Whatever opinion may be formed of the character of the celebrated
conspiracy of Georges and Pichegru, the mode of its discovery, and
the secret rules by which its plans were detected, are among the great
triumphs of police skill. From the hour when the conspirators first met
together in London, to that last fatal moment when they expired in the
Temple, the agents of Fouché never ceased to track them.
Their individual tastes and ambitions were studied; their habits
carefully investigated; everything that could give a clue to their turn
of thought or mind well weighed; so that the Consular Government was not
only in possession of all their names and rank, but knew thoroughly
the exact amount of complicity attaching to each, and could distinguish
between the reckless violence of Georges and the more tempered, but
higher ambition of Moreau. It was a long while doubtful whether the
great general would be implicated in the scheme. His habitual reserve--a
habit less of caution than of constitutional delicacy--had led him to
few intimacies, and nothing like even one close friendship; he moved
little in society; he corresponded with none, save on the duties of the
service. Fouché’s well-known boast of, ‘Give me, two words of a man’s
writing and I’ll hang him,’ were then scarcely applicable here.
To attack such a man unsuccessfully, to arraign him on a weak
indictment, would have been ruin; and yet Bonaparte’s jealousy of his
great rival pushed him even to this peril, rather than risk the growing
popularity of his name with the army.
Fouché, and, it is said also, Talleyrand, did all they could to dissuade
the First Consul from this attempt, but he was fixed and immutable in
his resolve, and the Police Minister at once addressed himself to his
task with all his accustomed cleverness.
High play was one of the great vices of the day. It was a time of wild
and varied excitement, and men sought even in their dissipations, the
whirlwind passions that stirred them in active life. Moreau, however,
was no gambler; it was said that he never could succeed in learning a
game. He, whose mind could comprehend the most complicated question of
strategy, was obliged to confess himself conquered by écarté! So much
for the vaunted intellectuality of the play-table! Neither was he
addicted to wine. All his habits were temperate, even to the extent of
unsociality.
A man who spoke little, and wrote less, who indulged in no dissipations,
nor seemed to have taste for any, was a difficult subject to treat; and
so Fouché found, as, day after day, his spies reported to him the utter
failure of all their schemes to entrap him. Lajolais, the friend of
Pichegru, and the man who betrayed him, was the chief instrument the
Police Minister used to obtain secret information. Being well born, and
possessed of singularly pleasing manners, he had the entrée of the best
society of Paris, where his gay, easy humour made him a great favourite.
Lajolais, however, could never penetrate into the quiet domesticity
of Moreau’s life, nor make any greater inroad on his intimacy than a
courteous salutation as they passed each other in the garden of the
Luxembourg. At the humble restaurant where he dined each day for two
francs, the ‘General,’ as he was distinctively called, never spoke to
any one. Unobtrusive and quiet, he occupied a little table in a recess
of the window, and arose the moment he finished his humble meal After
this he was to be seen in the garden of the Luxembourg, with a cigar and
a book, or sometimes without either, seated pensively under a tree for
hours together.
If he had been conscious of the espionage established over all
his actions, he could scarcely have adopted a more guarded or more
tantalising policy. To the verbal communications of Pichegru and Armand
Polignac, he returned vague replies; their letters he never answered
at all; and Lajolais had to confess that, after two months of close
pursuit, the game was as far from him as ever!
‘You have come to repeat the old song to me, Monsieur Lajolais,’ said
Fouché one evening, as his wily subordinate entered the room; ‘you have
nothing to tell me, eh?’
‘Very little, Monsieur le Ministre, but still something. I have at last
found out where Moreau spends all his evenings. I told you that about
half-past nine o’clock every night all lights were extinguished in his
quarters, and, from the unbroken stillness, it was conjectured that
he had retired to bed. Now it seems that about an hour later, he is
accustomed to leave his house, and, crossing the Place de l’Odéon, to
enter the little street called the “Allée du Caire,” where, in a
small house next but one to the corner, resides a certain officer, _en
retraite_--a Colonel Mahon of the Cuirassiers.’
‘A Royalist?’
‘This is suspected, but not known. His polities, however, are not in
question here; the attraction is of a different order.’
‘Ha! I perceive; he has a wife or a daughter.’
‘Better still, a mistress. You may have heard of the famous Caroline de
Stassart, that married a Dutchman named D’Aersohot.’
‘Madame Laure, as they called her.’ said Fouché, laughing.
‘The same. She has lived as Mahon’s wife for some years, and was as
such introduced into society; in fact, there is no reason, seeing what
society is in these days, that she should not participate in all its
pleasures.’
‘No matter for that,’ broke in Fouché; ‘Bonaparte will not have it so.
He wishes that matters should go back to the old footing, and wisely
remarks, that it is only in savage life that people or vices go without
clothing.’
‘Be it so, monsieur. In the present case no such step is necessary. I
know her maid, and from her I have heard that her mistress is heartily
tired of her protector. It was originally a sudden fancy, taken when she
knew nothing of life--had neither seen anything, nor been herself seen.
By the most wasteful habits she has dissipated all, or nearly all, her
own large fortune, and involved Mahon heavily in debt; and they are thus
reduced to a life of obscurity and poverty--the very things the least
endurable to all her notions.’
‘Well, does she care for Moreau?’ asked Fouché quickly; for all stories
to his ear only resolved themselves into some question of utility or
gain.
‘No, but he does for her. About a year back she did take a liking to
him. He was returning from his great German campaign, covered with
honours and rich in fame; but as her imagination is captivated by
splendour, while her heart remains perfectly cold and intact, Moreau’s
simple, unpretending habits quickly effaced the memory of his hard-won
glory, and now she is quite indifferent to him.’
‘And who is her idol now, for, of course, she has one?’ asked Fouché.
‘You would scarcely guess,’ said Lajolais. ‘_Parbleu!_ I hope it is not
myself,’ said Fouché, laughing.
‘No, Monsieur le Ministre, her admiration is not so well placed. The
man who has captivated her present fancy is neither good-looking nor
well-mannered; he is short and abrupt of speech, careless in dress,
utterly indifferent to woman’s society, and almost rude to them.’
‘You have drawn the very picture of a man to be adored by them,’ said
Fouché, with a dry laugh.
‘I suppose so,’ said the other, with a sigh; ‘or General Ney would not
have made this conquest.’
‘Ah! it is Ney, then. And he, what of him?’
‘It is hard to say. As long as she lived in a grand house of the Rue St.
Georges, where he could dine four days a week, and, in his dirty boots
and unbrushed frock, mix with all the fashion and elegance of the
capital; while he could stretch full length on a Persian ottoman, and
brush the cinders from his cigar against a statuette by Canova, or a
gold embroidered hanging; while in the midst of the most voluptuous
decorations he alone could be dirty and uncared for, I really believe
that he did care for her, at least, so far as ministering to his own
enjoyments; but in a miserable lodging of the “Allée du Caire,” without
equipage, lackeys, liveried footmen----’
‘To be sure,’ interrupted Fouché, ‘one might as well pretend to be
fascinated by the beauty of a landscape the day after it has been
desolated by an earthquake. Ney is right! Well, now, Monsieur Lajolais,
where does all this bring us to?’
‘Very near to the end of our journey, Monsieur le Ministre. Madame, or
mademoiselle, is most anxious to regain her former position; she longs
for all the luxurious splendour she used to live in. Let us but show her
this rich reward, and she will be our own!’
‘In my trade, Monsieur Lajolais, generalities are worth nothing. Give me
details; let me know how you would proceed.’
‘Easily enough, sir: Mahon must first of all be disposed of, and perhaps
the best way will be to have him arrested for debt. This will not be
difficult, for his bills are everywhere. Once in the Temple, she will
never think more of him. It must then be her task to obtain the most
complete influence over Moreau. She must affect the deepest interest
in the Royalist cause--I’ll furnish her with all the watchwords of the
party--and Moreau, who never trusts a man, will open all his confidence
to a woman.’
‘Very good; go on!’ cried Fouché, gathering fresh interest as the plot
began to reveal itself before him.
He hates writing; she will be his secretary, embodying all his thoughts
and suggestions, and, now and then, for her own guidance, obtaining
little scraps in his hand. If he be too cautious here, I will advise her
to remove to Geneva for change of air; he likes Switzerland, and will
follow her immediately.
‘This will do; at least it looks practicable,’ said Fouché thoughtfully.
‘Is she equal to the part you would assign her?’
‘Ay, sir, and to a higher one, too! She has considerable ability, and
great ambition. Her present narrow fortune has irritated and disgusted
her; the moment is most favourable for us.’
‘If she should play us false,’ said Fouché, half aloud.
‘From all I can learn, there is no risk of this; there is a headlong
determination in her, when once she has conceived a plan, from which
nothing turns her; overlooking all but her object, she will brave
anything, do anything, to attain it.’
‘Bonaparte was right in what he said of Necker’s daughter,’ said Fouché
musingly, ‘and there is no doubt it adds wonderfully to a woman’s head
that she has no heart. And now, the price, Monsieur Lajolais? Remember
that our treasury received some deadly wounds lately--what is to be the
price?’
‘It may be a smart one; she is not likely to be a cheap purchase.’
‘In the event of success--I mean of such proof as may enable us to
arrest Moreau, and commit him to prison----’
He stopped as he got thus far, and paused for some seconds--’ Bethink
you, then, Lajolais,’ said he, ‘what a grand step this would be, and how
terrible the consequences if undertaken on rash or insufficient grounds.
Moreau’s popularity with the army is only second to one man’s! His
unambitious character has made him many friends; he has few, very few,
enemies.’
‘But you need not push matters to the last--an implied, but not a proven
guilt, would be enough; and you can pardon him!’
‘Ay, Lajolais, but who would pardon us?’ cried Fouché, carried beyond
all the bounds of his prudence by the thought of a danger so imminent.
‘Well, well, let us come back; the price--will that do?’ And taking up a
pen he scratched some figures on a piece of paper.
Lajolais smiled dubiously, and added a unit to the left of the sum.
‘What! a hundred and fifty thousand francs!’ cried Fouché.
‘And a cheap bargain, too,’ said the other; ‘for, after all, it is
only the price of a ticket in the lottery, of which the great prize is
General Ney!’
‘You say truly,’ said the Minister; ‘be it so.’
‘Write your name there, then,’ said Lajolais, ‘beneath those figures;
that will be warranty sufficient for my negotiation, and leave the rest
to me.’
‘Nature evidently meant you for a _chef de police_, Master Lajolais.’
‘Or a cardinal, Monsieur le Ministre,’ said the other, as he folded up
the paper--a little insignificant slip, scrawled over with a few figures
and an almost illegible word, and yet pregnant with infamy to one,
banishment to another, ruin and insanity to a third.
This sad record need not be carried further. It is far from a pleasant
task to tell of baseness unredeemed by one trait of virtue--of
treachery, unrepented even by regret. History records Moreau’s
unhappy destiny; the pages of private memoir tell of Ney’s disastrous
connection; our own humble reminiscences speak of poor Mahon’s fate,
the least known of all, but the most sorrowful victim of a woman’s
treachery!