à ma barbe, "under my nose," "before my very eyes."
Moreau (1763-1813), "the greatest general of the French republic after Napoleon and Hoche," after winning the great victory of Hohenlinden, December, 1800, intrigued against Napoleon, and was forced to leave France in 1804. He continued his scheming while in exile, and in 1813, while serving in the Russian army, he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Dresden. But before leaving France he, or more probably his ambitious wife, had gathered all the elements of discontent with the self-seeking of Napoleon into a cabal called the club Moreau, of which these fugitive compagnons may be supposed to be members, for the club was relentlessly suppressed by Napoleon.
98 (quatre-vingt-dix-huit). 1804 (mil huit cent quatre). These are not the dates indicated, [p. 46], or [p. 47]. 1804 is not douze ans après (p. 47) either 1798 or 1799. Then, too, '98 was a comparatively quiet year in Vendée. On the other hand the countess would have been, as she says (p. 46), then fourteen if she was thirty-three ([p. 7]) in 1817.
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