[pg.454] The same trick was tried on Stuart, our ambassador at Vienna, who had a tempting offer from a French agent to furnish news from every French despatch to or from Vienna. Stuart had closed with the offer, when suddenly the man was seized at the instance of the French ambassador, and his papers were searched.[[291]] In this case there were none that compromised Stuart, and his career was not cut short in the ignominious manner that befell Drake, over whom there may be inscribed as epitaph the warning which Talleyrand gave to young aspirants—"et surtout pas trop de zèle."
Thus, while the royalists were conspiring the overthrow of Napoleon, he through his agents was countermining their clumsy approach to his citadel, and prepared to blow them sky high when their mines were crowded for the final rush. The royalist plans matured slowly owing to changes which need not be noticed. Georges Cadoudal quitted London, and landed at Biville, a smuggler's haunt not far from Dieppe, on August 23rd, 1803. Thence he made his way to Paris, and spent some months in striving to enlist trusty recruits. It has been stated that the plot never aimed at assassination, but at the overpowering of the First Consul's escort, and the seizure of his person, during one of his journeys. Then he was to be forcibly transferred to the northern coast on relays of horses, and hurried over to England.[[292]] But, though the plotters threw the veil of decency over their enterprise by calling it kidnapping, they undoubtedly meant murder. Among Drake's papers there is a hint that the royalist emissaries were at first to speak only of the seizure and deportation of the First Consul.
Whatever may have been their precise aims, they were certainly known to Napoleon and his police. On November 1st, 1803, he wrote to Régnier:[pg.455]
"You must not be in a hurry about the arrests: when the author [Méhée] has given in all the information, we will draw up a plan with him, and will see what is to be done. I wish him to write to Drake, and, in order to make him trustful, inform him that, before the great blow can be dealt, he believes he [Méhée] can promise to have seized on the table of the First Consul, in his secret room, notes written in his own hand relating to his great expedition, and every other important document."
Napoleon revelled in the details of his plan for hoisting the engineers with their own petards.[[293]] But he knew full well that the plot, when fully ripe, would yield far more than the capture of a few Chouans. He must wait until Moreau was implicated. The man selected by the émigrés to sound Moreau was Pichegru, and this choice was the sole instance of common sense displayed by them. It was Pichegru who had marked out the future fortune of Moreau in the campaign of 1793, and yet he had seemed to be the victim of that general's gross ingratitude at Fructidor. Who then so fitted as he to approach the victor of Hohenlinden? Through a priest named David and General Lajolais, an interview was arranged; and shortly after Pichegru's arrival in France, these warriors furtively clasped hands in the capital which had so often resounded with their praises (January, 1804). They met three or four times, and cleared away some of the misunderstandings of the past. But he would have nothing to do with Georges, and when Pichegru mooted the overthrow of Bonaparte and the restoration of the Bourbons, he firmly warned him: "Do with Bonaparte what you will, but do not ask me to put a Bourbon in his place."
From this resolve Moreau never receded. But his calculating reserve did not save him. Already several suspects had been imprisoned in Normandy. At Napoleon's suggestion five of them were condemned to death,[pg.456] in the hope of extorting a confession; and the last a man named Querelle, gratified his gaolers by revealing (February 14th) not only the lodging of Georges in Paris, but the intention of other conspirators, among whom was a French prince, to land at Biville. The plot was now coming to a head, and so was the counter-plot. On the next day Moreau was arrested by order of Napoleon, who feigned the utmost grief and surprise at seeing the victor of Hohenlinden mixed up with royalist assassins in the pay of England.[[294]]
Elated by this success, and hoping to catch the Comte d'Artois himself, Napoleon forthwith despatched to that cliff one of his most crafty and devoted servants, Savary, who commanded the gendarmerie d'élite. Tricked out in suitable disguises, and informed by a smuggler as to the royalist signals, Savary eagerly awaited the royal quarry, and when Captain Wright's vessel hove in sight, he used his utmost arts to imitate the signals that invited a landing. But the crew were not to be lured to shore; and after fruitless endeavours he returned to Paris—in time to take part in the murder of the Duc d'Enghien.
Meanwhile the police were on the tracks of Pichegru and Georges. On the last day of February the general was seized in bed in the house of a treacherous friend: but not until the gates of Paris had been closed, and domiciliary visits made, was Georges taken, and then only after a desperate affray (March 9th). The arrest of the two Polignacs and the Marquis de Rivière speedily followed.
Hitherto Napoleon had completely outwitted his foes. He knew well enough that he was in no danger.
"I have run no real risks," he wrote to Melzi, "for the police had its eyes on all these machinations, and I have the consolation of not finding reason to complain of a single man[pg.457] among all those I have placed in this huge administration, Moreau stands alone." [[295]]