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 enact 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 Conde 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.