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Updated: June 26, 2025
This letter is from Monsieur de Puisaye, one of the most active partisans of the Royal cause, a connection of the ancient house of Savenaye. And he begins by telling me of the unexpected reverses sustained by our men so close upon their successes at Chateau-Gonthier, successes that had raised our loyal hopes so high.
These came not only from various parts of the French Republic but from nearly all the surrounding nations, the main source being London. Thence it was that Count Joseph de Puisaye sent off cargoes of false paper, excellently engraved and printed, through ports in Brittany and other disaffected parts of France.
There were many of them very slow sailers, merchant vessels hired for the purpose, some of them brigs of a hundred and fifty to two hundred tons, which must have afforded very miserable accommodation to the unfortunate emigrants. The troops were under the command of a royalist officer, the Comte de Puisaye, who had as his lieutenants the Comtes d'Hervilly and de Sombreuil.
To account for the opportune arrival of the squadron at this moment, I may state what I afterwards heard, that directly the fort was captured, the Comte de Puisaye had sent off a boat, though she ran a great risk of being swamped, to the commodore, who had, immediately the gale abated, got under weigh.
Charette had even consented to treat with the republic, and a sort of pacification had been concluded between him and the convention at Jusnay. The marquis de Puisaye, an enterprising man, but volatile and more capable of intrigue than of vigorous party conceptions, intended to replace the almost expiring insurrection of La Vendee by that of Brittany.
Here Madame de Savenaye paused a moment and put down the letter from which she had been reading; for the first time since she had begun to speak she grew pale; knitting her black brows and with downcast eyes she went on: "Monsieur de Puisaye says he asks my pardon humbly on his knees for writing such tidings to me, bereaved as I am of all I hold dear, but 'it is meet, he says, 'that the civilised world should know the deeds these followers of liberty and enlightenment have wrought upon gallant men and highborn ladies, and I hold that he says well."
In Normandy the royalists were forming an army, under the famous intriguer, Puisaye. Between such a man and Buzot no understanding could subsist. There was no time for them to quarrel, for the movement broke down at once. The people of Normandy were quite indifferent. But there was one among them who had spirit, and energy, and courage, and passion enough to change the face of France.
D'Elbée's first letter was intercepted, and four months passed before the English government stirred. The émigrés and their princes had no love for these peasants and stay-at-home gentry and clergy, who took so long to declare themselves, and whose primary or ultimate motive was not royalism. Puisaye showed Napier a letter in which Lewis XVIII. directed that he should be put secretly to death.
Conducted by the officer, whose name I forget, we at length reached the quarters of the Comte de Puisaye. He was issuing orders to the officers who were coming and going, to collect the troops under his immediate command. As they came in they were formed up into various companies.
Méhée's narrative contains few details and dates, such as enable one to test his assertions. But I have examined the Puisaye Papers, and also the Foreign and Home Office archives, and have found proofs of the complicity of our Government, which it will be well to present here connectedly. Taken singly they are inconclusive, but collectively their importance is considerable. In our Foreign Office Records (France, No 70) there is a letter, dated London, August 30th, 1803, from the Baron de Roll, the factotum of the exiled Bourbons, to Mr. Hammond, our Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, asking him to call on the Comte d'Artois at his residence, No. 46, Baker Street. That the deliberations at that house were not wholly peaceful appears from a long secret memorandum of October 24th, 1803, in which the Comte d'Artois reviews the career of "that miserable adventurer" (Bonaparte), so as to prove that his present position is precarious and tottering. He concludes by naming those who desired his overthrow Moreau, Reynier, Bernadotte, Simon, Masséna, Lannes, and Férino: Sieyès, Carnot, Chénier, Fouché, Barras, Tallien, Rewbel, Lamarque, and Jean de Bry. Others would not attack him "corps
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