5. An indemnity of £10,000 for his losses at Boulogne, to enable him to take a house suitable to his rank, such as he had in France.
6. A sum of £50,000 in payment of his notes and plans (i.e. his treachery).
He also asked to be appointed a Secretary or Aide-de-camp to Lord Wellington. The Government altogether gave him £3,000, and he returned to France at the Restoration. In his book he speaks highly of the English, and defends Captain Woodriff from the charges of embezzlement. But the most scathing exposure was by one of high rank and a long name—Paul Maximilian Casimir de Quellen de Stuer de Caussade de la Vauguyon, Prince de Careney. He was a proscribed Royalist, and his French editor calls him “A Frenchman, as distinguished by birth, as by the nobleness and independence of his character, and who has thoroughly studied the country which these writers have feebly pretended to pourtray, is desirous to evince his gratitude to the generous nation which has provided him an asylum, at the same time that it has preserved to the French their King and their Princes. He has thought it his duty to vindicate the truth which has been wantonly outraged.”
The following short extracts show his method of dealing with M. Pillet’s accusations:
“When he does not fear to state, that ‘a hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen have been killed, in the midst of tortures,’ in the British possessions, he states what is impossible, since the total number of the prisoners of war did not amount to above one hundred thousand, and more than eighty thousand Frenchmen were restored to liberty and to their country after the return of the French King to his dominions.
“The nourishment of the prisoners of war was neither so scanty nor so inferior in quality as M. Pillet sets forth, a crowd of Frenchmen, returned from England, attest this. It is from their authority that we speak.
“The clothing given to the prisoners was of excellent stuff, many persons in France wear it to this day; and if some Commissary’s wife or clerk did turn a few ells of it to their own use, is that any reason to accuse the Transport Board and all England of robbery, per fas et per ne fas?”
He also deals with the alleged malpractices of Captain Woodriff, whom Pillet even hints acted with the connivance of the English Government.
“Have we not seen General Warne, at Verdun, in France, blow his brains out, after having employed the funds, destined for the English prisoners, to his own private purposes, because he saw it was impossible to conceal that prevarication, and to account for his proceedings?”
After dealing in detail with many of Pillet’s reckless assertions, he finishes with the following summary:
“M. Pillet observes a profound silence upon all these occurrences, yet they are perfectly within his knowledge, and he himself laboured to organise the general rising of the prisoners! M. Pillet complains bitterly of the numberless sufferings which he underwent at Norman Cross and Bishops Waltham; but he does not mention that he broke his parole of honour; or that placed on board of a pontoon (hulk), the consequence of this violation of his parole, some English Officers consented nevertheless to answer for him, and by them he obtained a security, although he had forfeited his parole.”
A pamphlet—Aperçu du traitement qu’éprouvent les prisonniers de guerre français en Angleterre (Lettre écrite par le Colonel Lebetre, Paris, 1800)—has been quoted by former writers as evidence of the maltreatment by the English, and on the other hand the assertions have been contradicted. Unfortunately, the copy of the brochure in the British Museum was, with some other French pamphlets, accidentally burned about fifty years ago by a fire in the book-binders’ department, and no other copy is accessible. So that the opinion that Col. Lebetre’s accusations were unjustifiable and self-contradictory can only be given second-hand.