It was while she was going from the bedside of her mortally afflicted son to her brother's prison, that they came to arrest her first-born. An appalling situation for any mother. To make matters worse, poor Theodore died. He was eighteen years old, charming and handsome. I was desolated to hear of his death, for I was very fond of him. These dreadful misfortunes which, one after another, assailed my mother, impelled those who were my father's true friends to exert themselves on her behalf. A leading figure among them was M. Defermon, who worked almost daily with the First Consul, and who rarely failed to intercede for Adolphe and his widowed mother. Eventually, General Bonaparte said to him one day, that although he had a low opinion of Bernadotte's common sense, he did not believe that he was so lacking in judgement that in conspiring against the government, he would take into his confidence a twenty-one year old lieutenant; and besides that, General Simon had stated that it was he and Commandant Foucart who had put the proclamations in young Marbot's carriage, so that, if he was to blame at all, it was only to a very small extent. However, he, the First Consul, was not willing to release the aide-de-camp until Bernadotte came in person to ask him to do so.
When she heard of this decision taken by the First Consul, my mother hastened to Bernadotte's house and begged him to take the necessary step. He promised solemnly to do but the days and weeks rolled past without him doing anything. Eventually, he said to my mother, "What you are asKing of me will be extremely painful, but no matter, I owe this to the memory of your husband, as well as to the interest I have in your children. I shall go this very evening to see the First Consul and I shall call at your house after leaving the Tuileries. I am certain I shall be able to announce the release of your son."
One can imagine with what impatience my mother waited during this long day! Every coach she heard made her heart beat. But at last it struck eleven o'clock and Bernadotte had not appeared. My mother then went round to his house, and what do you suppose she was told?….That General Bernadotte and his wife had left, to take the waters at Plombieres, and would not be back for two months! In spite of his promises, Bernadotte had left Paris without seeing the First Consul. Devastated, my mother wrote to General Bonaparte. M. Defermon, who undertook to deliver the letter, was so indignant at the conduct of General Bernadotte that he could not resist telling the First Consul how he had behaved toward us. "That," said the First Consul, "is the sort of thing I would expect!"
M. Defermon, Generals Mortier, Lefebvre and Murat then urged that my brother should be freed; observing that if he had been unaware of the conspiracy, it was unjust to keep him in prison, and even if he had known something about it, he could not be expected to carry tales about Bernadotte, whose aide-de-camp he was. This reasoning impressed the First Consul, who set my brother at liberty and sent him to Cherbourg, to join the 49th Line regiment, as he did not wish him to continue as aide-de-camp to Bernadotte.
Bonaparte, who had a very long memory, probably had engraved, somewhere in his head, the words, "Marbot. Aide-de-camp of Bernadotte. Conspiracy of Rennes." So my brother was never again looked on with favour, and some time later he was sent to Pondichery.
Adolphe had spent a month in prison; Commandant Foucart was there for a year. He was cashiered and ordered to leave France. He took refuge in Holland, where he lived miserably for thirty years on earnings from French lessons, which he was reduced to giving, as he had no personal fortune.
At last, in 1832, he thought to return to his native country, and during the siege of Anvers I saw, one day, come into my room, a sort of elderly schoolmaster, very threadbare; it was Foucart, I recognised him. He told me that he did not have a brass farthing! While I offered him some assistance, I could not help reflecting on the bizarre workings of fate. Here was a man who in 1802 was already a battalion commander, and whose courage and ability would have certainly carried him to the rank of general, if Colonel Pinoteau had not decided to shave at the moment when the conspiracy of Rennes was due to come to a head. I took Foucart to Marshal Gerard, who also remembered him, and together we presented him to the Duc d'Orleans, who gave him a job in his library, at a salary of 2400 francs. He lived there for fifteen years.
As for General Simon and Colonel Pinoteau, they were imprisoned in the Isle de Re for five or six years. Eventually, Bonaparte, having become Emperor, set them free. Pinoteau had been vegetating for some time in Rufec, his birthplace, when, in 1808, the Emperor, who was on his way to Spain, having stopped there to change horses, Pinoteau presented himself boldly before him and requested to be re-engaged in military service. The Emperor, who knew that he was an excellent officer, then placed him in command of a regiment, which he led faultlessly throughout the wars in Spain, so that after several campaigns, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general.
General Simon also returned to military service. He was in command of an infantry brigade in Massena's army when we invaded Portugal. At the battle of Busaco, where Massena made the mistake of mounting a frontal attack on the Duke of Wellington's army, which was in position on the heights of a mountain with a very difficult approach, Poor Simon, wishing, no doubt, to redeem himself and to make up for the time he had lost towards promotion, charged bravely at the head of his brigade, overcame every obstacle, clambered up the rocks under a hail of bullets, broke through the English line and was first into the enemy entrenchments. But, there, a bullet fired at close range shattered his jaw at the moment when the English second line drove back our troops, who were thrown down into the valley with considerable losses. The enemy found the unfortunate general lying in the redout among the dead and dying. His face was hardly recognisable as human. Wellington treated him with much respect, and as soon as he could be moved, he sent him to England as a prisoner of war. He was later permitted to return to France. But his terrible injury barred him from any further service. The Emperor gave him a pension, and one heard no more of him.
Chap. 18.