[328] Napier’s conclusions as to Soult’s conduct are wholly warped by his strong predilection for the Marshal—which dated back to the time when the latter dealt kindly with his wounded brother on the day after Corunna. He understates Soult’s encouragement of the movement, and will have us believe that it was purely the work of the Portuguese. He omits all mention of Ricard’s circular, and finally suppresses all mention of Napoleon’s angry upbraidings except the following (ii. p. 75): ‘The Emperor wrote to Soult that the rumour had reached him, adding, with a delicate allusion to the Marshal’s previous services, “I remember nothing but Austerlitz.”’ Now it was not a rumour which had reached Schönbrunn, but a copy of Ricard’s circular, which the Emperor quotes verbatim. Therefore Napoleon was writing with tangible evidence, not with camp reports, to guide him. How far Napier’s sentence above gives a fair impression of the tone of the dispatch which I have reproduced, I leave the reader to judge. It was a surprise to myself when I put the two together. Once and for all, it must be remembered that Napier can never be trusted when Soult is in question—the Marshal’s intrigues, his greed, his shameful plundering of Andalusian churches, are all concealed.
[329] Fantin des Odoards, p. 220.
[330] So writes Naylies, of Lahoussaye’s dragoons, who, being absent at Amarante and elsewhere, never saw the doings in Oporto: ‘Il s’est répandu dans l’armée qu’il aspirait à la souveraineté du pays: on en conçut d’abord quelques inquiétudes, qui furent bientôt dissipées’ (p. 119).
[331] Charles Nodier’s Histoire des conspirations militaires sous l’Empire is unfortunately quite untrustworthy. He was never among the Philadelphes, and writes as a credulous and ill-informed outsider. Nevertheless there is a basis of fact underlying his work.
[332] The names of Argenton, Lafitte, and Donadieu are public property. Napier gives them, as does Bigarré. The names of ‘Dupont’ and ‘Garis’ are in suppressed paragraphs of the Wellington Dispatches which Gurwood chose to omit, and are also found in the minutes of Argenton’s trial at Paris.
[333] The reader may trace this feeling in Foy’s diaries, and Naylies (p. 67).
[334] Napier and Le Noble both hint that Loison was in the plot, and perhaps Delaborde, though they do not actually name these officers. But I think that their innocence is proved by Argenton’s declaration to Wellesley (Wellesley to Castlereagh, May 7, Record Office), that Loison was attached to Bonaparte, and would certainly seize Soult if he proclaimed himself king for ‘ambitious abuse of his authority and disobedience to his master.’
[335] This, at the time, was Wellesley’s eminently sensible conclusion. He wrote to Castlereagh on April 27, ‘I doubt whether it will be quite so easy as their emissary thinks to carry their intentions into execution: I also doubt whether it follows that the successful revolt of this one corps would be followed by that of others, and I am convinced that the method proposed by M. D’Argenton would not answer that purpose.’ Wellington Dispatches, iv. 276.
[336] These are the names omitted in the printed version of the Wellington Dispatches: that of Moreau does not occur there, but is to be found in the confession which Argenton made to Soult: see Le Noble, p. 236.
[337] It must be remembered that the whole plot was far advanced, and that Argenton had placed himself in treasonable communication with the British, before Wellesley landed. Sir Arthur came ashore on the night of April 22. On the morning of the twenty-fifth, he received a visit from Beresford, who came down from Coimbra to tell him that a French officer, bearing the message of the conspirators, had come within the Portuguese lines on the Vouga on the twenty-first. Argenton arrived at Lisbon the same night, and had his first interview with the new commander-in-chief, whom he found in charge of the British army, and not (as he had expected) Sir John Cradock. The three requests made were (1) that Wellesley would ‘press upon Soult’s Corps’—the seizure of Villa Real being suggested, (2) that he would give passports to Argenton and two others to go to France, (3) that he would stir up the Portuguese to flatter and deceive Soult into taking overt steps of treason. Cf. Wellington Dispatches, iv. 274 [Lisbon, April 27] and 308 [Coimbra, May 7].