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Harrel came nearly every evening at eleven o'clock to inform me of the progress of the conspiracy, which I immediately communicated to the First Consul, who was not sorry to find Arena and Ceracchi deeply committed. But the time passed on, and nothing was done. The First Consul began to grow impatient. At length Harrel came to say that they had no money to purchase arms. Money was given him.
I will relate word for word what he communicated to me. Harrel probably thought that he was bound in gratitude to acquaint me with these details; but he owed me no gratitude, for it was much against my will that he had encouraged the conspiracy of Ceracchi, and received the reward of his treachery in that crime. The following is Harrel's statement:
Although three months intervened between the machinations of Ceracchi and Arena and the horrible attempt of the 3d Nivose, I shall relate these two events in immediate succession; for if they had no other points of resemblance they were at least alike in their object. The conspirators in the first affair were of the revolutionary faction.
I will relate word for word what he communicated to me. Harrel probably thought that he was bound in gratitude to acquaint me with these details; but he owed me no gratitude, for it was much against my will that he had encouraged the conspiracy of Ceracchi, and received the reward of his treachery in that crime. The following is Harrel's statement:
How could he imagine I would submit to such treatment, considering that we had been friends since our boyhood, and that I was now living on full terms of confidence and familiarity with him? Before I speak of the conspiracy of Ceracchi, Arena, Topino-Lebrun, and others, I must notice a remark made by Napoleon at St. Helena.
Chief among them were a braggart named Demerville, a painter, Topino Lebrun, a sculptor, Ceracchi, and Aréna, brother of the Corsican deputy who had shaken Bonaparte by the collar at the crisis of Brumaire. These men hit upon the notion that, with the aid of one man of action, they could make away with the new despot.
To the conspiracy of the "enraged" belonged the Italians Ceracchi, Arena, and Diana, who at the opera, when the consul appeared in his loge, and was greeted by the acclamations of the people, were ready to fire their pistols at him.
Harrel came nearly every evening at eleven o'clock to inform me of the progress of the conspiracy, which I immediately communicated to the First Consul, who was not sorry to find Arena and Ceracchi deeply committed. But the time passed on, and nothing was done. The First Consul began to grow impatient. At length Harrel came to say that they had no money to purchase arms. Money was given him.
How could he imagine I would submit to such treatment, considering that we had been friends since our boyhood, and that I was now living on full terms of confidence and familiarity with him? Before I speak of the conspiracy of Ceracchi, Arena, Topino-Lebrun, and others, I must notice a remark made by Napoleon at St. Helena.
At the same time, and as if to clear off all old accounts with the conspirators, the four men accused in October, Arena, formerly a representative, and recently employed by the Committee of Public Safety, and the artists Ceracchi and Topino-Lebrun, were at last tried, and condemned to perish on the scaffold.
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