It may be expected that something should be here said, upon the chances which Britain would have had of defending herself successfully against the army of invaders. We are willing to acknowledge that the risk must have been dreadful; and that Buonaparte, with his genius and his army, must have inflicted severe calamities upon a country which had so long enjoyed the blessings of peace. But the people were unanimous in their purpose of defence, and their forces composed of materials to which Buonaparte did more justice when he came to be better acquainted with them. Of the three British nations, the English have since shown themselves possessed of the same steady valour which won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt, Blenheim and Minden—the Irish have not lost the fiery enthusiasm which has distinguished them in all the countries of Europe—nor have the Scots degenerated from the stubborn courage with which their ancestors, for two thousand years, maintained their independence against a superior enemy. Even if London had been lost, we would not, under so great a calamity, have despaired of the freedom of the country; for the war would, in all probability, have assumed that popular and national character which, sooner or later, wears out an invading army. Neither does the confidence with which Buonaparte affirms the conviction of his winning the first battle, appear so certainly well-founded. This, at least, we know, that the resolution of the country was fully bent up to the hazard; and those who remember the period will bear us witness, that the desire that the French would make the attempt, was a general feeling through all classes, because they had every reason to hope that the issue might be such as for ever to silence the threat of invasion.[44]
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Disaffection begins to arise against Napoleon among the Soldiery—Purpose of setting up Moreau against him—Character of Moreau—Causes of his Estrangement from Buonaparte—Pichegru—The Duke d'Enghien—Georges Cadoudal, Pichegru, and other Royalists, landed in France—Desperate Enterprise of Georges—Defeated—Arrest of Moreau—of Pichegru—and Georges—Captain Wright—Duke d'Enghien seized at Strasburg—Hurried to Paris—Transferred to Vincennes—Tried by a Military Commission—Condemned—and Executed—Universal Horror of France and Europe—Buonaparte's Vindication of his Conduct—His Defence considered—Pichegru found dead in his Prison—Attempt to explain his Death by charging him with Suicide—Captain Wright found with his Throat cut—A similar Attempt made—Georges and other Conspirators Tried—Condemned—and Executed—Royalists Silenced—Moreau sent into Exile.
DISAFFECTION OF THE SOLDIERY.
While Buonaparte was meditating the regeneration of Europe, by means of conquering, first Britain, and then the northern powers, a course of opposition to his government, and disaffection to his person, was beginning to arise even among the soldiers themselves. The acquisition of the consulate for life was naturally considered as a deathblow to the Republic; and to that name many of the principal officers of the army, who had advanced themselves to promotion by means of the Revolution, still held a grateful attachment. The dissatisfaction of these military men was the more natural, as some of them might see in Buonaparte nothing more than a successful adventurer, who had raised himself high above the heads of his comrades, and now exacted their homage. As soldiers, they quickly passed from murmurs to threats; and at a festive meeting, which was prolonged beyond the limits of sobriety, a colonel of hussars proposed himself as the Brutus to remove this new Cæsar. Being expert at the use of the pistol, he undertook to hit his mark at fifty yards distance, during one of those reviews which were perpetually taking place in presence of the first consul. The affair became known to the police, but was hushed up as much as possible by the address of Fouché, who saw that Buonaparte might be prejudiced by the bare act of making public that such a thing had been agitated, however unthinkingly.[45]
The discontent spread wide, and was secretly augmented by the agents of the house of Bourbon; and, besides the constitutional Opposition, whose voice was at times heard in the Legislative Body and the Tribunate, there existed malecontents without doors, composed of two parties, one of whom considered Buonaparte as the enemy of public liberty, whilst the other regarded him as the sole obstacle to the restoration of the Bourbons; and the most eager partisans of both began to meditate on the practicability of removing him by any means, the most violent and the most secret not excepted. Those among the furious Republicans, or enthusiastic Royalists, who entertained such sentiments, excused them, doubtless, to their conscience, by Napoleon's having destroyed the liberties, and usurped the supreme authority, of the country; thus palliating the complexion of a crime which can never be vindicated.
These zealots, however, bore no proportion to the great body of Frenchmen, who, displeased with the usurpation of Buonaparte, and disposed to overthrow it, if possible, held themselves yet obliged to refrain from all crooked and indirect practices against his life. Proposing to destroy his power in the same way in which it had been built, the first and most necessary task of the discontented party was to find some military chief, whose reputation might bear to be balanced against that of Napoleon; and no one could claim such distinction excepting Moreau. If his campaigns were inferior to those of his great rival in the lightning-like brilliancy and celerity of their operations, and in the boldness of combination on which they were founded, they were executed at smaller loss to his troops, and were less calculated to expose him to disastrous consequences if they chanced to miscarry. Moreau was no less celebrated for his retreat through the defiles of the Black Forest, in 1796, than for the splendid and decisive victory of Hohenlinden.
Moreau's natural temper was mild, gentle, and accessible to persuasion—a man of great abilities certainly, but scarcely displaying the bold and decisive character which he ought to possess, who, in such times as we write of, aspires to place himself at the head of a faction in the state. Indeed, it rather would seem that he was forced into that situation of eminence by the influence of general opinion, joined to concurring circumstances, than that he deliberately aspired to place himself there. He was the son of a lawyer of Bretagne,[46] and in every respect a man who had risen by the Revolution. He was not, therefore, naturally inclined towards the Bourbons; yet when Pichegru's communications with the exiled family in 1795 became known to him by the correspondence which he intercepted, Moreau kept the secret until some months after,[47] when Pichegru had, with the rest of his party, fallen under the Revolution of 18th Fructidor, which installed the Directory of Barras, Reubel, and La Raveillière. After this period, Moreau's marriage with a lady[48] who entertained sentiments favourable to the Bourbons, seems to have gone some length in deciding his own political opinions.