go to Paris, with twenty or twenty-five
resolute men, to attack the guard of the First Consul while he passed
along the street, and strike him in the midst of his defenders. In order
to profit by this bold stroke intrigues were to be carried on beforehand
with discontented generals, who might be able to dispose the forces
necessary for the sudden overthrow of the consular government. Bonaparte
dead, the Count d'Artois and his son the Duc de Berry, secretly brought
into France, would rally their friends round them, and proclaim the
restoration of the House of Bourbon.

Two principal actors were indispensable to the execution of the project;
Georges at Paris, unknown to the prying police of the First Consul; and
General Moreau, favorable to the fall of Bonaparte, if not to his
assassination. A nearly complete rupture had succeeded to the professed
regard which for a long time covered the secret jealousy of the First
Consul with respect to his glorious companion-in-arms. At the summit of
his power and glory, Napoleon Bonaparte was never exempt from a
recollection of rivalry with regard to the former chiefs of the republican
army, his old rivals, and who had not bowed before the prestige of his
recognized superiority. He liked neither Kleber, nor Massena, nor Gouvion
St. Cyr. As regards Moreau, he experienced a concealed uneasiness; it was
the only military name that had been mentioned as that of a possible
successor to himself. Wounded susceptibilities, and the quarrels of women,
had aggravated a situation naturally delicate and strained. Moreau was
spirited as well as modest; he felt himself injured; he dwelt in the
country, living in grand style, sought after by the discontented, and
speaking of Bonaparte without much reserve. The emigrant conspirators
believed that circumstances were favorable for engaging him in their
plans. General Pichegru had formerly been his friend. Moreau had long
concealed the proofs of the former treason; perhaps he regretted having
given them up at the moment of his comrade's just disgrace: he was known
to be favorable to the return of Pichegru to France. It was in the name of
Pichegru, and for his interests, that Moreau was to be approached. The
first agent sent to Moreau was soon arrested; he has said in his
"Memoires," "Moreau would have nothing to do with conspiracy, and said,
'he must cease to waste men and things.'" Other emissaries had no better
success. An active intriguer, General Lajolais, an old friend of Pichegru,
meanwhile left Paris for London; he repeated the bitter words of Moreau
respecting the First Consul--words which created illusions and hopes. On
the 21st August, 1803, Georges landed at the cliff of Biville, crossing
the rocks by the footpaths of smugglers. The police had for some time been
on the traces of the conspiracy: they were, perhaps, actively concerned in
it. A few Chouans, obscure companions of Cadoudal, were arrested and put
in prison, without their trial being proceeded with; their chief succeeded
in reaching Paris safely, where he hid himself. Two successive arrivals
completed the band of conspirators; on January 16th, 1804, General
Pichegru, the Marquis de la Riviere, Jules and Armand de Polignac, landed
in France. On the same day, and by a coincidence which suggests the idea
of a certain knowledge of the situation, the First Consul said in his
statement as to the condition of the republic,--

"The British Government will attempt to cast, and has perhaps already cast
upon our shores, a few of those monsters which it has nourished during the
peace, in order to injure the land which gave them birth. But they will no
longer find the impious bands who were the instruments of their first
crimes; terror has dissolved them, or justice has purged our country of
their presence. They will no longer find that credulity they abused, or
that hatred which once sharpened their daggers. Surrounded everywhere by
the public power, everywhere within the grasp of the tribunals, these
horrible wretches will be able henceforth neither to make rebels, nor to
resume with impunity their profession as brigands and assassins."

The conspirators succeeded in assuring themselves that, contrary to the
hopes of some English diplomatists, an insurrection was no longer possible
in Vendee or Brittany. Already a certain amount of discouragement was
influencing their minds as to the success of their perilous enterprise. At
their first interview, by night, on the Boulevard of La Madeleine, Moreau
showed himself cold towards Pichegru. Georges, who had accompanied the
latter, was dissatisfied and gloomy. "This looks bad," said he, at once.
The two generals conferred. Moreau displayed no repugnance towards the
overthrow of the First Consul; he would form no project of conspiracy, but
he believed himself sure of becoming the master of power if Bonaparte
happened to disappear; he was, and he remained, a republican. He
reproached Pichegru with being mixed up with men unworthy of him. The
general had more than once bitterly felt this. "You are with us (_avec
nous_)," the Chouans used to say to him. "No gentlemen," cried Pichegru,
one day; "I am in your company (_chez vous_)."

"Poor man!" said the conqueror of Holland, on quitting the conqueror of
Hohenlinden, "he also has his ambition, and wishes to have a turn at
governing France: he would not be its master for twenty-four hours."
Georges Cadoudal laughed scornfully; "Usurper for usurper! I love better
the one who is ruling now than this Moreau, who has neither heart nor
head!" The conspirators felt their danger. Their preliminary interviews
had led to no result; the murmurs of discontent had not developed into
serious promises, still less into effective actions. La Riviere lost hope
every day; the First Consul every day became better informed as to what
was going on.

He had recently suppressed the ministry of police; Fouche continued,
without authority, the profession which he had always practised with
enthusiasm; he informed Napoleon as to the result of his researches. The
latter had ardently cherished a hope of pursuing, and striking down at one
blow, enemies of diverse origin, dangerous on different accounts. Amongst
the Chouans arrested in the month of August, two had remained obstinately
silent, and had been shot; a third was less courageous. "I have secret
information which makes me believe that they only came here to assassinate
me," wrote Bonaparte to Cambaceres. Querelle revealed all he knew of the
plot; he named the place of disembarkation; General Savory was sent there
in disguise, ordered to wait for that arrival of a prince, as had been
promised to the conspirators. Already his doom was determined on in the
mind of the First Consul.

Fresh arrests had taken place in Paris, for a servant of Georges had given
information. One of his principal officers, Bouvet de Lozier, vainly
attempted to kill himself; rescued from death, he asked to see the chief
judge. Regnier sent in his place Real, the counsellor of state, more
penetrating and more clever than himself. It is supposed that the latter
was no stranger to the drawing up of the deposition of Bouvet, who
implicated General Moreau in the gravest manner. "Here is a man who comes
back from the gates of the tomb, still surrounded by the shadows of death,
who demands vengeance upon those who by their perfidy have thrown him and
his party into the abyss where they now find themselves. Sent to sustain
the cause of the Bourbons, he finds himself compelled either to fight for
Moreau, or to renounce an enterprise which was the sole object of his
mission. Monsieur was to pass into France, to put himself at the head of
the royalist party. Moreau promised to unite himself to the cause of the
Bourbons; the royalists arrived in France, and Moreau retracts. He
proposes to them to work for him, and to get him named Dictator. Hence the
hesitation, the dissension, and the almost total loss of the royalist
party. I know not what weight you will attach to the assertions of a man
snatched an hour ago from the death to which he had devoted himself, and
who sees before him the fate which an offended government has in reserve
for him. But I cannot withhold the cry of despair, or refrain from
attacking the man who has reduced me to this."

Real hastened to the Tuileries. The First Consul was less astonished than
himself; he was acquainted with the interviews of Moreau and Pichegru. He
was well aware that the opinions of Moreau were quite opposed to any
thought of monarchical restoration. The general returned to Paris, after a
visit to Grosbois, on the morning of the 15th of February; he was arrested
on the bridge of Charenton, and taken to the Temple. Lajolais was arrested
at the same time. The trial was directed to take place before the civil
tribunal of the Seine. Cambaceres had proposed a military commission.
"No," said the First Consul; "it would be said that I desire to
disembarrass myself of Moreau, and to get him judicially assassinated by
own creatures." The jury was chosen in the department of the Seine; a
report upon the causes of the arrest of Moreau was sent to the Senate, the
Corps Legislatif, and the Tribunate.

The commotion in Paris was great, and the public instinct was favorable to
General Moreau. The presumed accomplices of his crime had not yet fallen
into the hands of the government. People refused to believe him guilty, a
traitor to the opinions of a lifetime, and mixed up in a royalist
conspiracy. The attitude of the general was firm and calm. For a moment,
the First Consul conceived the idea of seeing him. "I pardon Moreau," said
he; "let him own everything to me, and I will forget the errors of a
foolish jealousy." General Lajolais had recounted the details of the
interviews of Moreau with Pichegru; the accused persisted in denying
everything. "Ah, well," replied Napoleon, "since he will not open with me,
it will be necessary for him to yield to justice." Anger broke forth, in
spite of the efforts of the First Consul to preserve the appearance of a
sorrowful justice. The brother of Moreau, was a member of the Tribunate;
he had loudly pleaded in favor of the accused. "I declare," cried he, "to
the assembly, to the entire nation, that my brother is innocent of the
atrocious crimes that are imputed to him. Let him be given the means of
justifying himself, and he will do so. I demand that he may be judged by
his natural judges," The president of the Tribunate dared to style the
accusation against Moreau a _denunciation_; the First Consul warmly
criticised this expression. "The greatness of the services rendered by
Moreau is not a sufficient motive for screening him from the rigor of the
laws," cried he. "There is no government in existence where a man by
reason of his past services may screen himself from the law, which ought
to have the same grasp on him as on the meanest individual. What! Moreau
is already guilty in the eyes of the highest powers of the State, and you
will not even consider him as accused!" "Paris and France have only one
sentiment, only one opinion," wrote he to Comte Melzi, vice-president of
the Italian Republic.

The pursuit had become rigorous. It was known that Pichegru and Georges
were hidden in Paris; the gates of the city were closed, egress by the
river watched by armed vessels. The Corps Legislatif voted a measure
condemning to death whoever should conceal the conspirators, to the number
of sixty. Whoever should be cognizant of them without denouncing them, was
liable to six years in irons. One night General Pichegru went to ask
asylum of Barbe-Marbois, formerly intendant of St. Domingo, transported,
like himself, to Sinnamari, and now become a minister of the First Consul.
Barbe-Marbois did not hesitate to receive him. When he avowed it
afterwards to Napoleon, the latter warmly congratulated him upon it.

A few days passed by; General Pichegru, shamefully betrayed by one of his
former officers, was arrested on the 28th of February, bravely resisting
the agents of the police. Georges, seized in the street on the 9th of
March, blew out the brains of the first gendarme who seized the bridle of
his horse. La Riviere and Polignac were also in prison. Moreau had given
up his system of absolute denials; at the prayer of his wife and his
friends he wrote to the First Consul, simply recounting his relations with
Pichegru, without asking pardon, and without denying the past
transactions, seeking to disengage his cause from the Royalist conspiracy
--less haughty, however, than he had till then appeared. Bonaparte had the
letter affixed to the process of the trial. He appeared moved at the
situation of Pichegru. "A fine end!" said he to Real: "A fine end for the
conqueror of Holland. It will not do for the men of the Revolution to
devour each other. I have long had a dream about Cayenne; it is the finest
country in the world for founding a colony. Pichegru has been proscribed,
as he knows; ask him how many men and how much money he wants to create a
great establishment; I will give them to him, and he will retrieve his
glory by rendering a service to France." The general did not reject the
proposition, but he persisted in his silence. "I will speak before the
tribunal," said he. Before the supreme day when the trial was about to
take place before human justice, Pichegru had appeared before a more
august tribunal; on the morning of the 6th of April he was found dead in
his bed, strangled, it was said, by his own hands.

The royalist conspirators at first proudly avowed the aim of their
enterprise. "What did you come to do in Paris?" asked the prefect of the
police of Georges Cadoudal. "I came to attack the First Consul." "What
were your means?" "I had as yet little enough; I counted on collecting
them." "Of what nature were your means of attack?" "By means of living
force." "Where did you count on finding this force?" "In all France." "And
what was your project?" "To put a Bourbon in the place of the First
Consul." "Had you many people with you?" "No, because I was not to attack
the First Consul until there was a French prince in Paris, and he has not
yet arrived."

This was the prince for whom General Savary had been, waiting in vain for
nearly a month on the cliff of Biville. The anger of the First Consul
continued to increase. "The Bourbons think they can get me killed like a
dog," said he. "My blood is worth more than theirs; I shall make no more
of their case than of Moreau or Pichegru; the first Bourbon prince who
falls into my hands, I will have shot remorselessly." The Comte d'Artois
and the Duc de Berry were announced, and did not arrive. Napoleon
stretched forth his arm to seize an innocent prince, whose misfortune it
was to be within his reach. On the 10th of March, 1804, he wrote to
General Berthier: "You will do well, citizen minister, to give orders to
General Ordener, whom I place at your disposal, to repair at night, by
post, to Strasburg. He will travel under another name than his own, and
see the general of division. The aim of his mission is to throw himself
upon Ettenheim, invest the city, and carry away from it the Duc d'Enghien,
Dumouriez, an English colonel, and any other individual who may be in
their suite. The general of division, the marshal of the barracks of
gendarmes, who has been to reconnoitre Ettenheim, as well as the
commissary of police, will give him all necessary information."