Bonaparte grew more and more angry as he became aware, from moment to moment, that something was amiss with himself. He had thought to rule public opinion, but here was public opinion escaping from his hold. He had been ruled himself by it in the outset of his career, I am certain, and he had gained no credit by that; so he resolved that never again would he be so mistaken. It will seem strange, to those who do not know how utterly the wearing of a uniform destroys the habit of thinking, that not the slightest uneasiness was felt on this occasion with respect to the army. Military men do everything by word of command, and they abstain from opinions which are not prescribed to them. Very few officers remembered then that they had fought and conquered under Moreau, and the bourgeoisie was much more excited about the affair than any other class.
The Polignacs, M. de Rivière, and some others were arrested. Then the public began to think there really was some truth in the story of the conspiracy, and that the plot was a Royalist one. Nevertheless, the Republican party still demanded Moreau. The nobility were alarmed and kept very quiet; they condemned the imprudence of the Polignacs, who have since acknowledged that they were not seconded with so much zeal as they had been led to expect. The error into which they fell, and to which the Royalist party was always prone, was that they believed in the existence of what they desired, and acted upon their illusions. This is a mistake common to men who are led by their passions or by their vanity.
I suffered a great deal at this time. At the Tuileries the First Consul was moody and silent, his wife was frequently in tears, his family were angry; his sister exasperated him by her violent way of talking. In society opinions were divided: on the one hand were distrust, suspicion, indignant satisfaction; on the other, regret that the attempt had failed and passionate condemnation. All these contentions distracted and upset me. I shut myself up with my mother and my husband; we questioned one another about all that we heard and everything that we respectively thought. M. de Rémusat’s steady rectitude of mind was grieved by the errors which were perpetrated; and, as his judgment was quite uninfluenced by passion, he began to dread the future, and imparted to me his sagacious and melancholy prevision of a character which he studied closely and silently. His apprehensions distressed me; the doubts which were springing up in my own mind rendered me very unhappy. Alas! the moment was drawing near when I was to be far more painfully enlightened.
CHAPTER V
FTER the arrests which I have already recorded, there appeared in the “Moniteur” certain articles from the “Morning Chronicle,” in which it was stated that the death of Bonaparte and the restoration of Louis XVIII. were imminent. It was added that persons newly arrived from London affirmed that speculation upon these eventualities was rife on the Stock Exchange, and that Georges Cadoudal, Pichegru, and Moreau were named openly there. In the same “Moniteur” appeared a letter from an Englishman to Bonaparte, whom he addressed as “Monsieur Consul.” The purport of this letter was to recommend, as specially applicable to Bonaparte, a pamphlet written in Cromwell’s time, which tended to prove that persons such as Cromwell and himself could not be assassinated, because there was no crime in killing a dangerous animal or a tyrant. “To kill is not to assassinate in such cases,” said the pamphlet; “the difference is great.”
In France, however, addresses from all the towns and from all the regiments, and pastorals by all the Bishops, complimenting the First Consul and congratulating France on the danger which had been escaped, were forwarded to Paris; and these documents were punctually inserted in the “Moniteur.”
At length, on the 29th of March, Georges Cadoudal was arrested in the Place de l’Odéon. He was in a cabriolet, and, perceiving that he was followed, he urged on his horse. A gendarme bravely caught the animal by the head, and was shot dead by Cadoudal; the cabriolet was, however, stopped, owing to the crowd which instantly collected at the noise of the pistol-shot, and Cadoudal was seized. Between sixty thousand and eighty thousand francs in notes were found on him, and given to the widow of the man whom he had killed. The newspapers stated that he acknowledged he had come to France for no other purpose than to assassinate Bonaparte; but I remember to have heard at the time that the prisoner, whose courage and firmness during the whole of the proceedings were unshaken, and who evinced great devotion to the house of Bourbon, steadily denied that there had ever been any purpose of assassination, while admitting that his intentions had been to attack the carriage of the First Consul, and to carry him off without harming him.
At this time the King of England (George III.) was taken seriously ill, and our Government reckoned upon his death to insure the retirement of Mr. Pitt from the ministry.