The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

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Pichegru contrived to escape from Guyana to America, from whence
he went to England; where having no longer any need for secrecy,
he put himself openly in the pay of Louis XVIII and aimed at the
overthrow of the consular government. However, he could not
pretend that, deprived of his rank, banished and absent from
France for more than six years, he could any longer wield as much
influence over the army as General Moreau, the victor of
Hohenlinden, and on this account, very popular with the troops,
of whom he was the inspector-general. Pichegru, then, out of
devotion to the Bourbon cause, agreed to forget the reasons he
had for disliking Moreau, and to unite with him for the triumph
of the policy to which he was committed. Moreau, who was born in
Brittany, was studying law at Rennes when the revolution of 1789
broke out. The students, young and turbulent, elected him as
their leader, and when they formed a battalion of volunteers,
they named Moreau as their commander. Having made his debut in
the profession of arms as a senior officer, he proved himself
both courageous and competent, and was rapidly promoted to
general and army commander. He won several battles, and
conducted, in the face of Prince Charles of Austria, a justly
celebrated retreat. But though a good soldier, Moreau lacked
civic courage. We have seen him refuse to put himself at the head
of the government, while Bonaparte was absent in Egypt, however,
though he had helped the latter on the 18th Brumaire, he became
envious of his power when he saw him raised to the position of
First Consul, to the extent that he sought by all means to
supplant him; driven on, it is said, by the jealousy felt by his
wife and mother-in-law towards Josephine. Given this situation,
it would not be difficult to persuade Moreau to conspire with
Pichegru to overthrow the government.

A Breton, named Lajolais, an agent of Louis XVIII, and a friend
of Moreau, became the intermediary between him and Pichegru; he
travelled frequently between London and Paris, and it soon became
evident to him that Moreau, while agreeing to the overthrow of
Bonaparte, intended to keep power for himself, and not to hand it
to the Bourbons. It was then thought that a meeting between him
and Pichegru might lead him to change his mind, so Pichegru was
landed on the coast of France from an English vessel at a spot
near Trepot, and went to Paris, to where Georges Cadoudal had
preceded him, along with M. de Riviere, the two Polignacs, and
other royalists.

Georges Cadoudal was the youngest son of a miller from Morbihan;
but as there was a bizarre custom, in that part of lower
Brittany, whereby the last-born of a family inherited all the
estate, Georges, whose father was comfortably off, had been given
a certain amount of education. He was a short man, with wide
shoulders and the heart of a tiger, whose audacity and courage
had raised him to the high command of all the groups of "Chouans"
in Brittany.

Since the pacification of Brittany he had lived in London; but
his fanatical devotion to the house of Bourbon did not allow him
any repose as long as the First Consul was at the head of the
government. He formed a plan to kill him. Not by a clandestine
assassination, but in broad daylight, by attacking him on the
road to Saint-Cloud with a party of thirty or forty mounted
"Chouans" well armed and wearing the uniform of the consular
guard. This plan had the more chance of success, since, at this
time, Bonaparte's escort was usually no more than four
cavalrymen.

A meeting was arranged between Pichegru and Moreau; it took place
at night, near the Church of La Madeleine, which was then being
built. Moreau agreed to the deposition, and even the death of the
First Consul, but he refused to consider the restoration of the
Bourbons.

Bonaparte's secret police having warned him that there was
underground plotting going on in Paris, he ordered the arrest of
a number of former "Chouans" who were in the city. One of these
gave some information which seriously compromised General Moreau,
whose arrest was then agreed upon by the council of ministers.

This arrest initially created a very bad impression amongst the
general public, because Cadoudal and Pichegru not having been
arrested, no one believed they were in France, and it was said
that Bonaparte had invented the conspiracy in order to get rid of
Moreau. The government then had the strongest reasons to prove
that Cadoudal and Pichegru were in Paris, and that they had met
Moreau. All the barriers were closed for several days, and the
most drastic punishment was decreed for anyone sheltering the
conspirators. From that moment it became very difficult for them
to find any place of safety, and soon Pichegru, M. de Riviere and
the Polignacs fell into the hands of the police. These arrests
began to convince the public of the reality of the conspiracy,
and the capture of Georges Cadoudal dispelled any remaining
doubts.

Cadoudal having stated in his interrogation that he had come with
the intention of killing the First Consul, and that the
conspiracy was backed by a prince of the royal family, the police
started an investigation to discover the location of all the
princes of the house of Bourbon. They found that the Prince
D'Enghien, the grandson of the great Conde, had been living for
some time at Ettenheim, a little town situated some leagues from
the Rhine, in the country of Baden. It has never been proved that
the Duc D'Enghien was involved in the conspiracy, but he
certainly had, on several occasions, been imprudent enough to
enter French territory. However that may be, the First Consul
sent, secretly, and by night, a detachment of troops led by
General Ordener, to the town of Ettenhiem, where they seized the
Duc D'Enghien. He was taken immediately to Vincennes, where he
was tried, condemned, and shot before the public was aware of his
arrest.

This execution was greeted with general disapproval. It was held
that had the prince been captured on French territory, he could
have been tried under a law which in this case carried the death
penalty, but that to go and seize him beyond the frontiers, in a
foreign land, was a gross infringement of human rights.

It appeared, however, that the First Consul had not intended the
execution of the prince, and had wished only to frighten the
royalists who were conspiring against him; but that General
Savary, the head of the gendarmerie, who had gone to Vincennes,
took custody of the prince after sentence had been pronounced and
in an excess of zeal, had him shot, in order, he said, to save
the First Consul the trouble of ordering his death, or of sparing
the life of so dangerous an enemy. Savary has since denied that
he expressed such sentiments, but I have been assured by people
who heard him that he did. Bonaparte is known to have blamed
Savary for his hastiness, but the deed having been done, he had
to accept the consequences.

General Pichegru, ashamed to be associated with assassins, and
that the conqueror of Holland should stand in the dock with
criminals, hanged himself in prison by his cravat. It has been
claimed that he was strangled by Mamelukes of the Guard, but this
is a fabrication. Bonaparte had no incentive to commit such a
crime. It was more in his interest to have Pichegru disgraced
before a public tribunal than to have him killed in secret.

Georges Cadoudal, condemned to death, along with several
accomplices, was executed. The brothers Polignac, and M. de
Riviere, who received the same sentence, had it commuted to life
imprisonment. They were locked up in Vincennes, but after several
years they obtained permission to live on parole in a nursing
home. However, in 1814, on the approach of the allies, they left
and went to join the Comte d'Artois in Franche-comte; then in
1815 they were most savage in their pursuit of the Bonapartists.

As for General Moreau, he was sentenced to two years detention.
The First Consul pardoned him on condition that he went to the
United States. He lived there in obscurity until 1813, when he
went to Europe to range himself among the enemies of his country,
and died fighting against the French; thus confirming all the
accusations which were made against him at the time of Pichegru's
conspiracy.

The French nation, weary of revolutions, and recognising the
extent to which Bonaparte was needed for the maintenance of good
order, chose to forget what was odious in the affair of the Duc
d'Enghien, and raised Bonaparte to the throne, by declaring him
Emperor on May 25th, 1804.

Almost all nations recognised the new sovereign of France. To
mark the occasion, eighteen generals, selected from the most
notable, were elevated to the dignity of Marshals of the Empire.

Chap. 22.

After the trial of Moreau, we returned to Brest, from where we
shortly came back to Paris, as the marshal had to assist in the
distribution of the decoration of the Legion d'Honneur, an award
which the Emperor had recently instituted for the recognition of
all sorts of meritorious actions. In this connection I recall an
anecdote which was widely circulated at the time. In order to
bestow the award on all these soldiers who had distinguished
themselves in the Republican armies, the Emperor took into
consideration all those who had been given Armes d'Honneur, and
he selected a great number of these for the Legion d'Honneur,
although several of them had returned to civilian life. M. de
Narbonne, a returned emigre, was living quietly in Paris in the
Rue de Miromesnil, in the house next to my mother's, when, on the
day that the medals were distributed, he discovered that his
footman, a former soldier in Egypt, had just been decorated.
Being about to dine, he sent for the footman and said to him, "It
is not right that a recipient of the Legion d'Honneur should hand
round plates; and it would be even less right that you should put
aside your decoration to serve at table. Sit down with me and we
shall dine together, and tomorrow you shall go to my country
estate where you shall be a game-keeper. An occupation which is
not incompatible with wearing your decoration."

When the Emperor was told of this display of good taste, he sent
for M. de Narbonne, whom he had wanted to meet for a long time,
having heard so much about his wit and intelligence, and was so
pleased with him that he made him an aide-de-camp.

After distributing the crosses in Paris, the Emperor went, for
the same purpose, to the camp at Boulogne, where the troops were
drawn up in a semi-circle facing the sea. The ceremony was
imposing. The Emperor appeared for the first time on a throne,
surrounded by his marshals. The enthusiasm was indescribable! The
English fleet who could see what was going on, sent several light
vessels in an attempt to disrupt the event by a cannonade, but
our coastal batteries briskly returned their fire.

There was a story current at the time which related that, after
the ceremony was over, the Emperor was returning to Boulogne
followed by his marshals and an immense retinue, when he stopped
in the shelter of one of these batteries, and calling to Marmont,
who had served in the artillery, said "Let us see if we can
remember our old trade and land a bomb on that English brig." And
dismissing the corporal who was in charge of the weapon, the
Emperor aimed and fired at the vessel. The bomb brushed the
vessel's sails and fell into the sea. Marmont tried but with no
better fortune. The Emperor then recalled the corporal to his
post and the latter took aim and fired with such effect that he
landed a bomb on the brig, which promptly sank, to the great
delight of the onlookers, whereupon Napoleon pinned a medal to
the soldier's uniform. How much truth there is in this tale, I do
not know. I shared in the favours being distributed on that day.
I had been a sous-lieutenant for five and a half years, and had
been through several campaigns. The Emperor, at the request of
Augereau promoted me to lieutenant; but for a moment I thought he
was going to refuse me this rank, for remembering that a Marbot
had figured in the conspiracy of Rennes, he frowned when the
marshal spoke up for me and, looking closely at me he said "Is it
you who...?" "No sire, it is not me who!..." I replied. "Ah!" he
said, "you are the one who was at Genoa and Marengo. I appoint
you lieutenant."

The Emperor also granted me a place at the military school of
Fontainebleau for my younger brother, Felix, and from that day on
he no longer confused me with my elder brother for whom he always
had antipathy, though Adolphe had done nothing to deserve it.

As the troops of 7th Corps were not concentrated in an
encampment, Marshal Augereau's presence in Brest was of very
little use; so he was given permission to spend the rest of the
summer and the autumn at his fine estate of La Houssaye, near
Tournan, in Brie. I even suspect that the Emperor preferred to
have him there rather than in the depths of Brittany at the head
of a large army. However, any doubts which the Emperor may have
had about Augereau's loyalty were without foundation, and arose
from the underground plots of a General S....

S.... was a brigadier-general serving in 7th Corps. A capable
officer, but over-ambitious. He was regarded as untrustworthy by
his fellow generals, who did not associate with him. Angered by
this rejection, and bent on revenge, he sent to the Emperor a
letter in which he denounced all the generals, as well as the
marshal, as conspiring against the empire. Napoleon, to his
credit, did not employ any secret means to ascertain the truth:
he simply passed the general's letter on to Marshal Augereau. The
marshal felt sure that nothing serious was going on in his army;
however as he knew that several generals and colonels had engaged
in some thoughtless talk, he resolved to put an end to this sort
of thing. As he did not wish to jeopardize the career of those
officers to whom he intended to deliver a rebuke, he thought it
would be best if his words were carried by an aide-de-camp, and
he chose to take me into his confidence for this important
mission.

I left La Housaye in August, in very hot weather, and rode at
full speed the one hundred and sixty leagues between the chateau
and the town of Brest, and as many again on the way back. I
stayed no more than twenty-four hours in the town, so I arrived
back completely worn out, for I think that there is no more
exhausting job than riding rapidly on horseback from post-house
to post-house. I had found things a good deal more serious than
the marshal had thought; there was, in fact a considerable
ferment in the army, but the message I had brought calmed down
the generals, almost all of whom were devoted to the marshal.

I was beginning to recover from my exertions when the marshal
said to me one morning, that the generals wanted to denounce
S.... as a spy. He added that it was absolutely essential that
he sent one of his aides-de-camp, and he wanted to know if I felt
able to make the journey again. He said he would not order me to
go, but would leave it to me to decide whether I could do it or
not. If it had been merely a matter of reward or even promotion,
I think I would have refused the task, but it was a question of
obliging my father's friend, who had welcomed me with so much
kindness, so I said that I would be ready to go in an hour's
time. I was worried that I might not be able to complete the
journey, because of the extremely tiring nature of this form of
travel; I rested for no more than two hours out of the
twenty-four, when I flung myself down on a heap of straw in the
post-house stables. It was fearfully hot weather, but I managed
to reach Brest and return without accident, and had the
satisfaction of being able to tell the marshal that the generals
would limit themselves to expressing their mistrust of S....

General S... being now discredited, deserted and went to England,
and is said to have wandered over Europe for twenty years before
dying in poverty.

After my second return from Brest, the marshal rewarded me by
putting me in direct contact with the Emperor. He sent me to
Fontainebleau to meet Napoleon and conduct him to La Houssaye,
where he was to spend a day in the company of several of his
marshals. It was while walking with them and discussing his
plans, and the manner in which he intended to uphold his dignity
and theirs, that he presented each of them with a sum of money
sufficient for them to purchase a mansion in Paris. Marshal
Augereau bought that of Rochechouart, in the Rue
Grenelle-St-Germain, which is today occupied by the ministry of
information. The mansion was superb, but the marshal preferred to
stay at La Houssaye, where he kept up a great state; for over and
above his aides-de-camp, each of whom had his own apartments, the
number of invited guests was always considerable. One enjoyed
complete liberty; the marshal allowed his guests to do as they
pleased, provided that no noise reached the wing of the chateau
occupied by his wife.

This excellent woman, who had become a chronic invalid, lived
very quietly, and appeared only rarely at the table or in the
salon, but when she did, far from constraining our high spirits,
she took pleasure in encouraging them.

She had with her two extraordinary lady companions. The first of
these always wore men's clothing, and was known by the name of
Sans-gene. She was the daughter of one of the leaders who, in
1793, defended Lyon against the forces of the convention. She
escaped, with her father, both of them disguised as soldiers, and
took refuge in the ranks of the 9th Dragoon regiment; where they
assumed nommes de guerre and took part in campaigning.

Mlle. Sans-Gene, who combined with her masculine attire and
appearance, a most manly courage, received several wounds, one of
them at Castiglione, where her regiment was part of Augereau's
division. General Bonaparte, who had often witnessed the prowess
of this remarkable woman, when he became First Consul, gave her a
pension and a position beside his wife; but life at court did not
suit Mlle. San-Gene. She left Mme. Bonaparte, who by mutual
consent handed her over to Mme. Augereau to whom she became
secretary and reader. The second lady companion of Mme. Augereau
was the widow of the sculptor Adam, and in spite of her eighty
years was the life and soul of the chateau.

Noisy parties and practical jokes were the order of the day at
this period of time, particularly at La Houssaye, whose
proprietor was not happy unless he could see his guests and the
younger members of his staff gay and animated. The marshal came
back to Paris in November; the time for the coronation was
drawing near and already the Pope, who had come for the ceremony,
was at the Tuileries. A crowd of magistrates and deputations from
various departments had collected in the capital, where also were
all the colonels of the army, with detachments from their
regiments, to whom the Emperor distributed, on the Champ de Mars,
the eagles, which became so celebrated. Paris, resplendent,
displayed a luxury hitherto unknown. The court of the new
Emperor became the most brilliant in the world; everywhere were
fˆtes, balls, and joyous assemblies.

The coronation took place on the 2nd December. I accompanied the
marshal at this ceremony, which I shall not describe, since the
details are so well known. Some days later the marshals held a
ball in honour of the Emperor and Empress. There were eighteen
marshals, and Marshal Duroc, although he was only Prefect of the
Palace, joined with them, which made nineteen subscribers, each
one of whom paid up 25,000 francs for the expenses of the event,
which therefore cost 475000 francs. The ball took place in the
great ballroom of the Opera, where never before had something so
magnificent been seen. General Samson of the engineers was the
organiser; the aides-de-camp acted as stewards, to welcome the
guests and to distribute tickets. Everyone in Paris wanted one,
so the aides were overwhelmed by letters and requests. I never
had so many friends! Everything went off perfectly, and the
Emperor appeared very pleased. So we ended the year 1804 in the
midst of celebrations, and entered the year 1805, which was to be
a year of many important events.

In order that his army could participate in the general
jollifications, Marshal Augereau went to Brest, in spite of the
rigours of winter, and gave a number of magnificent balls, at
which he entertained a succession of officers, and even a good
number of soldiers. At the beginning of spring, he returned to La
Houssaye to await the moment for the invasion of England.

This expedition, which was regarded as chimerical, was, however,
on the point of realisation. The presence of an English squadron
of about fifteen ships, cruising endlessly in the Channel, made
it impossible to transport a French army to England in boats and
barges which would have sunk on the least contact with a larger
vessel; but the Emperor could dispose of sixty ships of the line,
either French or foreign, dispersed in the harbours of Brest,
Lorient, Rochefort, Le Ferrol, and Cadiz; it was a matter of
concentrating them, unexpectedly, in the Channel, and crushing,
by a greatly superior force, the little English squadron, to
become masters of the passage, if only for three days.

To achieve this, the Emperor ordered Admiral Villeneuve, the
commander-in-chief of all these forces, to gather together, from
the French and Spanish ports whatever ships were available, and
head, not for Boulogne, but for Martinique, to where it was
certain the English fleet would follow him. While the English
were making their way to the Antilles, Villeneuve was to quit the
islands, and returning round the north of Scotland, was to enter
the eastern end of the channel with sixty ships, which would
easily overcome the fifteen which the English maintained before
Boulogne, and so put Napoleon in command of the crossing; while
the English, on their arrival at the Antilles, would search
around for Admiral Villeneuve's fleet, and thus waste valuable
time.

A part of this fine plan was now put into action. Villeneuve
left, with not sixty, but some thirty ships. He reached
Martinique. The English, led astray, hurried to the Antilles,
which Admiral Villeneuve had left, but the French admiral,
instead of returning via Scotland, made for Cadiz in order to
pick up the Spanish fleet, as if thirty ships were not enough to
overcome or chase away the fifteen English vessels!

That, however, is not all. Having arrived at Cadiz, Villeneuve
spent a great deal of time repairing his ships; time during which
the enemy fleet also returned to Europe, and established a
patrolling force off Cadiz. In the end, the coming of the equinox
gales having made sailing from this port difficult, Villeneuve
found himself blockaded; so the ingenious plans of the Emperor
came to nothing, and he, realising that the English would not be
taken in a second time, gave up the idea of invading Britain, or
at least postponed it indefinitely, and turned his attention to
the continent.

Before I recount the principal events of this long war, and the
part which I played in it, I must describe a terrible misfortune
which befell the family.

My brother, Felix, who was at the military school of
Fontainebleau, was a little short-sighted; he had, therefore,
hesitated before taking up a military career; nevertheless, once
embarked on it, he worked with such enthusiasm that he soon
became a sergeant-major, a position difficult to maintain in a
school. The pupils, an unruly lot, were in the habit of burying
in the earth of the fortifications which they were digging, the
implements which had been issued to them for the work. General
Bellavene, the head of the school, a very strict man, ordered
that the implements should be issued to the sergeant-majors, who
would then be accountable for them.

One day, my brother, having seen a pupil bury a pick, rebuked
him. The pupil replied very rudely and added that in a few days
they would be leaving school, and being then the equal of his
sergeant-major, he would demand satisfaction for the reprimand.
My brother replied indignantly that there was no need to wait so
long.

Lacking swords, they used compasses fixed to wooden batons:
Jacqueminot, who later became a lieutenant-general, was my
brother's second. My brother's poor eyesight put him at a
disadvantage, but he succeeded in wounding his opponent, though
he received in return a wound which penetrated his right arm. His
companions dressed it secretly.

By an unhappy coincidence, the Emperor had come to Fontainebleau,
and had decided to conduct manoeuvres for several hours, under a
blazing sun. My poor brother, compelled to run without rest, his
arm dragged down by the weight of his heavy musket, was overcome
by the heat and his wound re-opened! He should have fallen out on
the pretext of an indisposition, but he was in front of the
Emperor who, at the end of the session, would distribute the
commissions of sous-lieutenant, so eagerly desired. Felix made
superhuman efforts to resist, but at last his strength failed him
and he collapsed and was carried away in a most serious
condition.