in considerable state, and visited Italy, Russia, and France. Her visit
to St. Petersburg was splendid, and to ensure a favourable reception by
the Empress Catharine she sent her a present of some of the valuable
paintings by old masters from Kingston House. When in Russia she
purchased an estate near the capital, to which she gave the name of
Chudleigh, and which cost her 25,000_l._[7] The Empress also gave her a
property on the Neva. She had a corvette built of mahogany which was to
be a present to the Empress, but the vessel stranded on the coast of
Ingermanland. Eight of the cannons out of her are now at Chudleigh,
almost the only things there that recall the Duchess. She gave
magnificent entertainments; at one of these, to which the Empress was
invited, a hundred and forty of her own servants attended in the
Kingston livery of black turned up with red and silver.
On her return from Russia she bought an estate at Montmartre, which cost
her 9,000_l._, and another that belonged to one of the French royal
princes at Saint Assise, which cost her 55,000_l._ The château was so
large that three hundred beds could be made up in it.
She was getting on in years, but did not lose her energy, her vivacity,
and her selfishness. Once in Rome, the story goes, she had been invited
to visit some tombs that were famous. She replied with a touch of real
feeling: "Ce n'est pas la peine de chercher des tombeaux, on en porte
assez dans son coeur."
The account of her death shall be given in the words of the author of
"Authentic Detail."
"She was at dinner, when her servants received intelligence of a
sentence respecting the house near Paris having been awarded against
her. She flew into a violent passion, and, in the agitation of her mind
and body, burst an internal blood-vessel. Even this she appeared to have
surmounted, until a few days afterwards, on the morning of the 26th
August (1788), when about to rise from her bed, a servant who had long
been with her endeavoured at dissuasion. The Duchess addressed her thus:
'I am not very well, but I _will_ rise. At your peril disobey me; I will
get up and walk about the room. Ring for the secretary to assist me.'
She was obeyed, dressed, and the secretary entered the chamber. The
Duchess then walked about, complained of thirst, and said, 'I could
drink a glass of my fine Madeira and eat a slice of toasted bread; I
shall be quite well afterwards; but let it be a large glass of wine.'
The attendant reluctantly brought and the Duchess drank the wine. She
then said, 'I knew the Madeira would do me good. My heart feels oddly; I
will have another glass.' She then walked a little about the room, and
afterwards said, 'I will lie on the couch.' She sat on the couch, a
female having hold of each hand. In this situation she soon appeared to
have fallen into a profound sleep, until the women found her hands
colder than ordinary; other domestics were rung for, and the Duchess was
found to have expired, as the wearied labourer sinks into the arms of
rest."
Was it a touch of final malice or of real regret that caused the old
lady, by codicil to her will dated May 10, 1787, to leave pearl earrings
and necklace to the Marquise de la Touche? Was it a token that she
forgave her the cruel book, "Les aventures trop amoureuses; ou,
Elizabeth Chudleigh," which she wrote, or caused to be written, for the
blackening of her rival, and the whitewashing of herself? Let us hope it
was so. The proviso in the Duke's will saved her from herself; but for
that she would have married an adventurer who called himself the
Chevalier de Wortha, a man who obtained great influence over her, and
finally died by his own hand.
Elizabeth Chudleigh's character and career have never been sketched by
friends; her enemies, those jealous of her fascinations, angry at her
success, discontented with not having been sufficiently considered in
her will, have given us their impressions of her, have poured out all
the evil they knew and imagined of her. She has been hardly used. The
only perfectly reliable authority for her history is the report of her
trial, and that covers only one portion of her story. The "Authentic
Detail" published by G. Kearsley, London, in 1788, is anonymous. It is
fairly reliable, but tinctured by animosity. The book "Les Aventures
trop Amoureuses, ou, Elizabeth Chudleigh, ex-duchesse douairière de
Kingston, aujourd'hui Comtesse de Bristol, et la Marquise de la Touche.
Londres, aux depens des Interessez, 1776," was composed for the
justification of Madame de la Touche, and with all the venom of a
discomfited and supplanted rival.
An utterly worthless book, "Histoire de la vie et des Aventures de la
Duchesse de Kingston, a Londres, et se trouve à Paris, Chez Quillot,
1789," is fiction. It pretends to be based on family papers. At the
commencement it gives a portion of the diary of Col. Thomas Chudleigh,
in which, among other impossibilities, he records his having reduced the
rents of his tenants on his estates twenty per cent. because the year
was bad. As it happened, Col. Thomas Chudleigh neither possessed an acre
of land, nor a tenant.
In 1813 appeared "La Duchesse de Kingston, memoires rédigés par M. de
Favolle," in two volumes; this is based solely on the preceding with
rich additions from the imagination of the author. Not a statement in it
can be trusted.
Some little reliable information may be found in the "Memoires de la
Baronne d'Oberkirch," Paris 1853.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] In Col. Vivian's "Visitations of the County of Devon," the pedigree
is not so complete. He was unaware who the wife of Thos. Chudleigh was,
and he had not seen the will of the duchess.
[5] Mrs. Chudleigh died in 1756, and her will mentions her daughter by
her maiden name.
[6] Mr. John Merrill died February 1767, and his burial was entered in
it. Mr. Bathurst, who had married his daughter, found the register book
in the hall, and handed it over to the rector, Mr. Kinchin. Nevertheless
it was not produced at the hearing of the case for jactitation in the
Consistory Court.
[7] This place still bears the name. It is on the main road through
Livland and Esthonia to St. Petersburg; about twenty miles from Narwa.
It also goes by the name of Fockenhof. The present mansion is more
modern, and belongs to the family of Von Wilcken.
General Mallet.
On the return of Napoleon to Paris from Moscow, he was depressed with
news that troubled him more than the loss of his legions. The news that
had reached him related to perhaps the most extraordinary conspiracy
that was ever devised, and which was within an ace of complete success.
It was the news of this conspiracy that induced him to desert the army
in the snows of Russia and hasten to Paris. The thoughts of this
conspiracy frustrated by an accident, as Alison says, "incessantly
occupied his mind during his long and solitary journey."
"Gentlemen," said Napoleon, when the report of the conspiracy was read
over to him, "we must no longer disbelieve in miracles."
Claude François Mallet belonged to a noble family in the Franche Comté.
He was born on June 28th, 1754, at Dole, and passed his early life in
the army, where he commanded one of the first battalions of the Jura at
the commencement of the Revolution. In May 1793, he was elevated to the
rank of adjutant-General, and in August 1799, made General of Brigade,
and commanded a division under Championnet. He was a man of
enthusiastically Republican views, and viewed the progress of Napoleon
with dissatisfaction mingled with envy. There can be no question as to
what his opinions were at first; whether he changed them afterwards is
not so certain. He was a reserved, hard, and bitter man, ambitious and
restless. Envy of Napoleon, jealousy of his success seems to have been
the ruling motive in his heart that made of him a conspirator, and not
genuine disgust at Cæsarism.
Bonaparte knew his political opinions; and though he did not fear the
man, he did not trust him. He became implicated in some illegal
exactions at Civita Vecchia, in the Roman States, and was in consequence
deprived of his command, and sent before a commission of enquiry at
Paris, in July 1807; and, in virtue of their sentence, he was confined
for a short while, and then again set at liberty and reinstated. In
1808, when the war in the Peninsula broke out, Mallet entered at Dijon
into a plot, along with some old anarchists, for the overthrow of the
Emperor, among them the ex-General Guillaume, who betrayed the plot, and
Mallet was arrested and imprisoned in La Force. Napoleon did not care
that conspiracies against himself and his throne should be made public,
and consequently he contented himself with the detention of Mallet
alone.
In prison, the General did not abandon his schemes, and he had the lack
of prudence to commit them to paper. This fell into the hands of the
Government. The minister regarded the scheme as chimerical and
unimportant. The papers were shown to Napoleon, who apparently regarded
the scheme or the man as really dangerous, and ordered him to perpetual
detention in prison.
Time passed, and Mallet and his schemes were forgotten. Who could
suppose that a solitary prisoner, without means, without the opportunity
of making confederates, could menace the safety of the Empire?
Then came the Russian campaign, in 1812. Mallet saw what Napoleon did
not; the inevitable failure that must attend it; and he immediately
renewed his attempts to form a plot against the Emperor.
But the prison of La Force was bad headquarters from which to work. He
pretended to be ill, and he was removed to a hospital, that of the
Doctor Belhomme near the Barrière du Trône. In this house were the two
brothers Polignac, a M. de Puyvert, and the Abbé Lafon, who in 1814
wrote and published an account of this conspiracy of Mallet. These men
were Royalists, and Mallet was a Republican. It did not matter so long
as Napoleon could be overthrown, how divergent their views might be as
to what form of Government was to take the place of the Empire.
They came to discussion, and the Royalists supposed that they had
succeeded in convincing Mallet. He, on his side, was content to
dissemble his real views, and to make use of these men as his agents.
The Polignac brothers were uneasy, they were afraid of the consequences,
and they mistrusted the man who tried to draw them into his plot.
Perhaps, also, they considered his scheme too daring to succeed.
Accordingly they withdrew from the hospital, to be out of his reach. It
was not so with the others. The Polignacs had been mixed up in the
enterprise of Georges, and had no wish to be again involved. Whether
there were many others in the plot we do not know, Lafon names only
four, and it does not seem that M. de Puyvert took a very active part in
it.
Mallet's new scheme was identical with the old one that had been taken
from him and shown to Napoleon. Napoleon had recognized its daring and
ability, and had not despised it. That no further fear of Mallet was
entertained is clear, or he would never have been transferred from the
prison to a private hospital, where he would be under very little
supervision.
In his hospital, Mallet drew up the following report of a Session of the
Senate, imagined by himself:
"SÉNAT CONSERVATEUR
"Session of 22 October, 1812.
"The Session was opened at 8 P.M., under the presidency of Senator
Sieyes.
"The occasion of this extraordinary Session was the receipt of the
news of the death of the Emperor Napoleon, under the walls of
Moscow, on the 8th of the month.
"The Senate, after mature consideration of the condition of affairs
caused by this event, named a Commission to consider the danger of
the situation, and to arrange for the maintenance of Government and
order. After having received the report of this Commission, the
following orders were passed by the Senate.
"That as the Imperial Government has failed to satisfy the
aspirations of the French people, and secure peace, it be decreed
annulled forthwith.
"That all such officers military and civil as shall use their
authority prejudicially to the re-establishment of the Republic,
shall be declared outlawed.
"That a Provisional Government be established, to consist of 13
members:--Moreau, President; Carnot, Vice-President; General
Augereau, Bigonet, Destutt-Tracy, Florent Guyot, Frochot; Mathieu
Montmorency, General Mallet, Noailles, Truguet; Volney, Garat.
"That this Provisional Government be required to watch over the
internal and external safety of the State, and to enter into
negociations with the military powers for the re-establishment of
peace.
"That a constitution shall be drawn up and submitted to the General
Assembly of the French realm.
"That the National Guard be reconstituted as formerly.
"That a general Amnesty be proclaimed for all political offences;
that all emigrants, exiles, be permitted to return.
"That the freedom of the Press be restored.
"That the command of the army of the Centre, and which consists of
50,000 men, and is stationed near Paris, be given to General
Lecombe.
"That General Mallet replaces General Hulin as commandant of Paris,
and in the first division. He will have the right to nominate the
officers in the general staff that will surround him."
There were many other orders, 19 in all, but these will suffice to
indicate the tendency of the document. It was signed by the President
and his Secretaries.
President, SIEYES.
Secretaries, LANJUINAIS, et GREGOIRE.
"Approved, and compared with a similar paper in my own hands,
Signed, MALLET,
General of Division, Commandant of the main army of
Paris, and of the forces of the First Division."
This document, which was designed to be shown to the troops, to the
officers and officials, was drawn up in a form so close to the genuine
form, and the signatures and seals were so accurately imitated, that the
document was not likely at the first glance to excite mistrust.
Moreover, Mallet had drawn up an order for the day, and a proclamation,
which was printed in many thousand copies.
On the 22nd October, 1812, at 10 o'clock at night, after he had been
playing cards with great composure in the hospital, Mallet made his
escape, along with four others, one was the Abbé Lafon, another a
corporal named Rateau, whom he had named as his aide-de-camp. Mallet had
just twelve francs in his pocket, and so furnished he embarked on his
undertaking to upset the throne of the Emperor. He at once went to a
Spanish monk, whose acquaintance he had made in prison; and in his rooms
found his general's uniform which had been brought there by a woman the
evening before. Uniforms and swords for his confederates were also
ready. But it rained that night--it rained in torrents, and the streets
of Paris ran with water. It has been remarked that rain in Paris has a
very sobering effect on political agitations, and acts even better than
bayonets in preventing a disturbance of the public peace.
Mallet and his confederates could not leave their shelter till after
midnight, and some of them did not appear at the place of rendezvous
till 6 o'clock in the morning. Indisputably this had much to do with the
defeat of the plot.
The success of the undertaking depended on darkness, on the sudden
bewilderment of minds, and the paralysis of the government through the
assassination of some of the ministers. About 2 A.M. Mallet appeared in
his general's uniform, attended by some of his confederates also in
uniform, at the Popincour barracks, and demanded to see the Commandant
Soulier at once, giving his name as Lamothe. Soulier was in bed asleep.
He was also unwell. He was roused from his slumbers, hastily dressed
himself, and received a sealed letter, which he broke open, and read:
"To the General of Division, Commandant-in-Chief of the troops
under arms in Paris, and the troops of the First Division, Soulier,
Commandant of the 10th Cohort."
"General Headquarters,
"Place Vendôme.
"23_rd_ Oct., 1812, 10 o'clock a.m.
"M. LE COMMANDANT,--I have given orders to the General Lamothe with
a police commissioner to attend at your barracks, and to read
before you and your Cohort the decree of the senate consequent on
the receipt of the news of the death of the Emperor, and the
cessation of the Imperial Government. The said general will
communicate to you the Order for the Day, which you will be pleased
to further to the General of Brigade. You are required to get the
troops under arms with all possible despatch and quietness. By
daybreak, the officers who are in barracks will be sent to the
Place de Grève, there to await their companies, which will there
assemble, after the instructions which General Lamothe will furnish
have been carried out."
Then ensued a series of dispositions for the troops, and the whole was
signed by Mallet.
When Soulier had read this letter, Mallet, who pretended to be General
Lamothe, handed him the document already given, relating to the assembly
of the Senate, and its decisions. Then he gave him the Order for the
Day, for the 23rd and 24th October.
Colonel Soulier, raised from sleep, out of health, bewildered, did not
for a moment mistrust the messenger, or the documents handed to him. He
hastened at once to put in execution the orders he had received.
The same proceedings were gone through in the barracks of Les Minimes,
and of Picpus; the decree of the Senate, the Order of the Day, and a
Proclamation, were read by torchlight.
Everywhere the same success. The officers had not the smallest doubt as
to the authenticity of the papers presented to them. Everywhere also the
Proclamation announcing the death of the Emperor, the cessation of the
Empire, and the establishment of the Provisional Government was being
placarded about.
At 6 A.M., at the head of a troop, Mallet, still acting as General
Lamothe, marched before the prison of La Force, and the Governor was
ordered to open the gates. The Decree of the Senate and the Order of the
Day were read to him, and he was required at once to discharge three
state prisoners he held, General Guidal, Lahorie, and a Corsican,
Bocchejampe, together with certain officers there confined. He did as
required, and Mallet separated his troops into four detachments, keeping
one under his own command, and placing the others under the orders of
Guidal, Lahorie and Bocchejampe.
Guidal and Lahorie, by his orders, now marched to the Ministry of
Police, where they arrested Savary, Duke of Rovigo, Minister of Police.
At the same time Boutreux, another confederate, had gone to the
prefecture of the Paris police, had arrested the prefect, Pasquier, and
sent him to be confined in La Force.
Mallet, now at the head of 150 men, went to the État-Major de-la-place,
to go through the same farce with the Commandant-de-place, and get him
to subscribe the Order for the Day. Count Hullin refused. Mallet
presented a pistol at his head, fired, and Hullin fell covered with
blood to the ground. Mallet left him for dead, but fortunately only his
jaw was broken. By means of a forged order addressed to the commandant
of one of the regiments of the paid guard of Paris, he occupied the
National Bank, in which, at the time, there was a considerable treasure
in specie.
The État-Major of Paris was a post of the highest importance, as it was
the headquarters of the whole military authority in Paris. Before Mallet
approached it, he sent a packet to the Adjutant-General Doucet, of a
similar tenor to that given to Soulier and the other colonels, and
containing his nomination as general of brigade, and a treasury order
for a hundred thousand francs.
Soulier, Colonel of the 10th Cohort, obeying the orders he had received,
the authenticity of which he did not for a moment dispute, had in the
meantime made himself master of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and had stationed a
strong force in the square before the building. Frochot, Prefect of the
Seine, was riding into Paris from his country house at half-past eight
in the morning, when he was met by his servants, in great excitement,
with a note from Mallet, on the outside of which were written the
ominous words "Fuit Imperator." Now it so happened that no tidings of
the Emperor had been received for twenty-five days, and much uneasiness
was felt concerning him. When Frochot therefore received this notice, he
believed it, and hurried to the Hôtel-de-Ville. There he received a
despatch from Mallet, under the title of Governor of Paris, ordering him
to make ready the principal apartment in the building for the use of
the Provisional Government. Not for a moment did Frochot remember
that--even if the Emperor were dead, there was the young Napoleon, to
whom his allegiance was due; he at once obeyed the orders he had
received, and began to make the Hôtel ready for the meeting of the
Provisional Government. Afterwards when he was reminded that there was a
son to Napoleon, and that his duty was to support him, Frochot answered,
"Ah! I forgot that. I was distracted with the news."
By means of the forged orders despatched everywhere, all the barriers of
Paris had been seized and were closed, and positive orders were issued
that no one was to be allowed to enter or leave Paris.
Mallet now drew up before the État-Major-Général, still accompanied and
obeyed by the officer and detachment. Nothing was wanting now but the
command of the adjutant-general's office to give to Mallet the entire
direction of the military force of Paris, with command of the telegraph,
and with it of all France. With that, and with the treasury already
seized, he would be master of the situation. In another ten minutes
Paris would be in his hand, and with Paris the whole of France.
An accident--an accident only--at that moment saved the throne of
Napoleon. Doucet was a little suspicious about the orders--or allowed it
afterwards to be supposed that he was. He read them, and stood in
perplexity. He would have put what doubts presented themselves aside,
had it not been for his aide-de-camp, Laborde. It happened that Laborde
had had charge of Mallet in La Force, and had seen him there quite
recently. He came down to enter the room where was Doucet, standing in
doubt before Mallet. Mallet's guard was before the door, and would have
prevented him from entering; however, he peremptorily called to them to
suffer him to pass, and the men, accustomed to obey his voice, allowed
him to enter. The moment he saw Mallet in his general's uniform, he
recognised him and said, "But--how the devil!-- That is my prisoner. How
came he to escape?" Doucet still hesitated, and attempted to explain,
when Laborde cut his superior officer short with, "There is something
wrong here. Arrest the fellow, and I will go at once to the minister of
police."
Mallet put his hand in his pocket to draw out the pistol with which he
had shot Hullin, when the gesture was observed in a mirror opposite, and
before he had time to draw and cock the pistol, Doucet and Laborde were
on him, and had disarmed him.
Laborde, with great promptitude, threw open the door, and announced to
the soldiers the deceit that had been practised on them, and assured
them that the tidings of the death of the Emperor were false.
The arrest of Mallet disconcerted the whole conspiracy. Had Generals
Lahorie and Guidal been men of decision and resolution they might still
have saved it, but this they were not; though at the head of
considerable bodies of men, the moment they saw that their chief had met
with a hitch in carrying out his plan, they concluded that all was lost,
and made the best of their way from their posts to places of
concealment.
It was not till 8 o'clock that Saulnier, General Secretary of Police,
heard of the arrest and imprisonment of his chief, Savary, Duke of
Rovigo. He at once hastened to Cambaçérès, the President of the Ministry
in the absence of the Emperor, and astonished and alarmed him with the
tidings. Then Saulnier hastened to Hullin, whom he found weltering in
his blood, and unable to speak.