The Last days of the Consulate ... Edited, with an introduction, by M. L. Lalanne

Appendix

. PAGE I. LETTER FROM GENERAL MOREAU TO THE MINISTER OF WAR (berthier) . . . . . -32 3 II. LETTER FROM NAPOLEON TO THE GRAND JUDGE CONCERNING THE PARDON OF ARMAND DE POLIGNAC 325 III. THE SUBSEQUENT FATE OF THE PARDONED OR ACQUITTED PRISONERS

INTRODUCTION.

. The manuscript which I have been fortunately enabled to present to the public has a singular history. Some years ago, Madame Tangier, the niece of M. Arago, deputed me to offer Condorcet's papers, which had come into her possession on the decease of her uncle, to the library of the Institute. Those papers had been given by Madame O'Connor, the only daughter of the famous Girondist, to M. Arago, when he was preparing an edition of Condor cet's works and composing his panegyric. In the process of classifying and arranging the numerous and very interesting packets, I met with an anony mous manuscript, without any general title, and whose subject bore no relation to the papers with which it was tied up. This manuscript, consisting of several copy-books, octavo size, together with separate sheets, notes, fragments, and extracts from newspapers of the year 1804, was divided into four chapters.

The first was entitled " Historical sketch of the events which preceded and foreshadowed the destruction of the Republic, dating from the 1st Brumaire ;" the second, " Notes on the principal events of the English con spiracy prior to the arrest of Moreau ;" the fourth, which was the most extensive, and, unfortunately, Lntroductioti. VI unfinished," An historical picture of the trial of Georges and Moreau." I may mention, that Georges Cadoudal was known among the royalist party by his Christian name only ; his letters and orders were signed General Georges. The third chapter was missing ; a few frag ments and notes indicated that it had never been written, and that it was to have treated of the death of the Due d'Enghien, the royalist plot, and the creation of the Empire. The mention of Admiral Bruix, who died on the 25th of March, 1805, as still living, enabled me to assign a date to the manuscript.

Here, then, was a history, not constructed, like so many histories, after the facts, either from distant and sometimes unfaithful recollections, or from second-hand docu ments ; but a history written at the very moment of the occurrences which it recorded. The reading of this manuscript made a vivid im pression upon me. The generous sentiments that pervaded it, the vigour of style, the elevation of ideas, the correctness of views which it revealed, struck me all the more forcibly, because I did not know of the existence of any analogous document of the same epoch, one in which the freedom of the press and individual liberty no longer existed, liberty of the tribunal was about to be suppressed, and when " the Great Nation " was reduced to the rare and too often lying communications which the Government deigned to make through the medium of newspapers entirely in its own hands.

I have said that the work was anonymous. Nothing in its contents enabled me to discover its author, who never appeared upon the scene ; it was, however, evident that he belonged to that elite section of Introduction. VII Parisian society who would, perhaps, have been im pelled by their dislike and weariness of the Directory to accept the 18th Brumaire, if, as he says, " Bona parte had been prudent enough to take away from the French only that portion of liberty whose loss they were not capable of feeling or regretting," but who could not be resigned to see most of the precious things that had been won by the Revolution perish with the Republic, and who were enabled to preserve, and at a later period to revive the liberal traditions of the generation of '89. The handwriting was small, regular, and elegant ; among other characteristic marks, the formation of the letter / rendered it easily recognizable.

Notwithstanding all my researches among manuscripts, I had never met with this par ticular handwriting anywhere, and I had almost relinquished the hope of clearing up the mystery, when an entirely unforeseen circumstance dispelled it. In 1883, after the death of the learned orientalist, M. Mohl, and that of his wife, (Miss Clarke,) the library of the Institute was put in possession of the papers of an intimate friend of theirs, whom Sainte-Beuve ** called "one of the most original masters of the present time, an eminent critic, most ingenious and sagacious," and of whom M. Renan2 wrote that he was "indis putably the man of our age who has put in circu lation most ideas, inaugurated most branches of study, and traced out most new results in the order of historical investigation." I speak of Claude Fauriel, born at Saint-Etienne in 1772, died in 1844, member '"Portraits Contemporains," 1846, vol. ii. pp. 512 and 536. 3 Revue des Deux Mondes, 15th December, 1855, p. 1389.

Introduction. VIII of the Academy of Inscriptions, and professor of foreign literature at the Sorbonne. Being charged with the arrangement of this mass of correspondence, notes, drafts, and fragments, I had already examined a score of boxes without having my attention arrested by anything,3 when I came upon a page dating from the writer's youth, and in a hand entirely different from that of the documents which I had already inspected. It was the draft of a letter which he had addressed to his friend Villers in 1803. At the first glance I recognized so striking a resemblance, or, I should say, such complete identity with the writing of the manuscript, that doubt was not possible. Letter and manu script came from the same hand, from the hand of Fauriel. Then arose the questions, how did this manuscript come to be among the papers of the Condorcet family? how had Fauriel, whose life seemed to have been devoted solely to the study of the history and literature of the past/ been led to write this narrative of contemporary events ? lastly, why had he not finished and published it ?

I am about to offer a brief explanation of these points. For many years an unbroken intimacy had subsisted between Fauriel and Madame de Condorcet. At * My attention had, however, been awakened by an observation of M. St. Charavay, the skilful expert in autographs, to whom 1 had shown the manuscript. After a long examination he thought he recognized in it something of Fauriel's handwriting. 4 His principal publications, " Chants populaires de la Grece moderne," 1824; "Histoire de la Gaulc Meridionale," 1836; " Histoire de la Croisade contre les Albigeois," 1837; " Histoire de la Literature Provencale,'' 1846. Introduction. IX the death of the latter, in September, 1822,5 they were still living in the same house, and their books and papers were in common like their existence. The manuscript, either because it was for gotten, or for some other cause, remained in the hands of Madame O'Connor, Condorcet's daughter, and by that circuitous route reached the library of the Institute.

Fauriel, an ardent student, but a slow writer, " always recoiled,*" as M. Renan says, " from the painful toil of composition." 6 Only the indignation aroused in him by the melancholy spectacle of violence, baseness, and false hood daily before his eyes, could tear him away from his favourite tasks ; the irresistible longing to exhale his profound grief for lost liberty was needed to do that/ He was also impelled by the remembrance of what 5 On the 1 2th of September, 1822, M. Guizot wrote to Fauriel in reference to the death of Madame de Condorcet, " My poor friend, 1 did not hear until yesterday of the blow that has fallen upon you. 1 went to look for you at your own house, and at Cousin's. I was far from anticipating this misfortune ; for some days past, on the contrary. I was easy, so that we did not send each day for news.

My wife shares all my feelings, and wishes me to assure you that she does so. Adieu, my dear friend, I embrace you with a very sad heart." 6 " Do not wear yourself out," wrote M. Guizot to him on the 15th of August, 1818, "in incessantly beginning over again what is very well done. You pass your life in sacrificing action tc the hope of perfection, and the result is that while you satisfy yourself in seeking after the better, nobody profits by the good which you have found." " I find the following passage in a letter addressed to him in 1800, by his friend Dr. Panset, " What 1 your grief is not yet subdued 1 Your regrets are still as keen as ever, and yon cannot accustom yourself to the things of this world. . . . You have not yet attained to the calm that is lent by despair. . . . All is a continuity among men, as it is in the laws of nature, Introduction.

X he had witnessed during more than two years. After having been a sub-lieutenant in the army of the Eastern Pyrenees, and secretary to Dugommier (1793), he became, through I know not what influence, secretary to Fouche, the Minister of Police. He resigned his post in May, 1802, notwithstanding the urgent entreaty of his patron.8 He had flattered himself with the hope that the regime which he so heartily detested would not last long ; he must have discovered his mistake very quickly ; discouragement ensued, and he returned to his cherished studies in history and literature.no longer caring to finish a work which, he felt, was foredoomed not to see the light. Besides, had he finished it, he would have taken good care not to publish it under the Restoration. The royalists would have applauded his virulent attacks upon Bonaparte, and he, having always remained faithful to his republican convictions,1 would never have consented to furnish arms to the enemies of the Revolution.

The patriots, on the other hand, would have been much displeased at his warm defence of Moreau, who had made so miserable an end. It must also be added that after the death of Madame de Condorcet the manuscript was no longer in his possession, and that he may have thought it was lost. When he began to draw up this narrative, Fauriel was, as he says himself, so circumstanced, " that he. and when great injustices are practised with impunity in our wretched species, 1 defy you to say whether the culprit or the witness is to be condemned the most." This letter and those of M. Guizot are preserved in the library of the Institute. 8 " You are mad," he said ; " this is the very time to stay where you are. We are coming in." " Sainte-Beuve," p. 492. 1 See " Sainte-Beuve," p. 489. Introduction. XI could not know everything, and to inform himself of the truth was perhaps the greatest of all dangers next to telling it."

While seeking the most exact information possible, he had to avoid the slightest imprudence which, with the network of espionage in which Parisian society was surrounded by the Im perial regime, would inevitably have brought the police upon him ; thus he had confided his project and communicated his manuscript to only a few trustworthy persons whose opinion might be of use to him. Among these confidants I think I may include in the very first line with Madame de Con dorcet, Madame de Stael,2 and Benjamin Constant,3 whose joint political relations and literary tastes made it easy for them to supply him with valuable informa tion and give him useful advice. He received very numerous remarks from them, both verbally and in writing, which he has jotted down on the margin ; sometimes there are additions confirmatory of the statements in the text, or indications of facts omitted or requiring development ; 4 sometimes corrections of 2 Madame de Condorcet's circle was as hostile to the Con sular Government as that of Madame de Stael.

"All that," said Bonaparte, at the end of a discussion with Admiral Truquet, "does to talk of at Madame de Condorcet's or Mailla garat's." " Mdmoires sur le Consulat," 1827, p. 34. 3 On certain pages of the fourth chapter there are some notes written in pencil, and traced over in ink, which are not in Fauriel's hand. The large, loose writing resembles, and most probably is, that of Benjamin Constant. * These indications are in many instances very brief ; one, which 1 have not retained, contains only these words, " Queen Matilda's Tapestry," and I had some trouble to make out their meaning. " Queen Matilda's Tapestry " was the name of a play (piece de circonstance), written to order for the Government, apropos of the famous project of the invasion of England. Its authors were Barre\ Radot, and Desfontaines, and it was acted from the 23rd Nivose to the 23rd Germinal, year XII., that is to say, for two months and a half.

Introduction. style, but very rarely rectifications. I have repro duced only the most important of the annotations, and have taken care to distinguish them from my own by the words, " marginal note " Whoever his confidants were, they kept his secret so faithfully that not one of the friends who survived him appear to have heard of this work, which exhibits his ability in quite a new light ; not a word of allusion to it occurs in the numerous letters of his correspondents which I have had in my hands. The first chapter, " Historical sketch of tse events which preceded and foreshadowed the destruction of the Republic, dating from the 18th Brumaire," is a document of great merit. I do not think that so firm a hand has yet depicted the political situation of France, the disposition of men's minds after " that famous day, of which almost all those who had co-operated in it repented themselves on the morrow," and the tortuous manœuvres of Bona parte to attain that supreme power which, from this time forth, Fauriel's sagacity had foreseen would be fatal to liberty, " without securing to France the sole good of an enslaved people, repose."

I wish parti cularly to point out the picture of the sitting of the Senate in which the prolongation of the Consulate to twenty years was voted, whereupon Bonaparte, in order to elude that vote, had recourse to a plebis citum to get himself named Consul for life, " knowing how easy it is to make the exercise of the national sovereignty by an already enslaved people only a further resource for tyranny, and an additional mockery of liberty." A profound truth, which we Introduction. XIII too, like our fathers, have learned at our own ex pense. The second chapter, very modestly entitled "Notes on the principal events of the English conspiracy prior to the arrest of Moreau," contains a number of highly interesting facts and views. After having related the results of the rupture with England, Fauriel describes in a very striking manner the state of the parties into which the nation was divided ; the Royalists, the Jacobins, " who thought they loved and recognized liberty because they were ready to revolt against tyranny," and finally, the Republicans, who, like the others, were without leaders, but who might have found support in the Senate and the army.

Valuable details of the organization of the police are succeeded by a narrative (rather too diffuse, perhaps,) of the exploits of a miserable schemer, named Mehee, who, in concert with Bonaparte, contrived to mystify both the English Government and the Royalist party in an extraordinary way. Then the author relates the origin and development of the conspiracy of Georges Cadoudal and Pichegru, and the manœuvres of the police to compromise Moreau, the only man whose influence and popularity the First Consul had to dread 5 0 Bonaparte hastened to apprise the generals in command of the different corps of Moreau's arrest. On the 29th Pluviose, he writes to General Soult that Moreau "had decided on making Pichegru come to Paris, where he had seen him four times, and also Georges." These four visits to Georges are reduced to two in a letter written on the same day to General Davoust (" Correspondance de Napoleon I.," vol. ix. pp. 305, 321).

Every word in the letter to Soult is a falsehood. Not only had Moreau nothing to do with Pichegru's return, but he was so little known to Georges that the latter, when they were Introduction. In the last pages of this chapter, when he is just about to begin a narrative in which " the striking scenes, the unlooked-for catastrophes which abound in history will not be wanting," Fauriel dwells upon the difficulties of writing contemporary history, the many obstacles to the just discernment of truth, that present themselves, and he concludes with the following sentence, which depicts the sincerity of the historian : " After all possible care has been taken to preserve myself from errors, only one duty will remain for me to fulfil, that will be to make known the motives or the feeling by which my judgment on the facts shall have been dictated, so that those who will not have shared my feelings and my ideas may see the cause of my errors, and deduce, as they think fit, other consequences from the same facts."

I have previously said that the third chapter was not written, and I ask leave to add a few words to the pages which I have had to put together in order to connect the preceding with the following chapter. The archives of the Prefecture of Police, from whence 1 have derived several interesting particulars,6 would, no doubt, have supplied more than one concerning the Due d'Enghien, had not the two boxes containing the documents relating to it, been taken away, by order, thirty years ago, in spite of the strong opposition of the keeper of the archives, who was well aware that he should never see them again. One sad detail was imparted to us. There still remained among the confined in the Temple, begged a gendarme to point out the general to him. 6 I beg to offer my best thanks to M. Charpentier in the first place, and secondly to M. Abel Peyret, his successor, for the assistance which they rendered me in my researches.

Introduction. XV papers a ring which the unhappy prince had entrusted to one of the persons present at his execution, to be transmitted, with a lock of his hair and a letter, to the Princesse de Rohan/ The remembrance of this assassination hung heavily over the whole life of Napoleon. He said, on seeing General Hull in, who had presided at the court martial, " His presence annoys me. I don't like what he recalls to me." Afterwards at St. Helena, he con stantly reverted to the topic, now trying to excuse himself, and again declaring, as he did in his will, that "under similar circumstances he would do the same again," and this time he was certainly sincere, because he had never formerly concealed that the death of the prince and the trial of Moreau " had served him in the accomplishment of the work he had planned long before ;" but where he did not tell the truth was in uttering the following sentence, recorded in the "Memorial de Sainte-Helene :" "As for the different oppositions (sic) with which I met, and the numerous solicitations that were addressed to me, as report said at the time, nothing is more false.

These things have been invented only to render me more odious." Nothing is more false I9, I find the following in a report by a peace officer named Chabanety_. from which I have given an extract elsewhere. " Politicians are endeavouring to interpret the motives of Senator Lucien's journey. They quote ' " Savary, who was present at the execution, showed these three articles to Madame Bonaparte. I do not know whether the last behests of the unfortunate prince were fulfilled." '• Memoires de Madame de R^musat," vol i. p. 33. 8 See Madame de Rdmusat on the intervention of Josephine. Introduction. XVI as its decisive cause an anecdote concerning the senator and his brother the First Consul. When the Commission of Vincennes reported against the Due d'Enghien, Lucien went to the First Consul, and asked him how he meant to decide upon the fate of the young man ? ' As policy decides,' was the answer of the First Consul.

Lucien, regarding these words as a sentence of death, instantly drew out of his pocket a valuable watch, flung it on the ground, and trod it to pieces, saying to the First Consul, 'Very well, one day you will be broken to pieces like that.'" On the 1st of April, 1804, eleven days after this scene, only a part of which the police-agent relates to us, Lucien, being exiled, quitted Paris to establish himself at Rome.1 From the beginning of the trial to which the name of Moreau lent so much importance both at home and abroad, the Government took the utmost pains to keep back from the public as much as possible of what was parsing in the court. The people had to be satisfied with what they could learn from the mutilated and perverted reports sent by authority to the newspapers, which were not permitted to insert any others.3 The sentence was no sooner pronounced than an order was issued by Dubois, Prefect of Police, for bidding the sale or distribution of any writings re lating to the condemned persons.

Hence we may 1 See " Lucien et les Memoires," by M. Young, on the subject of his departure from Paris. ** From letters preserved at the archives of the Prefecture of Police, it was Citizen Bouchesiche, the head of the fifth division, who was employed to make these communications to the news papers. Introduction. XVII understand how great is the interest of the fourth and last chapters, in which Fauriel, in relating the proceedings at some of the sittings, brings to light certain odious deeds which seem to have passed into oblivion, and which M. Thiers, actuated by his excessive indulgence for the men and things of the Empire, has not thought proper to mention. Un fortunately he has not been content with keeping silence upon the iniquities committed in the instruc tion,3 and the cruelties inflicted not only upon the accused, but upon witnesses, in order to extract avowals or revelations from them.4 In consequence of his having neglected to consult the official publications, he has departed so widely from the truth in a certain passage that I cannot refrain from reconstructing it.

The reader will peruse the dramatic scene in which Louis Picot, the servant of Georges, aroused the indignation of the spectators by displaying his hands mutilated by torture, and the " Proces " contains the address of his advocate, who exclaimed, without fear of contradiction or challenge, 3 The following may be added to the facts pointed out by Fauriel. Caron, one of the accused, who was acquitted, had been placed in a dungeon at the Abbaye twenty feet under ground. " They have made me suffer," he said to the judges, " all that it is possible to suffer " (" Proces," vol. iv. p. 218). I have found a touching letter from the woman Verdot to the Prefect of Police, in the box labelled Repertoire de Pieces Di verses, among the Cadoudal documents. She tells him that she is in the second month of pregnancy, fed on bread and water, without sufficient clothing, and unable to rest in consequence of the cold.

She prays only that she may be released from the • secret'' detention. She fell so ill that she could not be brought to trial ; besides, she would have been acquitted like her husband. * See "Proems," vol. vii. p. 216. a Introduction. XVIII "Who could ever believe that among a people, for merly jealous of its rights to the point of fury, the personal liberty of citizens should have fallen into such contempt, that Picot has been subjected to treatment such as even in Rome was inflicted only upon the meanest slaves?" Now, M. Thiers says: " At first, Picot would not say anything, but after wards he was by degrees induced to speak. ... He was questioned anew, and by pulling much gentle ness into it, they ended by bringing him to an entire openness." Let not, however, these cruelties be im puted — as the advocate imputed them with an intention easily understood — to the zeal of some subordinate agent.5 No, they were commanded by the supreme heads of justice, an! the responsibility for them attaches to a still more exalted personage. *" What you have ordered with respect to the accused man, Picot, has been executed," writes Theuriot, the instructing judge, to Real, the assistant of the Grand Judge.

" He has borne it all with criminal resignat'on. He is hardened in crime and fanaticism. I have left him to-day to his sufferings and his solitude. I will have the work begun again to-morrow. He has Georges' secret, and he must give it up"6 I should have supposed that Fauriel was carried away too far by his o-'-n feelings when he says that the strange declaration made by Bouvet de Lozier, in circum stances still more strange, was torn from him by tor- 5 " Who knows to what an extent the daring of a few sub ordinates may be carried in the darkness of the prisons?" " Proces." 6 See Cretineau-Joly, "Histoire de la Vendee Militaire," 1842, vol. iv. p. 185. Introduction. XIX ture, if I had not found the following characteristic sentence in a report addressed to Bonaparte, by Dubois: " Bouvet de Lozier has persisted in his declarations, but it is certain that he will be brought to positive avowals." ' By what means ?

The gentle processes adopted in Picot's case enable us to guess. Among other facts of which M.Thiers has neglected to speak, there is one that I am absolutely obliged to refer to, in order to give its true complexion to the prosecution instituted against Moreau. The accusation of conspiracy allowed Bonaparte to gratify his private malice and to strike at generals who had had " the easy misfortune to displease him," and against whom, otherwise, not the smallest grievance could be found. General Souham 8 and his wife were arrested, " suspected," says the warrant for their arrest, " of con spiracy against the State with Generals Pichegr", Moreau, and the brigand Georges." Generals Ramel * and Liebert met with the same fate, and in the trial there was no more question of them than of the officers attached to Moreau's person, and imprisoned almost as soon as he ' The most ill-treated among them was young Normant/ whose intelligence and 7 Archives of the Prefecture of Police, box labelled Surveil lance des barrieres.

Liasse des interrogatoires pour le P.C. 8 He commanded a division of the army of Brest ; he was made, or allowed, to come to Paris, and arrested at the barrier. 9 General Ramel was assassinated at Toulouse, in 1815. He was treated with the utmost severity. He had received a severe wound at St. Domingo, which was still unhealed, and he was obliged to write to the Prefect of Police to complain that it had not been dressed for thirty-six hours. 1 Among others, Captain de la Chasse de Perigny, his aide de-camp. ** J. F. Gaspard Normant, born at Nantes in 1774; he had been a deputy to the Council of the Five Hundred. a Introduction. XX loyalty ate lauded by Fauriel. On the day of his arrest (26th Pluviose) Dubois wrote to the First Consul, " His papers have been examined with the greatest care, and contain only newspapers and memo randa relating to the armies of the Rhine and Italy.

He has declared that he has no intimate relations except with Generals Moreau, Bernadotte, and Mac donald. At the moment of his arrest he indulged in violent language against the Government and its actions. He uttered a pompous eulogy of Moreau, and said that it was an honour to him to share what he called his proscription." The violent language and the pompous eulogy were net forgiven. When Normant recovered his liberty after a detention of more than four months, he was struck off the roll of the army, and that of the Legion of Honour, of which he was an officer. On one point, however, Fauriel and M. Thiers are in unison ; it is when they speak of the agitation, the trouble, and the consternation which reigned in Par's during the pursuit of the conspirators. Bonaparte, who knew so well how to " Faire taire la loi dans le bruit des alarmes," left nothing undone to spread terror amid the population.

The continual movement of troops inside the city, closed gates, sentinels posted along the walls at distances of fifty feet, and shooting "brigands," who were probably inoffensive citizens, arrests, searches, and domiciliary visits made everywhere, at all hours, and upon the slightest accusations, recalled the worst days of the Terror to the inhabitants of Paris. At the moment of the trial, the ferment, especially in the Introduction. XXI army, was intense. The Prefect of Police received threatening or ironical letters every day ; placards in manuscript were posted every night.3 One bore the anagram of Bonaparte, " Nabot a peur." Another, " Rope of honour awarded to the brave men who have distinguished themselves by the arrest of Georges ;" a third, " Moreau innocent ; the friend of the people, and the father of the soldiers in chains !