[238] "I shall make two observations on this passage: 1st, I am persuaded that this conspiracy was the work of the Jacobin faction, who always laid in wait to profit by every favourable occasion. This opinion is confirmed by many of the avowals which escaped Fouché in his memoirs. 2dly, The fallacy of the sentiment attributed by Sir Walter Scott to the notion with respect to Napoleon, is proved by the slight success of this conspiracy, when he was not only absent, but as well as his armies, at so considerable a distance from France; it is also proved by his return from the island of Elba, in the month of March, 1815. I think that all those who would after this deny the attachment of the nation to the Emperor, would also deny the light of day."—Louis Buonaparte, p. 86.
[239] "A secret society in the army, whose immediate object it was to overthrow the Imperial power, and whose ultimate purposes were not perhaps known to themselves. Their founder was Colonel Jacques Joseph Odet, a Swiss, at once a debauchee and an enthusiast, on the plan of his countryman Rousseau. He was shot the night before the battle of Wagram, not, as his followers alleged, by a party of Austrians, but by gendarmes, commissioned for that purpose. His sect continued to subsist, and Massena did not escape suspicions of being implicated in its intrigues. There was a communication in their name to Lord Wellington, in May 1809; but the negotiation was not of a character which the British general chose to encourage."—Southey's Peninsular War, vol. ii., p. 303.—S.
[240] Savary, tom. iii., pp. 13, 32; Fouché, tom. ii., pp. 109, 116.
[241] "Mallet died with great sang froid, carrying with him the secret of one of the boldest coups-de-main which the grand epocha of our Revolution bequeaths to history."—Fouché, tom. ii., p. 115.
[242] The Memoirs of Fouché contain a specific averment to this effect.—S.
[243] Moniteur, Dec. 21, 1812; Fouché, tom. ii., p. 120.
[244] He obtained a pension on the restoration of Louis XVIII., with the title of honorary counsellor, which he had forfeited in July, 1815, in consequence of having accepted, during the Hundred Days, the situation of Prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhone. He died in 1828.
[245] "I knew Pius the Seventh from the time of his journey to Paris in 1804, and from that period until his death I never ceased to receive from the venerable Pontiff marks, not of benevolence only, but even of confidence and affection. Since the year 1814 I have resided at Rome: I have often had occasion to see him, and I can affirm, that in many of my interviews with his holiness, he assured me that he was treated by Napoleon, in every personal respect, as he could have wished. These are his very words:—'Personalmente non ho avuto di che dolermi; non ho mai mancato di nulla; la mia persona fu sempre rispettata e trattata in modo da non potermi lagnare.' 'I had nothing to complain of personally; I wanted for nothing; my person was always respected, and treated in a way to afford me no ground of complaint.'"—Louis Buonaparte.
[246] See Moniteur, Feb. 15, 1813.
[247] Moniteur, 27th January, 1813. On the 24th, Napoleon wrote thus to his sister, the Queen of Naples:—"Your husband quitted the army on the 16th. He is a brave man in the field of battle; but he is more cowardly than a woman or a monk when not in presence of the enemy. He has no moral courage."—Baron Fain, Manuscript de, 1813, tom. i., p. 90.