CHAPTER XXIV.

1804.

Pichegru betrayed--His arrest--His conduct to his old aide de camp--

Account of Pichegru's family, and his education at Brienne--

Permission to visit M. Carbonnet--The prisoners in the Temple--

Absurd application of the word "brigand"--Moreau and the state of

public opinion respecting him--Pichegru's firmness--Pichegru

strangled in prison--Public opinion at the time--Report on the death

of Pichegru.

I shall now proceed to relate what I knew at the time and what I have

since learnt of the different phases of the trial of Georges, Pichegru,

Moreau and the other persons accused of conspiracy,--a trial to all the

proceedings of which I closely attended. From those proceedings I was

convinced that Moreau was no conspirator, but at the same time I must

confess that it is very probable the First Consul might believe that

he had been engaged in the plot, and I am also of opinion that the real

conspirators believed Moreau to be their accomplice and their chief;

for the object of the machinations of the police agents was to create a

foundation for such a belief, it being important to the success of their

scheme.

It has been stated that Moreau was arrested on the day after the

confessions made by Bouvet de Lozier; Pichegru was taken by means of the

most infamous treachery that a man can be guilty of. The official police

had at last ascertained that he was in Paris, but they could not learn

the place of his concealment. The police agents had in vain exerted all

their efforts to discover him, when an old friend, who had given him his

last asylum, offered to deliver him up for 100,000 crowns. This infamous

fellow gave an exact description of the chamber which Pichegru

occupied in the Rue de Chabanais, and in consequence of his information

Comminges, commissary of police, proceeded thither, accompanied by some

determined men. Precautions were necessary, because it was known that

Pichegru was a man of prodigious bodily strength, and that besides,

as he possessed the means of defence, he would not allow himself to

be taken without making a desperate resistance. The police entered his

chamber by using false keys, which the man who had sold him had the

baseness to get made for them. A light was burning on his night table.

The party of police, directed by Comminges, overturned the table,

extinguished the light, and threw themselves on the general, who

struggled with all his strength, and cried out loudly. They were obliged

to bind him, and in this state the conqueror of Holland was removed to

the Temple, out of which he was destined never to come alive.

It must be owned that Pichegru was far from exciting the same interest

as Moreau. The public, and more especially the army, never pardoned

him for his negotiations with the Prince de Condé prior to the 18th

Fructidor. However, I became acquainted with a trait respecting him

while he was in Paris which I think does him much honour. A son of M.

Lagrenee, formerly director of the French Academy at Rome, had been one

of Pichegru's aides de camp. This young man, though he had obtained the

rank of captain, resigned on the banishment of his general, and resumed

the pencil, which he had lad aside for the sword. Pichegru, while he was

concealed in Paris; visited his former aide de camp, who insisted upon

giving him an asylum; but Pichegru positively refused to accept M.

Lagrenee's offer, being determined not to commit a man who had already

given him so strong a proof of friendship. I learned this fact by a

singular coincidence. At this period Madame de Bourrienne wished to have

a portrait of one of our children; she was recommended to M. Lagrenee,

and he related the circumstance to her.

It was on the night of the 22d of February that Pichegru was arrested

in the manner I have described. The deceitful friend who gave him up was

named Le Blanc, and he went to settle at Hamburg with the reward of his

treachery, I had entirely lost sight of Pichegru since we left Brienne,

for Pichegru was also a pupil of that establishment; but, being older

than either Bonaparte or I, he was already a tutor when we were

only scholars, and I very well recollect that it was he who examined

Bonaparte in the four first rules of arithmetic.

Pichegru belonged to an agricultural family of Franche-Comte. He had a

relation, a minim,' in that country. The minim, who had the charge of

educating the pupils of the Military School of Brienne, being very poor,

and their poverty not enabling them to hold out much inducement to other

persons to assist them, they applied to the minims of Franche-Comte.

In consequence of this application Pichegru's relation, and some other

minims, repaired to Brienne. An aunt of Pichegru, who was a sister of

the order of charity, accompanied them, and the care of the infirmary

was entrusted to her. This good woman took her nephew to Brienne with

her, and he was educated at the school gratuitously. As soon as his

age permitted, Pichegru was made a tutor; but all, his ambition was

to become a minim. He was, however, dissuaded from that pursuit by his

relation, and he adopted the military profession. There is this further

remarkable circumstance in the youth of Pichegru, that, though he was

older by several years than Bonaparte, they were both made lieutenants

of artillery at the same time. What a difference in their destiny!

While the one was preparing to ascend a throne the other was a solitary

prisoner in the dungeon of the Temple.

I had no motive to induce me to visit either the Temple or La Force,

but I received at the time circumstantial details of what was passing in

those prisons, particularly in the former; I went, however, frequently

to St. Pelagie, where M. Carbonnet was confined. As soon as I knew that

he was lodged in that prison I set about getting an admission from Real,

who smoothed all difficulties. M. Carbonnet was detained two months

in solitary confinement. He was several times examined, but the

interrogatories produced no result, and, notwithstanding the desire

to implicate him in consequence of the known intimacy between him and

Moreau, it was at last found impossible to put him on trial with the

other parties accused.

The Temple had more terrors than St. Pelagie, but not for the prisoners

who were committed to it, for none of those illustrious victims of

police machination displayed any weakness, with the exception of Bouvet

de Lozier, who, being sensible of his weakness, wished to prevent its

consequences by death. The public, however, kept their attention riveted

on the prison in which Moreau was confined. I have already mentioned

that Pichegru was conveyed thither on the night of the 22d of February;

a fortnight later Georges was arrested, and committed to the same

prison.

Either Real or Desmarets, and sometimes both together, repaired to

the Temple to examine the prisoners. In vain the police endeavoured to

direct public odium against the prisoners by placarding lists of their

names through the whole of Paris, even before they were arrested.

In those lists they were styled "brigands," and at the head of "the

brigands," the name of General Moreau shone conspicuously. An absurdity

without a parallel. The effect produced was totally opposite to that

calculated on; for, as no person could connect the idea of a brigand

with that of a general who was the object of public esteem, it was

naturally concluded that those whose names were placarded along with his

were no more brigands than he.

Public opinion was decidedly in favour of Moreau, and every one was

indignant at seeing him described as a brigand. Far from believing him

guilty, he was regarded as a victim fastened on because his reputation

embarrassed Bonaparte; for Moreau had always been looked up to as

capable of opposing the accomplishment of the First Consul's ambitious

views. The whole crime of Moreau was his having numerous partisans among

those who still clung to the phantom of the Republic, and that crime

was unpardonable in the eyes of the First Consul, who for two years had

ruled the destinies of France as sovereign master. What means were not

employed to mislead the opinion of the public respecting Moreau? The

police published pamphlets of all sorts, and the Comte de Montgaillard

was brought from Lyons to draw up a libel implicating him with Pichegru

and the exiled Princes. But nothing that was done produced the effect

proposed.

The weak character of Moreau is known. In fact, he allowed himself to

be circumvented by a few intriguers, who endeavoured to derive advantage

from the influence of his name. But he was so decidedly opposed to the

reestablishment of the ancient system that he replied to one of the

agents who addressed' him, "I cannot put myself at the head of any

movement for the Bourbons, and such an attempt would not succeed. If

Pichegru act on another principle--and even in that case I have told

him that the Consuls and the Governor of Paris must disappear--I believe

that I have a party strong enough in the Senate to obtain possession of

authority, and I will immediately make use of it to protect his friends;

public opinion will then dictate what may be fit to be done, but I will

promise nothing in writing." Admitting these words attributed to Moreau

to be true, they prove that he was dissatisfied with the Consular

Government, and that he wished a change; but there is a great difference

between a conditional wish and a conspiracy.

The commander of the principal guard of the Temple was General Savory,

and he had reinforced that guard by his select gendarmerie. The

prisoners did not dare to communicate one with another for fear of

mutual injury, but all evinced a courage which created no little alarm

as to the consequences of the trial. Neither offers nor threats produced

any confessions in the course of the interrogatories. Pichegru, in

particular, displayed an extraordinary firmness, and Real one day, on

leaving the chamber where he had been examining him, said aloud in the

presence of several persons, "What a man that Pichegru is!"

Forty days elapsed after the arrest of General Pichegru when, on

the morning of the 6th of April, he was found dead in the chamber he

occupied in the Temple. Pichegru had undergone ten examinations; but he

had made no confessions, and no person was committed by his replies.

All his declarations, however, gave reason to believe that he would

speak out, and that too in a lofty and energetic manner during the

progress of the trial. "When I am before my judges," said he, "my

language shall be conformable to truth and the interests of my country."

What would that language have been? Without doubt there was no wish that

it should be heard. Pichegru would have kept his promise, for he was

distinguished for his firmness of character above everything, even above

his qualities as a soldier; differing in this respect from Moreau, who

allowed himself to be guided by his wife and mother-in-law, both of whom

displayed ridiculous pretensions in their visits to Madame Bonaparte.

The day on which Real spoke before several persons of Pichegru in the

way I have related was the day of his last examination. I afterwards

learned, from a source on which I can rely, that during his examination

Pichegru, though careful to say nothing which could affect the other

prisoners, showed no disposition to be tender of him who had sought and

resolved his death, but evinced a firm resolution to unveil before the

public the odious machinery of the plot into which the police had drawn

him. He also declared that he and his companions had no longer any

object but to consider of the means of leaving Paris, with the view of

escaping from the snares laid for them when their arrest took place. He

declared that they had all of them given up the idea of overturning

the power of Bonaparte, a scheme into which they had been enticed

by shameful intrigues. I am convinced the dread excited by his

manifestation of a resolution to speak out with the most rigid candour

hastened the death of Pichegru. M. Real, who is still living, knows

better than any one else what were Pichegru's declarations, as he

interrogated him. I know not whether that gentleman will think fit,

either at the present or some future period, to raise the veil of

mystery which hangs over these events, but of this I am sure, he will be

unable to deny anything I advance. There is evidence almost amounting

to demonstration that Pichegru was strangled in prison, and consequently

all idea of suicide must be rejected as inadmissible. Have I positive

and substantive proof of what I assert? I have not; but the concurrence

of facts and the weight of probabilities do not leave me in possession

of the doubts I should wish to entertain on that tragic event. Besides,

there exists a certain popular instinct, which is rarely at fault,

and it must be in the recollection of many, not only that the general

opinion favoured the notion of Pichegru's assassination, but that the

pains taken to give that opinion another direction, by the affected

exhibition of the body, only served to strengthen it. He who

spontaneously says, I have not committed such or such a crime, at least

admits there is room for suspecting his guilt.

The truth is, the tide of opinion never set in with such force against

Bonaparte as during the trial of Moreau; nor was the popular sentiment

in error on the subject of the death of Pichegru, who was clearly

strangled in the Temple by secret agents. The authors, the actors, and

the witnesses of the horrible prison scenes of the period are the only

persons capable of removing the doubts which still hang over the

death of Pichegru; but I must nevertheless contend that the preceding

circumstances, the general belief at the time, and even probability, are

in contradiction with any idea of suicide on the part of Pichegru. His

death was considered necessary, and this necessity was its real cause.