Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852. Various
conspiracy was now organized in London, by Count d'Artois and others of the French emigrants, upon a gigantic scale. Count de Lisle, afterward Louis XVIII., was then residing at Warsaw. The plot was communicated to him; but he repulsed it. The plan involved the expenditure of millions, which were furnished by the British government. Mr. Hammond, under secretary of state at London, and the English ministers at Hesse, at Stuttgard, and at Bavaria, all upon the confines of France, were in intimate communication with the disaffected in France, endeavoring to excite civil war. Three prominent French emigrants, the Princes of Condé, grandfather, son, and grandson, were then in the service and pay of Great Britain, with arms in their hands against their country, and ready to obey any call for active service. The grandson, the Duke d'Enghien, was in the duchy of Baden, awaiting on the banks of the Rhine, the signal for his march into France; and attracted to the village of Ettenheim, by his attachment for a young lady there, a Princess de Rohan. The plan of the conspirators was this: A band of a hundred resolute men, headed by the daring and indomitable George Cadoudal, were to be introduced stealthily into France to waylay Napoleon when passing to Malmaison, disperse his guard, consisting of some ten outriders, and kill him upon the spot. The conspirators flattered themselves that this would not be considered assassination, but a battle. Having thus disposed of the First Consul, the next question was, how, in the midst of the confusion that would ensue, to regain for the Bourbons and their partisans their lost power. To do this, it was necessary to secure the co-operation of the army.
In nothing is the infirmity of our nature more conspicuous, than in the petty jealousies which so often rankle in the bosoms of great men. General Moreau had looked with an envious eye upon the gigantic strides of General Bonaparte to power. His wife, a weak, vain, envious woman, could not endure the thought that General Moreau should be only the second man in the empire; and she exerted all her influence over her vacillating and unstable husband, to convince him that the conqueror of Hohenlinden was entitled to the highest gifts France had to confer. One day, by accident, she was detained a few moments in the ante-chamber of Josephine. Her indignation was extreme. General Moreau was in a mood of mind to yield to the influence of these reproaches. As an indication of his displeasure, he allowed himself to repel the favors which the First Consul showered upon him. He at last was guilty of the impropriety of refusing to attend the First Consul at a review. In consequence, he was omitted in an invitation to a banquet, which Napoleon gave on the anniversary of the republic. Thus coldness increased to hostility. Moreau, with bitter feelings, withdrew to his estate at Grosbois, where, in the enjoyment of opulence, he watched with an evil eye, the movements of one whom he had the vanity to think his rival.
Under these circumstances, it was not thought difficult to win over Moreau, and through him the army. Then, at the very moment when Napoleon had been butchered on his drive to Malmaison, the loyalists all over France were to rise; the emigrant Bourbons, with arms and money, supplied by England, in their hands, were to rush over the frontier; the British navy and army were to be ready with their powerful co-operation; and the Bourbon dynasty was to be re-established. Such was this famous conspiracy of the Bourbons.
But in this plan there was a serious difficulty. Moreau prided himself upon being a very decided republican; and had denounced even the consulate for life, as tending to the establishment of royalty. Still it was hoped that the jealousy of his disposition would induce him to engage in any plot for the overthrow of the First Consul. General Pichegru, a man illustrious in rank and talent, a warm advocate of the Bourbons, and alike influential with monarchists and republicans, had escaped from the wilds of Sinamary, where he had been banished by the Directory, and was then residing in London. Pichegru was drawn into the conspiracy, and employed to confer with Moreau. Matters being thus arranged, Cadoudal, with a band of bold and desperate men, armed to the teeth, and with an ample supply of funds, which had been obtained from the English treasury, set out from London for Paris. Upon the coast of Normandy, upon the side of a precipitous craggy cliff, ever washed by the ocean, there was a secret passage formed, by a cleft in the rock, known only to smugglers. Through the cleft, two or three hundred feet in depth, a rope-ladder could be let down to the surface of the sea. The smugglers thus scaled the precipice, bearing heavy burdens upon their shoulders. Cadoudal had found out this path, and easily purchased its use. To facilitate communication with Paris, a chain of lodging-places had been established, in solitary farm-houses, and in the castles of loyalist nobles; so that the conspirators could pass from the cliff of Biville to Paris without exposure to the public roads, or to any inn. Captain Wright, an officer in the English navy, a bold and skillful seaman, took the conspirators on board his vessel, and secretly landed them at the foot of this cliff. Cautiously, Cadoudal, with some of his trusty followers, crept along, from shelter to shelter, until he reached the suburbs of Paris. From his lurking place he dispatched emissaries, bought by his abundance of gold, to different parts of France, to prepare the royalists to rise. Much to his disappointment, he found Napoleon almost universally popular, and the loyalists themselves settling down in contentment under his efficient government. Even the priests were attached to the First Consul, for he had rescued them from the most unrelenting persecution. In the course of two months of incessant exertions, Cadoudal was able to collect but about thirty men, who, by liberal pay, were willing to run the risk of trying to restore the Bourbons. While Cadoudal was thus employed with the royalists, Pichegru and his agents were sounding Moreau and the republicans. General Lajolais, a former officer of Moreau, was easily gained over. He drew from Moreau a confession of his wounded feelings, and of his desire to see the consular government overthrown in almost any way. Lajolais did not reveal to the illustrious general the details of the conspiracy, but hastening to London, by the circuitous route of Hamburg, to avoid detection, told his credulous employers that Moreau was ready to take any part in the enterprise. At the conferences now held in London, by this band of conspirators, plotting assassination, the Count d'Artois had the criminal folly to preside – the future monarch of France guiding the deliberations of a band of assassins. When Lajolais reported that Moreau was ready to join Pichegru the moment he should appear, Charles, then Count d'Artois, exclaimed with delight, "Ah! let but our two generals agree together, and I shall speedily be restored to France!" It was arranged that Pichegru, Rivière, and one of the Polignacs, with others of the conspirators, should immediately join George Cadoudal, and, as soon as every thing was ripe, Charles and his son, the Duke of Berri, were to land in France, and take their share in the infamous project. Pichegru and his party embarked on board the vessel of Captain Wright, and were landed, in the darkness of the night, beneath the cliff of Biville. These illustrious assassins climbed the smugglers' rope, and skulking from lurking-place to lurking-place, joined the desperado, George Cadoudal, in the suburbs of Paris. Moreau made an appointment to meet Pichegru by night upon the boulevard de la Madelaine.
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