The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

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However I managed to drag myself as far as Pau, and being unable
to go any further, I stayed there all day. I could find no other
means of transport but the mail coach, and although the seats
were very expensive, I took one as far as Gimont, where I was
welcomed with open arms by M. Dorignac, a friend of my father,
with whom I had spent several months after I left Soreze. I
rested for a few days with his family, then I took a stage-coach
to Toulouse. I had spent four times the cost of the seat which I
had lost through the negligence of the hotel porter at Bayonne.

On my arrival at Toulouse I was going to look around for
somewhere to live, but the colonel told me that he had arranged a
place for me with one of his friends, an elderly doctor named M.
Merlhes, whose name I shall never forget, because this worthy man
and his numerous offspring were so good to me. During the two
weeks I stayed with them, I was treated as a member of the family
rather than as a boarder.

The regiment was up to strength and well mounted. We had many
exercises which I found very interesting; though I sometimes
found myself up before squadron commander Blancheville, an
excellent officer, an old soldier from whom I learned to work
with precision, and I owe much to him. Blancheville, before the
revolution, had been on the staff of the gendarmes of Luneville.
He was very well educated and took a great interest in young
officers whom he thought capable of learning, and compelled them
to study whether they liked it or not. As for the others, whom he
called the block-heads, he simply shrugged his shoulders when
they did not know their drill or made mistakes during exercises,
but he never punished them for it. There were two or three
sous-lieutenants whom he had picked out, they were MM. Gavoille,
Dumonts and me. In our case he would not suffer an incorrectly
given order, and punished us for the slightest mistake. As he was
a very good fellow, when off duty we risked asking him why he
treated us so severely. "Do you think I am so stupid that I would
try to wash a black man white?" He replied, "Messers so and so
are too old and lacking in talent to make it worth my while to
try to improve them. As for you who have all that is required to
succeed, you need to study, and study you shall!" I have never
forgotten this reply, and I made use of it when I became a
colonel. In fact old Blancheville had drawn our horoscopes
accurately, Gavoille became a lieutenant-colonel, Dumonts a
brigadier-general and I a divisional general.

On my arrival at Toulouse, I had exchanged the horse which I had
bought in Spain for a delightful mount from Navarre. Now, it so
happened that the prefect had arranged a race meeting in
celebration of some fˆte or other, and Gavoille, who was a great
lover of racing, had persuaded me to enter my horse. One day,
when I was exercising my horse on a grass track, as he took a
tight curve at full speed, he collided with the projecting wall
of a garden and fell stone dead. My companions thought I had
been killed or at least seriously injured, but by a miraculous
piece of good luck I was unhurt. When I had been picked up, and
saw my poor horse lying motionless, I was very upset, and went
back sadly to my billet, where I confronted the realisation that
I would have to buy another horse, and would have to ask my
mother for the money to do so, although I knew she was very
hard-up.

Comte Defermon, a minister of state and one of our trustees, was
opposed to the sale of those properties which still belonged to
us, because he foresaw that peace would increase the value of
land. He considered, rightly, that they should be retained and
creditors paid off gradually by rigid economy. This is one of the
greatest obligations we owe to the good M. Defermon, the most
sincere of my father's friends, and one for whose memory I have
the deepest respect.

When my request for money to buy a new horse was submitted to the
council of trustees, General Bernadotte, who was one of them,
burst out laughing, saying that it was a good try and that the
excuse was well chosen, and suggesting that my application was
what now-a-days would be called a "con", but, fortunately my
request was backed up by a letter from the colonel, and M.
Defermon stated that he did not believe me capable of trying to
obtain money by trickery. He was quite right in this, for
although I had an allowance of only 600 francs, my pay of just 95
francs a month and a lodging allowance of 12 francs, I never had
a penny of debt; something I have always regarded with horror.

I bought a new horse, which was not as good as the Navarrais, but
the general inspections, which had been reintroduced by the First
Consul, were approaching, and it was essential that I was quickly
remounted, the more so because we were to be inspected by General
Bourcier, who had the reputation of being a stern disciplinarian.

I was detailed to go with thirty men to form an escort for him.
He welcomed me warmly and spoke of my father, whom he had known
well, which, however, did not prevent him from putting me on a
charge the following day. The way in which this came about is
quite amusing.

One of our captains, named B***, was a very good-looking lad, and
would have been one of the most handsome men in the army if his
calves had been in harmony with the rest of his person; but his
legs were like stilts, which looked very odd in the tight
breeches, called Hungarians, which were then worn by the
Chasseurs. To get over this blemish, Captain B*** had acquired
pads made in the shape of calves, which completed his fine
appearance. You will see how these calves got me into trouble,
but they were not the only cause.

The regulations laid down that the tails of officer's horses
should be left flowing, as were the tails of the trooper's
horses. Our colonel, M. Moreau, was always perfectly mounted,
but all his horses had their tails cut, and as he feared that
General Bourcier--a stickler for the rules--would take him to
task for setting a bad example to his officers, he had, for the
time of the inspection, had false tails fitted to his horses
which were so realistic that, unless one knew, one would think
them natural. This was all very fine. We went on manoeuvres, to
which General Bourcier had invited General Suchet, the inspector
of infantry, and General Gudin, the commander of the territorial
division, and was accompanied by a numerous and brilliant staff.

The exercises were very long. Almost all the movements, carried
out at the gallop, ended with several charges at top speed. I was
in command of a section in the centre of Captain B***'s squadron,
and it was next to the captain that the colonel took up his
position. They were therefore a couple of paces in front of me
when the generals came to congratulate Colonel Moreau on the fine
performance of his troops. But what did I then see?.... The
extreme rapidity of the movements had deranged the accessories
added to the turn-out of both the colonel and Captain B***; the
false tail of the colonel's horse had come adrift, the centre
part, made of a pad of tow, was hanging down nearly to the ground
and the hairs were spread over the horse's crupper in a sort of
peacock's tail. As for Captain B***'s calves, they had slipped
round to the front, and could be seen as large lumps on his
shins, which produced a somewhat bizarre effect, while the
captain sat up proudly on his horse, as if to say "Look at me!
See how handsome I am!"

One has little gravity at the age of twenty. Mine was unable to
resist the grotesque spectacle in front of me, and in spite of
the presence of no less than three generals, I was unable to stop
myself from bursting into laughter, however much I tried. The
inspecting general, not knowing the reason for my hilarity,
called me out of the ranks to reprimand me, but to reach him I
had to pass between the colonel and Captain B***, and my eyes
were once more directed to this cursed tail and the new calves
sported by the captain, and I again burst out laughing. I was
then put under open arrest. The generals must have thought I was
crazy, but as soon as they had gone, the officers of the regiment
gathered round the colonel and Captain B***, and soon realised
what had happened. They laughed as I had done, but in easier
circumstances.

In the evening, the commandant Blancheville attended a reception
given by Madame Gudin. General Bourcier, who was also there,
having brought up the subject of what he called my escapade, M.
Blancheville explained the reasons for my unseemly laughter, an
explanation which gave rise to much amusement. The laughter was
increased by the entry of Captain B***, who having adjusted his
false calves, had come to display himself in this brilliant
society, without suspecting that he was one of the reasons for
their hilarity. General Bourcier, appreciating that if he could
not help laughing at a description of the sight which had greeted
my eyes, it was natural enough that a young sous-lieutenant could
not contain himself when confronted with this ridiculous
spectacle, cancelled my arrest and sent someone to look for me.
My arrival rekindled the laughter, which was increased by the
sight of Captain B***, who alone was unaware of the cause, going
from person to person asking what it was all about, while
everyone gazed at his calves.

Chap. 17.

Let us now turn to more serious matters. The Treaty of Luneville
had been followed by the Peace of Amiens, which put an end to the
war between France and England. The First Consul decided to
profit from the tranquility of Europe and the freedom of the sea
to despatch a large body of troops to Dominica, which he wished
to recover from the control of the blacks led by
Toussaint-Louverture, a man who, without being in open revolt
against the French, nevertheless adopted an air of great
independence. General Leclerc was to be in command of this
expedition. This general was a capable officer who had fought
successfully in Egypt and Italy; but his principal distinction
was that he had married Pauline Bonaparte, the First Consul's
sister. Leclerc was the son of a miller from Pontoise, if one can
describe as a miller, a very rich mill owner who had a
considerable business. The miller had given the best of
educations to his son and also to his daughter, who married
General Davout.

While General Leclerc was preparing for his departure, the First
Consul concentrated in Brittany those troops which he had
earmarked for the expedition, and these troops naturally came
under the command of the commander-in-chief of the area, which
was Bernadotte.

It is well known that there was always a great rivalry between
the troops of the Rhine army and those of the army of Italy. The
former were greatly attached to General Moreau, and did not care
for General Bonaparte, whose elevation to the head of government
they had witnessed with regret. For his part, the First Consul
had a great liking for the soldiers who had fought with him in
Italy and Egypt, and, although the breach with Moreau was not yet
openly declared, he considered that it would be in his interest
to remove to as far away as possible troops devoted to this
general. In consequence, the troops selected for the expedition
to Dominica were almost all taken from the army of the Rhine.
These men, however were perfectly happy to find themselves in
Brittany, under the command of Bernadotte, a former lieutenant of
Moreau's who had almost always served with them on the Rhine.

The expeditionary force was to comprise eventually some forty
thousand men. The army of the west proper consisted of a similar
number, so that Bernadotte, whose command extended to cover all
the departments between the mouth of the Gironde and that of the
Seine, had for a time under his orders an army of eighty thousand
men, of whom the majority were more attached to him than to the
head of the consular government.

If General Bernadotte had had more strength of character, the
First Consul would have regretted putting him in such a powerful
position; for I can say today, as an historical fact which will
harm no one, that Bernadotte plotted against the government of
which Bonaparte was the head. I shall give some details about
this conspiracy which were never known to the public, and perhaps
not even to General Bonaparte himself.

Generals Bernadotte and Moreau, jealous of the elevated position
of the First Consul, and dissatisfied with the small part he gave
them in public affairs, had resolved to overthrow him, and place
themselves at the head of the government in conjunction with a
civil administrator or an enlightened magistrate. To achieve this
aim, Bernadotte, who, it must be said, had a talent for making
himself liked by both officers and men, went about the provinces
of his command, reviewing troops and using every means to
increase their attachment to him. Enticements of all sorts,
money, promises of promotion, were employed among the junior
officers, while secretly he denigrated the government of the
First Consul to the seniors. Having sown disaffection amongst
most of the regiments, it would not have been difficult to push
them into revolt; particularly those destined for the
expeditionary force, who regarded it as a sort of deportation.

Bernadotte had as chief of staff Brigadier-general Simon, a
competent but rather colourless officer. His rank put him in a
position to correspond daily with unit commanders, and he used it
to make his office the centre of the conspiracy. A battalion
commander named Foucart was at that time attached to General
Simon, who made him his principal agent. Foucart, using the
excuse of official duties, travelled from garrison to garrison
organising a secret league, which was joined by almost all the
colonels and a crowd of senior officers, who were turned against
the First Consul by accusations that he aspired to royalty;
something, it seems, that he had not yet considered.

It was agreed that the garrison of Rennes, composed of several
regiments, would begin the movement, which would spread like a
trail of gunpowder into all divisions of the army: and as it was
necessary that in this garrison there should be one unit which
would start things off and get the rest moving, the 82nd Line
regiment was brought to Rennes. This regiment was commanded by
Colonel Pinoteau, an energetic and capable man, very brave, but
something of a hothead, although he appeared outwardly
phlegmatic. He was a follower of Bernadotte and one of the most
enthusiastic of the conspirators. He promised to deliver his
regiment, where he was extremely popular.

Everything was ready for the explosion when Bernadotte, lacking
resolve and aiming, like a true Gascon, to have a catspaw to pull
his chestnuts from the fire, persuaded General Simon and the
other principal conspirators that it was essential that he should
be in Paris when the army of Brittany proclaimed the deposition
of the consul, so that he would be in a position to seize
immediately the reins of government, in association with General
Moreau, with whom he was going to confer about the matter. In
reality, Bernadotte wished not to be compromised if the attempt
failed, while maintaining himself in a position to take advantage
of any success, and General Simon and the other conspirators were
blind enough not to see through this ruse. The day of the armed
uprising was then agreed, but the man who should have led it,
because he had organised it, had cunningly absented himself.

Before Bernadotte left for Paris, a proclamation had been drawn
up, addressed to the people of France as well as to the army.
Several thousand copies of this were to be stuck up on the day of
the event. A bookseller in Rennes, introduced by General Simon
and by Foucart into the conspiracy, had undertaken to print this
proclamation himself. This ensured that the proclamation would be
ready for use in Brittany, but Bernadotte wanted to have a large
number of these posters in Paris, for it was important to spread
them throughout the capital and to send them to all the provinces
as soon as the army of the west had made its move against the
government, and as there was a risk of discovery if an approach
was made to a Paris printer, Bernadotte devised a method of
acquiring a large number of posters without compromising himself.
He told my brother Adolphe, who was his aide-de-camp, that he was
authorised to accompany him to Paris, and that he was to bring
his horse and his carriage in anticipation of a long stay. My
brother was delighted, and having packed his personal effects
into the lockers of the carriage, he instructed his servant to
bring the carriage, unhurriedly, to Paris while he went there by
stage-coach.

As soon as my brother had left, General Simon and Commandant
Foucart, delaying, under some pretext or other, the departure of
my brother's servant, opened the carriage lockers and took out
the personal possessions, which they replaced by packets of the
proclamation. Then, having closed everything up, they sent poor
Joseph on his way, without any suspicion of what he was carrying.

However, the First Consul's police had got wind of something
brewing in the army of Brittany, but without knowing exactly what
was going on or who was involved. The minister of police thought
it was his duty to inform the prefect of Rennes who was a M.
Mounier, and by the most extraordinary chance the prefect
received this despatch on the very day when the revolt was due to
break out, during a parade at Rennes, at mid-day. It was now
eleven-thirty!

The prefect, to whom the minister had given no positive
information, thought that in order to obtain some, he could do no
better,in the absence of the commanding general, than to consult
his chief of staff. He therefore asked General Simon to come to
his office, and showed him the ministerial despatch. General
Simon, believing that all had been discovered, then foolishly
lost his head.

He told the prefect that there was indeed a vast conspiracy in
the army, in which he had, unfortunately, played a part, of which
he now repented; and thereupon he disclosed all the plans of the
conspirators, and named the leaders; adding that in a few minutes
the troops gathered on the parade ground, at a signal from
General Pinoteau, were going to proclaim the overthrow of the
consular government!

You may imagine M. Mounier's astonishment, and the concern he
felt at being in the presence of a culpable general who, though
at first thrown into confusion, might recover himself and
recollect that he had eighty thousand men under his command, of
whom eight to ten thousand were at this moment gathered not far
from the prefecture. The position in which M. Mounier found
himself was critical, but he extricated himself adroitly.

The general commanding the gendarmerie, Virion, had been ordered
by the government to put together at Rennes a body of unmounted
gendarmes, for the formation of which every regiment had supplied
some Grenadiers. These soldiers, having no unifying bonds,
escaped, in consequence, from the influence of the colonels of
the regiments, and recognised only the orders of their new
leaders, those of the gendarmerie who, in accordance with the
regulations, obeyed the instructions of the prefect. M. Mounier
now sent for General Virion, telling him to bring all the
gendarmes. Meanwhile, fearing that General Simon might change his
mind and leave him to go and place himself at the head of his
troops, he soothed him with honeyed words, assuring him that his
repentance and his confession would mitigate his offence in the
eyes of the First Consul, and persuaded him to hand over his
sword and go to the Tour Labat with the gendarmes who had at that
moment arrived in the courtyard. So now the prime mover in the
revolt was in prison.

While this was going on at the prefecture, the troops assembled
at the Place D'armes were awaiting the hour of the parade which
would also be that of the beginning of the revolt. All the
colonels were in the secret, and had promised their support
except the commander of the 79th, M. Goddard, who it was hoped
would follow the rest.

From what a slender thread hangs the destiny of empires!
Pinoteau, a strong and determined man, was due to give the signal
which his regiment, the 82nd, already drawn up in battle
formation on the square, was impatiently awaiting; but Pinoteau,
with Foucart, had been busy all morning arranging for the
despatch of proclamations, and in their preoccupation he had
forgotten to shave. Mid-day arrived. Colonel Pinoteau realising
that he was unshaven, hurried to put this right; but while he was
engaged in this operation, General Virion, escorted by a large
number of gendarmes, burst into the room, seized his sword and
declared him a prisoner. He was taken to the tower to join
General Simon. A few minutes later and Colonel Pinoteau would
have been at the head of ten thousand men, and would undoubtedly
have succeeded in starting the revolt. But taken thus by surprise
he could do nothing but surrender to force.

Having made this second arrest, Virion and the prefect sent an
aide-de-camp to the parade ground to tell Colonel Goddard of the
79th that they had a communication for him from the First Consul.
As soon as he arrived, they told him of the discovery of the
conspiracy and the arrest of General Simon and Colonel Pinoteau,
and persuaded him to unite with them in putting down the
rebellion. Having agreed to this, Colonel Goddard returned to the
parade ground without telling anyone what he had learned, and
taking his battalion to the Tour Labat, he joined the battalion
of gendarmes who were guarding it. Also there were the prefect
and General Virion, who arranged for ammunition to be distributed
to the loyal troops. They then awaited events.

Meanwhile, the officers of the regiments which were assembled on
the parade ground, surprised at the sudden departure of the 79th,
and not understanding why General Pinoteau was late, sent to his
home, where they were told that he had been arrested and sent to
the tower. They were told at the same time of the arrest of
General Simon.

This put the cat among the pigeons. The officers of the various
units got together; Commandant Foucart proposed that they should
march immediately to free the two prisoners and carry on with the
movement. This suggestion was received with acclamation,
particularly from the 82nd, who worshipped Colonel Pinoteau. They
hurried to the Tour Labat, but found it surrounded by four
thousand gendarmes and the battalion of the 79th. The assailants
were undoubtedly the more numerous, but they had no ammunition
and if they had had any, many of them would have been reluctant
to fire on their comrades, simply to make a change in the members
of the government. General Virion and the Prefect addressed them
and urged them to return to their duty. The soldiers hesitated,
and seeing this, none of the officers dared to order a bayonet
attack, which was the only action which remained possible.
Gradually the regiments stood down, and returned one by one to
their barracks. Commandant Foucart, left alone, was taken to the
tower, along with the unfortunate printer.

On learning that the insurrection at Rennes had failed, all the
officers of the other regiments of the army of Brittany disavowed
it; but the First Consul was not taken in by their protestations,
he brought forward the date of their embarkation for Dominica and
the other islands of the Antilles, where nearly all of them died,
either in the fighting or of yellow fever.

As soon as he had heard the first confessions of General Simon
and before the situation was fully under control, M. Mounier had
sent a despatch rider to the government, and the First Consul now
considered whether he should have Bernadotte and Moreau arrested.
However, he suspended this measure for lack of any evidence, and
to get hold of some, he ordered the examination of any travellers
coming from Brittany.

While all this was going on, the good Joseph arrived at
Versailles in my brother's carriage, and much to his surprise,
found himself seized by the gendarmerie, and, in spite of his
protests, brought before the minister of police. On learning that
the carriage which this man was driving belonged to one of
Bernadotte's aides-de-camp, the minister, Fouche, had all the
lockers searched and found them full of proclamations, in which
Bernadotte and Moreau, after denouncing the First Consul in
violent terms announced his fall and their accession to power.

Bonaparte, furious with these two officers, demanded their
presence. Moreau told him that as he, Moreau,had no authority
over the army of the west, he would accept no responsibility for
the conduct of the regiments of which it was composed; and one
has to admit that this was a valid objection. It however worsened
the position of Bernadotte, who, as commander-in-chief of the
troops assembled in Brittany, was responsible for maintaining
good order and discipline amongst them; but not only had his army
engaged in conspiracy, but his chief-of-staff was a leader in the
enterprise. The rebel proclamations bore Bernadotte's signature,
and more than one thousand copies of this document had just been
found in a carriage belonging to his aide-de-camp. The First
Consul thought that such evident proofs would flatten and
confound Bernadotte; but he was dealing with a true Gascon, as
devious as they come!