THE creation of the Empire had turned public attention away from the proceeding against Moreau, which were, however, going on. The accused had been brought before the tribunal several times; but, the more the case was investigated, the less hope there was of the condemnation of Moreau, which became day by day an object of greater importance. I am perfectly convinced that the Emperor would not have allowed Moreau’s life to be taken. That the General should be condemned and pardoned would have been sufficient for his purpose, which was to refute, by the sentence of the court, those who accused him of having acted with undue haste and personal animosity.

All who have brought cool observation to bear upon this important event are agreed in thinking that Moreau exhibited weakness and want of judgment. When he was brought up for examination, he showed none of the dignity that was expected from him. He did not, like Georges Cadoudal, assume the attitude of a determined man, who openly avowed the lofty designs that had actuated him; neither did he assume that of an innocent man, full of righteous indignation at an unjust charge. He prevaricated in some of his answers, and the interest which he inspired was diminished by that fact; but even then Bonaparte gained nothing by this lessening enthusiasm, and not only party spirit, but reason itself, censured no less strongly than before a proceeding which was still attributed to personal enmity.

At length, on the 30th of May, the formal indictment (acte d’accusation) appeared in the “Moniteur.” It was accompanied by certain letters written by Moreau in 1795, before the 18th Fructidor, which proved that the General, being then convinced that Pichegru was corresponding with the princes, had denounced him to the Directory. A general and natural question then arose: Why had Moreau acted so differently in the case of this second conspiracy, justifying himself by the statement that he had not thought it proper to reveal the secret of a plot, in which he had refused to engage, to the First Consul?

On the 6th of June the examinations of all the accused persons were published. Among these there were some who declared positively that the princes, in England, were quite confident that they might count upon Moreau; that it was with this hope Pichegru had gone to France, and that the two generals had subsequently on several occasions had interviews with Georges Cadoudal. They even asserted that Pichegru had evinced great dissatisfaction after these interviews, had complained that Moreau gave him only half-hearted support, and seemed anxious to profit on his own account by the blow which was to strike Bonaparte. A person named Bolland declared that Moreau had said, “The first thing to be done is to get rid of the First Consul.”

Moreau, on being questioned in his turn, answered that Pichegru, when he was in England, had conveyed an inquiry to him as to whether he would assist him in case he should wish to return to France, and that he had promised to help him to carry out that project. It naturally occasioned no little astonishment that Pichegru, who had been denounced some years before by Moreau himself, should have applied to him to obtain his “erasure”; and Pichegru had, at the time of his examination, denied that he had done so. At the same time, however, he also denied that he had seen Moreau, although Moreau acknowledged that they had met, and he persisted in declaring that in coming to France he had been actuated solely by his aversion to a foreign country, and his desire to return to his own. Shortly afterward Pichegru was found strangled in his prison, and the circumstances of his death have never been explained, nor have any comprehensible motives which could have rendered it necessary to himself been assigned.

Moreau admitted that he had received Pichegru (who took him, he said, by surprise) at his house, but he declared at the same time that he had positively refused to enter into a scheme for the replacement of the house of Bourbon on the throne, because such a resolution would disturb the settlement of the national property; and he added that, so far as his own personal pretensions were concerned, the notion was absurd, as it would have been necessary to their success that not only the First Consul, but the two other Consuls, the Governors of Paris, and the guard, should be got rid of. He declared that he had seen Pichegru but once, although others of the accused asserted that several interviews had taken place between them; and he maintained this line of defense unshaken. He was, however, obliged to admit that he had discovered at an advanced stage of the affair that FrasniÈres, his private secretary, was deeply involved with the conspirators. FrasniÈres had fled on the first alarm.

Georges Cadoudal answered that his plan was to attack the First Consul, and remove him by force; that he had never entertained a doubt of finding in Paris itself a number of enemies of the actual rÉgime who would aid him in his enterprise; and that he would have endeavored by every means in his power to replace Louis XVIII. upon his throne. He steadily denied, however, that he knew either Pichegru or Moreau; and he terminated his replies with these words: “You have victims enough; I do not wish to augment their number.”

Bonaparte seemed to be impressed by this strength of character, and said to us on that occasion, “If it were possible that I could save any of these assassins, I should pardon Georges.”

The Duc de Polignac replied that he had come to France secretly, with the sole purpose of ascertaining positively the state of public opinion, and what were the chances it afforded; but that, when he perceived that an assassination was in question, he had thought only of getting away again, and would have left France if he had not been arrested.

M. de RiviÈre made a similar answer, and M. Jules de Polignac declared that he had merely followed his brother.

On the 10th of June twenty of the accused persons were convicted and sentenced to death. At the head of the list were Georges Cadoudal and the Marquis de RiviÈre. The judgment went on to state that Jules de Polignac, Louis MÉridan, Moreau, and Bolland were guilty of having taken part in the said conspiracy, but that it appeared from the “instruction” and the investigation that there were circumstances which rendered them excusable, and that the court therefore commuted the punishment which they had incurred to that of fine and imprisonment.

I was at Saint Cloud when the news of this finding of the court arrived. Every one was dumbfounded. The Chief Judge had pledged himself to the First Consul that Moreau should be condemned to death, and Bonaparte’s discomfiture was so great that he was incapable of concealing it. It was publicly known that, at his first public audience on the Sunday following, he displayed ungoverned anger toward Lecourbe (brother to the general of that name), the judge who had spoken strongly in favor of Moreau’s innocence at the trial. He ordered Lecourbe out of his presence, calling him a “prevaricating judge”—an epithet whose signification nobody could guess; and shortly afterward he deprived him of his judgeship.

I returned to Paris, much troubled by the state of things at Saint Cloud, and I found that among a certain party in the city the result of the trial was regarded with exultation which was nothing short of an insult to the Emperor. The nobility were much grieved by the condemnation of the Duc de Polignac.

I was with my mother and my husband, and we were deploring the melancholy results of these proceedings, and the numerous executions which were about to take place, when I was informed that the Duchesse de Polignac, and her aunt, Mme. Daudlau, the daughter of HelvÉtius, whom I had often met in society, had come to visit me. They were ushered into the room, both in tears. The Duchess, who was in an interesting situation, enlisted my sympathies at once; she came to entreat me to procure an audience of the Emperor for her, that she might implore him to pardon her husband. She had no means of gaining admission to the palace of Saint Cloud, and she hoped I would assist her. M. de RÉmusat and my mother were, like myself, fully alive to the difficulty of the enterprise, but we all three felt that I ought not to allow that difficulty to hinder me from making the attempt; and as we still had some days before us, because of the appeal against their sentence which the condemned men had made, I arranged with the two ladies that they should go to Saint Cloud on the following day, while I was to precede them by a few hours, and induce Mme. Bonaparte to receive them.

Accordingly, the next day I returned to Saint Cloud, and I had no difficulty in obtaining a promise from my good Empress that she would receive a person in so unhappy a position. But she did not conceal from me that she felt considerable dread of approaching the Emperor at a moment when he was so much displeased. “If,” said she, “Moreau had been condemned, I should feel more hopeful of our success; but he is in such a rage that I am afraid he will turn us away, and be angry with you for what you are going to make me do.”

I was too much moved by the tears and the condition of Mme. de Polignac to be influenced by such a consideration, and I did my best to make the Empress realize the impression which these sentences had produced in Paris. I reminded her of the death of the Duc d’Enghien, of Bonaparte’s elevation to the Imperial throne in the midst of sanguinary punishments, and pointed out to her that the general alarm would be allayed by one act of clemency which might, at least, be quoted side by side with so many acts of severity.

While I was speaking to the Empress with all the warmth and earnestness of which I was capable, and with streaming tears, the Emperor suddenly entered the room from the terrace outside; this he frequently did of a morning, when he would leave his work, and come through the glass door into his wife’s room for a little talk with her. He instantly perceived our agitation, and, although at another moment I should have been taken aback at his unlooked-for presence, the profound emotion which I felt overcame all other considerations, and I replied to his questions with a frank avowal of what I had ventured to do. The Empress, who was closely observing his countenance, seeing the severe look that overcast it, did not hesitate to come to my aid by telling him that she had already consented to receive Mme. de Polignac.

The Emperor began by refusing to listen to us, and complaining that we were putting him in for all the difficulty of a position which would give him the appearance of cruelty. “I will not see this woman,” he said to me. “I can not grant a pardon. You do not see that this Royalist party is full of young fools, who will begin again with this kind of thing, and keep on at it, if they are not kept within bounds by a severe lesson. The Bourbons are credulous; they believe the assurances which they get from schemers who deceive them respecting the real state of the public mind of France, and they will send a lot of victims over here.”

This answer did not stop me; I was extremely excited, partly by the event itself, and perhaps also by the slight risk I was running of displeasing my formidable master. I would not be so cowardly in my own eyes as to retreat before any personal consideration, and that feeling made me bold and tenacious. I insisted so strongly, and entreated with such earnestness, that the Emperor, who was walking hurriedly about the room while I was speaking, suddenly paused opposite to me, and, fixing a piercing gaze on me, said: “What personal interest do you take in these people? You are not excusable except they are your relatives.”

“Sire,” I answered, with all the firmness I could summon up, “I do not know them, and until yesterday I had never seen Mme. de Polignac.” “What! And you thus plead the cause of people who came here to assassinate me?” “No, Sire; I plead the cause of an unfortunate woman who is in despair, and—I must say it—I plead your own cause too.” And then, quite carried away by my feelings, I repeated all that I had said to the Empress. She was as much affected as myself, and warmly seconded all I said. But we could obtain nothing from the Emperor at that moment; he went angrily away, telling us not to “worry” him any more.

A few minutes afterward I was informed that Mme. de Polignac had arrived. The Empress received her in a private room, and promised that she would do everything in her power to obtain a pardon for the Duc de Polignac. During the course of that morning, certainly one of the most agitating I have ever lived through, the Empress went twice into her husband’s cabinet, and twice had to leave it, repulsed. Each time she returned to me, quite disheartened, and I was losing hope and beginning to tremble at the prospect of having to take a refusal to Mme. de Polignac as the final answer. At length we learned that M. de Talleyrand was with the Emperor, and I besought the Empress to make one last attempt, thinking that, if M. de Talleyrand were a witness to it, he would endeavor to persuade Bonaparte. And, in fact, he did second the Empress at once and strongly; and at length Bonaparte, vanquished by their supplications, consented to allow Mme. de Polignac to appear before him. This was promising everything; it would have been impossible to utter a cruel “No!” in such a presence. Mme. de Polignac was ushered into the cabinet, and fell fainting at the Emperor’s feet. The Empress was in tears; the pardon of the Duc de Polignac was granted, and an article written by M. de Talleyrand gave a charming account of the scene, in what was then called the “Journal de l’Empire,” on the following day.

M. de Talleyrand, on leaving the Emperor’s cabinet, found me in the Empress’s boudoir, and related to me all that had occurred. He made me cry afresh, and he was far from being unmoved himself; but, nevertheless, he also made me laugh by his recital of an absurd little circumstance which had not escaped his keen perception of the ridiculous. Poor Mme. Daudlau, who had accompanied her niece, and wanted to produce her own particular little effect, kept on repeating, in the midst of her efforts to revive Mme. de Polignac—who was restored to consciousness with great difficulty—“Sire, I am the daughter of HelvÉtius!”

The Duc de Polignac’s sentence was commuted to four years’ imprisonment, to be followed by banishment He was sent to join his brother, and, after having been confined in a fortress, they were removed to a civil prison, whence they escaped during the campaign of 1814. The Duc de Rovigo (FouchÉ), who was then Minister of Police, was suspected of having connived at their escape, in order to curry favor with the party whose approaching triumph he foresaw.

I have no desire to make more of myself on this occasion than I strictly deserve, but I think it will be admitted that circumstances so fell out as to permit me to render a very substantial service to the Polignac family—one of which it would seem natural that they should have preserved some recollection. Since the return of the King to France, I have, however, been taught by experience how effectually party spirit, especially among courtiers, effaces all sentiments of which it disapproves, no matter how just they may be.

After the incident which I have just related, I received a few visits from Mme. de Polignac, who doubtless held herself bound to so much recognition of me; but, by degrees, as we lived in different circles, we lost sight of each other for some years, until the Restoration. At that epoch the Duc de Polignac, having been sent by the King to Malmaison to thank the Empress Josephine in his Majesty’s name for her zealous efforts to save the life of the Duc d’Enghien, took advantage of the opportunity to express his own gratitude to her at the same time. The Empress informed me of this visit, and said that no doubt the Duke would also call on me; and I confess that I expected some polite recognition from him. I did not receive any; and, as it was not according to my notions to endeavor to arouse by any words of mine gratitude which could only be valuable by being voluntary, I remained quietly at home, and made no reference to an event which the persons concerned in it seemed to wish to forget, or at least to ignore.

One evening chance brought me in contact with Mme. de Polignac. It was at a reception at the house of the Duc d’OrlÉans, and in the midst of a great crowd. The Palais Royal was splendidly decorated, all the French nobility were assembled there, and the grands seigneurs and high-born gentlemen to whom the Restoration at first seemed to mean the restoration of their former rights, accosted each other with the easy, secure, and satisfied manner so readily resumed with success. Amid this brillant crowd I perceived the Duchesse de Polignac. After long years I found her again, restored to her rank, receiving all those congratulations which were due to her, surrounded by an adulatory crowd. I recalled the day on which I first saw her, the state she was then in, her tears, her terror, the way in which she came toward me when she entered my room, and almost fell at my feet. I was deeply moved by this contrast, and, being only a few paces from her, the interest with which she inspired me led me to approach her. I addressed her in a tone of voice which, no doubt, fully conveyed the really tender feeling of the moment, and congratulated her on the very different circumstances under which we met again. All I would have asked of her was a word of remembrance, which would have responded to the emotion I felt on her account. This feeling was speedily chilled by the indifference and constraint with which she listened to what I said. She either did not recognize me, or she affected not to do so; I had to give my name. Her embarrassment increased. On perceiving this I immediately turned away, and with very painful feelings; for those which her presence had caused, and which I had thought at first she would share, were rudely dispelled.

The Empress’s goodness in obtaining a remission of the capital sentence for M. de Polignac made a great sensation in Paris, and gave rise to renewed praise of her kindness of heart, which had obtained almost universal recognition. The wives, or mothers, or sisters of the other political offenders immediately besieged the palace of Saint Cloud, and endeavored to obtain audience of the Empress, hoping to enlist her sympathy. Applications were also made to her daughter, and they both obtained further pardons or commutations of sentence. The Emperor felt that a dark shadow would be cast on his accession to the throne by so many executions, and showed himself accessible to the petitions addressed to him.

His sisters, who were by no means included in the popularity of the Empress, and were anxious to obtain if possible some public favor for themselves, gave the wives of some of the condemned men to understand that they might apply to them also. They then took the petitioners in their own carriages to Saint Cloud, in a sort of semi-state, to entreat pardon for their husbands. These proceedings, as to which the Emperor, I believe, had been consulted beforehand, seemed less spontaneous than those of the Empress—indeed, bore signs of prearrangement; but at any rate they served to save the lives of several persons. Murat, who had excited universal indignation by his violent behavior and by his hostility to Moreau, also tried to regain popularity by similar devices, and did in fact obtain a pardon for the Marquis de RiviÈre. On the same occasion he brought a letter from Georges Cadoudal to Bonaparte, which I heard read. It was a manly and outspoken letter, such as might be penned by a man who, being convinced that the deeds he has done, and which have proved his destruction, were dictated by a generous sense of duty and an unchangeable resolution, is resigned to his fate. Bonaparte was deeply impressed by this letter, and again expressed his regret that he could not extend clemency to Georges Cadoudal.

This man, the real head of the conspiracy, died with unshaken courage. Twenty had been condemned to death. The capital sentence was, in the cases of seven, commuted to a more or less prolonged imprisonment. Their names are as follows: the Duc de Polignac, the Marquis de RiviÈre, Russillon, Rochelle, D’Hozier, Lajollais, Guillard. The others were executed. General Moreau was taken to Bordeaux, and put on board a ship for the United States. His family sold their property by Imperial command; the Emperor bought a portion of it, and bestowed the estate of Grosbois on Marshal Berthier.

A few days later, the “Moniteur” published a protest from Louis XVIII. against the accession of Napoleon. It appeared on July 1, 1804, but produced little effect. The Cadoudal conspiracy had weakened the faint sentiment of barely surviving allegiance to the old dynasty. The plot had, in fact, been so badly conceived; it seemed to be based on such total ignorance of the internal state of France, and of the opinions of the various parties in the country; the names and the characters of the conspirators inspired so little confidence; and, above all, the further disturbances which must have resulted from any great change, were so universally dreaded that, with the exception of a small number of gentlemen whose interests would be served by the renewal of an abolished state of things, there was in France no regret for a result which served to strengthen the newly inaugurated system. Whether from conviction, or from a longing for repose, or from yielding to the sway of the great fortunes of the new Head of the State, many gave in their adhesion to his sovereignty, and from this time forth France assumed a peaceful and orderly attitude. The opposing factions became disheartened, and, as commonly happens when this is the case, each individual belonging to them made secret attempts to link his lot to the chances offered by a totally new system. Gentle and simple, Royalists and Liberals, all began to scheme for advancement. New ambitions and vanities were aroused, and favors solicited in every direction. Bonaparte beheld those on whom he could least have counted suing for the honor of serving him.

Meanwhile he was not in haste to choose from among them; he delayed a long time, in order to feed their hopes and to increase the number of aspirants. During this respite, I left the Court for a little breathing-time in the country. I stayed for a month in the valley of Montmorency, with Mme. d’Houdetot, of whom I have already spoken. The quiet life I led in her house was refreshing after the anxieties and annoyances which I had recently had to endure almost uninterruptedly. I needed this interval of rest; my health, which since that time has always been more or less delicate, was beginning to fail, and my spirits were depressed by the new aspect of events, and by discoveries I was slowly making about things in general, and about certain great personages in particular. The gilded veil which Bonaparte used to say hung before the eyes of youth was beginning to lose its brightness, and I became aware of the fact with astonishment, which always causes more or less suffering, until time and experience have made us wiser and taught us to take things more easily.