THE INFERNAL MACHINE.
A horrible invention, first hatched, it is said, by the Jacobins,[603] was adopted by certain Royalists of a low description, remarkable as actors in the wars of the Chouans, of whom the leaders were named Carbon and St. Regent. It was a machine consisting of a barrel of gunpowder, placed on a cart to which it was strongly secured, and charged with grape-shot so disposed around the barrel, as to be dispersed in every direction by the explosion. The fire was to be communicated by a slow match. It was the purpose of the conspirators, undeterred by the indiscriminate slaughter which such a discharge must occasion, to place the machine in the street through which the first consul was to go to the opera, having contrived that it should explode, exactly as his carriage should pass the spot; and, strange to say, this stratagem, which seemed as uncertain as it was atrocious, was within a hair's-breadth of success.
On the evening of the 24th December, 1800, Buonaparte has informed us, that though he himself felt a strong desire to remain at home, his wife and one or two intimate friends insisted that he should go to the opera. He was slumbering under a canopy when they awaked him. One brought his hat, another his sword. He was in a manner forced into his carriage, where he again slumbered and was dreaming of the danger which he had escaped in an attempt to pass the river Tagliamento some years before. On a sudden he awaked amidst thunder and flame.[604]
The cart bearing the engine, which was placed in the street St. Nicaise, intercepted the progress of the chief consul's coach, which passed it with some difficulty. St. Regent had fired the match at the appointed instant; but the coachman, who chanced to be somewhat intoxicated, driving unusually fast, the carriage had passed the machine two seconds before the explosion took place; and that almost imperceptible fraction of time was enough to save the life which was aimed at. The explosion was terrible. Two or three houses were greatly damaged—twenty persons killed, and about fifty-three wounded; among the latter was the incendiary St. Regent. The report was heard several leagues from Paris. Buonaparte instantly exclaimed to Lannes and Bessières, who were in the carriage, "We are blown up!" The attendants would have stopped the coach, but with more presence of mind he commanded them to drive on, and arrived in safety at the opera;[605] his coachman during the whole time never discovering what had happened, but conceiving the consul had only received a salute of artillery.[606]
A public officer, escaped from such a peril, became an object of yet deeper interest than formerly to the citizens in general; and the reception of the consul at the opera, and elsewhere, was more enthusiastic than ever. Relief was ostentatiously distributed amongst the wounded, and the relatives of the slain; and every one, shocked with the wild atrocity of such a reckless plot, became, while they execrated the perpetrators, attached in proportion to the object of their cruelty. A disappointed conspiracy always adds strength to the government against which it is directed; and Buonaparte did not fail to push this advantage to the uttermost.
Notwithstanding that the infernal machine (for so it was not unappropriately termed) had in fact been managed by the hands of Royalists, the first suspicion fell on the Republicans; and Buonaparte took the opportunity, before the public were undeceived on the subject, of dealing that party a blow, from the effects of which they did not recover during his reign. An arbitrary decree of the Senate was asked and readily obtained for the transportation beyond seas of nearly one hundred and thirty of the chiefs of the broken faction of the Jacobins, among whom were several names which belonged to the celebrated Reign of Terror, and had figured in the rolls of the National Convention. These men were so generally hated, as connected with the atrocious scenes during the reign of Robespierre, that the unpopularity of their characters excused the irregularity of the proceedings against them, and their fate was viewed with complacency by many, and with indifference by all. In the end, the first consul became so persuaded of the political insignificance of these relics of Jacobinism, (who, in fact, were as harmless as the fragments of a bombshell after its explosion,) that the decree of deportation was never enforced against them; and Felix Lepelletier, Chaudieu, Talot, and their companions, were allowed to live obscurely in France, watched closely by the police, and under the condition that they should not venture to approach Paris.[607]
The actual conspirators were proceeded against with severity. Chevalier and Veycer, Jacobins, said to have constructed the original model of the infernal machine, were tried before a military commission, condemned to be shot, and suffered death accordingly.
Arena, Ceracchi, Topino-Lebrun, and Demerville, were tried before the ordinary court of criminal judicature, and condemned by the voice of a jury; although there was little evidence against them, save that of their accomplice Harel, by whom they had been betrayed. They also were executed.
At a later period, Carbon and St. Regent, Royalists, the agents in the actual attempt of 24th December, were also tried, condemned, and put to death. Some persons tried for the same offence were acquitted; and justice seems to have been distributed with an impartiality unusual in France since the Revolution.
But Buonaparte did not design that the consequences of these plots should end with the deaths of the wretches engaged in them. It afforded an opportunity not to be neglected to advance his principal object, which was the erection of France into a despotic kingdom, and the possessing himself of uncontrolled power over the lives, properties, thoughts, and opinions, of those who were born his fellow-subjects, and of whom the very meanest but lately boasted himself his equal. He has himself expressed his purpose respecting the Constitution of the year Eight, or Consular Government, in words dictated to General Gourgaud:—