There had existed in the French army from the day when the empire was first proclaimed, a party of malcontents who still regarded Bonaparte as a usurper, and were only biding their time till it might be safe to deal a blow at him. Hitherto his career had been so uniformly successful that no opportunity had arisen. But secret societies, of which the Philadelphes was the best known, were at work all through the years of the Emperor’s reign: their one object was to be ready for a coup d’état when the favourable moment should arrive. The history of these associations is so obscure that it is impossible to estimate their strength at any given time—no trustworthy historian ever arose from their ranks to tell the story of their schemes, when lips were unsealed by the fall of Napoleon[331]. It is only by the sudden appearance of phenomena like Malet’s conspiracy of 1812, and the plot which we are now about to describe, that the reality of the existence of these secret societies is proved.
In the army of Portugal there was a group of officers who belonged to the band of the discontented, and were perfectly prepared to execute a pronunciamiento against the empire if the times and circumstances proved propitious. We know the names of four[332]: Donadieu, colonel of the 47th of the line; Lafitte, colonel of the 18th Dragoons; his brother, a captain in the same regiment, who was serving on Soult’s staff; and Argenton, another captain, who was adjutant of Lafitte’s regiment; two other plotters are hidden under the assumed names of ‘Dupont’ and ‘Garis,’ by which they were introduced to Wellesley. There were certainly other officers implicated, for it is inconceivable that six men could have planned an insurrection unless they were sure of a certain measure of support. At this moment they were carrying on an active propaganda of discontent, especially among the officers of Delaborde’s division and of Lahoussaye’s dragoons. There were many men who saw the full iniquity of the Spanish War, and were disgusted at finding themselves involved in it[333]. Others loathed the hanging and burning, the shooting of priests and women, the riding down of half-armed peasants, which had been their lot for the last two months. Still more were simply discontented at being lost in a remote corner of Europe, where glory and profit were both absent, and where ignominious death at the hands of the lurking ‘sniper’ or the midnight assassin came all too frequently—sometimes death accompanied by torture. It was three months since the army had received a mail from France; they might as well have been in Egypt or America, and they felt themselves forgotten by their master. In many a mind the question arose whether the game was worth playing: must they for ever persist in this wretched interminable campaign, in order that the Duke of Dalmatia might become a king, or even in order that the Emperor might be able to apply the Continental System in its full rigour to this land of brutish peasants and fanatical monks? A speedy return to France seemed the one thing desirable.
It is easy to understand that the conspirators found many sympathizers, so long as they confined themselves to setting forth the miseries of the campaign, and to criticizing the Marshal and the Emperor. But they erred when they took a general readiness to grumble for a sign that the army was ripe for revolt. However discontented the officers might be, there were very few of them who were prepared to engage in the game of high treason. The vast majority were still unable to dissociate the idea of the Emperor from the idea of France. It was only a few who could rise (or sink) to the conception of turning their arms against Bonaparte in order to free France from autocracy. This bore too close a resemblance to treachery to be palatable to men of honour. None save exalted Jacobins, or men of overweening ambition and few scruples, could contemplate the idea with patience. When we find that the plans of the conspirators included not merely a pronunciamiento, but the conclusion of a secret pact with the enemies in arms against them, we are driven to conclude that they belonged to the last-named of these classes—that their heads were turned with the grandiose notion of getting an army into their power and changing the fate of Europe.
The conspirators, observing the course of affairs at Oporto, were fully convinced that Soult would within a few days declare himself ‘King of Northern Lusitania.’ This act would produce an outburst of wrath in the army, and they hoped to turn the inevitable mutiny to their own profit. They intended to seize the Marshal, and then to make an appeal to the soldiery, not in the name of Napoleon but in that of France. They were also prepared to lay hands on any general who might attempt to assume command of the troops in the Emperor’s interest[334]. Donadieu and Lafitte had secured some of the officers of their own regiments, and believed that the men would follow them. The other corps, as they hoped, would be drawn away after them, and the cry of liberty and the promise of an instant return to France would lure the whole army into rebellion. So far the plot, though rash and hazardous, might conceivably have been carried out. But their next step was to be the issue of an appeal to Ney’s divisions and the other French troops in northern Spain to join them, and march upon the Pyrenees. Even though there were members of the secret societies scattered all through the army, it seems absolutely impossible to believe that they could have carried away with them into open revolt the whole of their companions. The movement of protest against Napoleon would have begun and ended with the 2nd Corps, if even it got so far as the initial pronunciamiento[335]. To be effective it would have required a strong backing in France, and the list of the leaders in that country, on whom the conspirators said that they relied for aid, does not give us a high opinion of the strength and organization of the plot. The persons named were the old Jacobin general Lecourbe, Macdonald who—though they did not know it—had just been taken back into favour by the Emperor, and Dupont, who was in prison and incapable for the moment of helping himself or any one else[336]. They also spoke of sending for Moreau from America, and placing him at the head of the whole movement. But it is clear that they were not in actual communication with the generals in France, much less with the exiled victor of Hohenlinden. The whole plan was ill-considered; it was the result of the intense irritation against Soult and Bonaparte felt by the officers of the army of Portugal, acting upon the disordered ambition of a knot of intriguers. Anger and vain self-confidence blinded them to the inadequacy of their resources.
It was a main condition of the projected outbreak that Soult’s position should be made impossible: the most favourable course of events, so the conspirators held, would be that he should persist in his monarchical ambitions and proclaim himself king. When he did so, the party loyal to Bonaparte among his officers would make an attempt—successful or unsuccessful—to seize his person. Chaos and civil strife within the army would result, and it was then that the conspirators intended to show their hand. It would seem that their Machiavellian foresight went so far that they proposed to wait till the Marshal should be imprisoned, or should find himself involved in hostilities with the Bonapartists, and then offer him the aid of their regiments, on condition that he should put himself at the head of the anti-imperialist movement. All this was too ingenious for practical work. But the next development of the plot was even more astonishing in its futile cunning.
The conspirators wished to draw the English commander at Lisbon into their scheme—it was Cradock whom they had in view, for Wellesley was in England when the plot began, and when it developed he had landed indeed, but his arrival was not known. The part which they had allotted to Cradock was twofold—he was to be asked to send secret advice to the Portuguese notables of the north, ordering them to feign an enthusiastic approval of Soult’s designs on the crown, and to join with all possible clamour in the demonstrations at Oporto. When this unexpected outburst of devotion to his person should be forthcoming, they supposed that the Marshal would not hesitate any longer to assume the crown. Then would follow civil strife and the desired opportunity for intervention by the conspirators. The second request which they intended to make was that Cradock should bring up the British army to the front, and place it so as to make it dangerous or impossible for Soult to force his way out of Portugal in the direction of the middle Douro and Salamanca. They suggested Villa Real in the Tras-os-Montes as a suitable position for him. Their idea in making this proposal was that the army would be filled with despair at seeing its best line of retreat cut off (that by Galicia was growing to be considered impossible), and would therefore be more incensed against Soult, and at the same time more inclined to secure safety by coming to a pact and agreement with the enemy[337].
The officer who volunteered for the dangerous task of going within the English lines was Captain Argenton, the adjutant of Lafitte’s regiment of dragoons. He was a vain, ready, plausible man, full of resources but destitute of firmness: his character is sufficiently shown by the fact that he ultimately wrecked the plot by his indiscretion in tampering with loyal Bonapartists, who delated him, and that when seized he betrayed the whole scheme to Soult in the hope of saving his life. Clearly he was deficient both in the caution and in the stoic courage required for a conspirator—successful or unsuccessful.
We must note that he started from the camp of Lahoussaye’s dragoons, near Amarante, on April 19, that he reached the French outposts on the Vouga and got into communication with Major Douglas, one of Beresford’s officers in the Portuguese service, on the twenty-first, finally, that at the invitation of Douglas and Beresford he came into Lisbon and reached that city on the twenty-fifth, just in time to meet the newly-landed Wellesley. The plot meanwhile stood still in his absence, for the Duke of Dalmatia did not take the overt step which would have given the plotters their opportunity—he refrained from accepting the crown which his Portuguese partisans were so continually pressing him to assume. Nothing decisive had occurred, when the situation was suddenly changed by the appearance of the British army upon the offensive on May 7[338].
N.B.—For some documents bearing on Argenton’s conspiracy see [Appendix] at the end of this volume.