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General Lajolais had recounted the details of the interviews of Moreau with Pichegru; the accused persisted in denying everything. "Ah, well," replied Napoleon, "since he will not open with me, it will be necessary for him to yield to justice." Anger broke forth, in spite of the efforts of the First Consul to preserve the appearance of a sorrowful justice.
At the risk of his own life, Pichegru entirely altered the plan sent him by the Committee of Public Safety; and it was Moreau's masterly retreat, which no plan of campaign could prescribe, that made this general so famous.
Georges had been in Paris seven months before it was considered that the proper moment had arrived for arresting him. The almost simultaneous arrest of the conspirators proves clearly that the police knew perfectly well where they could lay their hands upon them. When Pichegru was required to sign his examination he refused.
At this period Madame de Bourrienne wished to have a portrait of one of our children; she was recommended to M. Lagrenee, and he related the circumstance to her. It was on the night of the 22d of February that Pichegru was arrested in the manner I have described.
Such were the offers, made in the name of the King, to General Pichegru. I added that the Prince de Coude desired that he would proclaim the King in the camps, surrender the city of Huningen to him, and join him for the purpose of marching on Paris.
All his glory is due to himself alone; because he alone has developed a character and a genius of which no one else has furnished an example. Regard, for instance, this wretched war. Uncertain in Champagne, it becomes daring under Dumouriez, unbridled under the brigands who fought the Vendeeans, methodic under Pichegru, vulgar under Jourdan, skilled under Moreau, rash under Bonaparte.
There was no truth in the report that his recall from Hanover was in consequence of any disgrace; on the contrary, it was a new proof of Bonaparte's confidence and attachment. He was recalled to take the command of the artillery of Bonaparte's, household troops the moment Pichegru, George, and Moreau were arrested, and when the Imperial tide had been resolved on.
When Carnot, Barthelemy, and Pichegru were expelled from power by the coup d'etat of the 18th Fructidor, a military demonstration against the Republic, Paine wrote an address to the people of France and to the French armies, heartily approving of the summary method that had been adopted with these reactionists, who must have their bells and their priests.
Moreau was arrested on the 15th of February 1804, at which time the existence of the conspiracy was known. Pichegru and Georges were also arrested in February, and the Due d'Enghien not till the 15th of March.
He never forgave Pichegru the acceptance of a command which he could not decline without risking his life; and when he should have avenged his disgrace on the real causes of it, he chose to resent it on him who, like himself, was merely an instrument, or a slave, in the hands and under the whip of a tyrannical power.
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