United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Moreau was notoriously incapable in the sphere of political intrigue: the royalist coteries in London presented just the material on which the agent provocateur delights to work; and some British officials could, doubtless, with equal ease be drawn into the toils. Méhée de la Touche has left a highly spiced account of his adventures; but it must, of course, be received with distrust.
German writers generally take the view that he was not serious in his proposal, that he was deliberately playing with Napoleon, that he wished to secure from him some compromising document which he might then be able, as, in fact, was to happen, to use against him. They seem to find some pleasure in admiring him in the part of Agent provocateur.
The agent provocateur has at all times been a favourite tool of continental Governments: but rarely has a more finished specimen of the class been seen than Méhée de la Touche. After plying the trade of an assassin in the September massacres of 1792, and of a Jacobin spy during the Terror, he had been included by Bonaparte among the Jacobin scapegoats who expiated the Chouan outrage of Nivôse.
Word Of The Day