TWO:At this juncture Napoleon proceeded to set all Europe against him. A conspiracy had been set on foot against his Government by the Royalists, notably by one Lajolais, who had formerly fought under Pichegru, and in 1794 had assisted him in his intrigues with the Bourbon princes. On arriving in London he had interviews with Pichegru, Georges Cadoudal, the Chouan chief, the Polignacs, the Count d'Artois, the Duke of Berry, etc., and assured them that such was the feeling against Buonaparte in France, that it only needed the appearance of the Royalist leaders, and their forming a league with Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, whom he truly represented as greatly disgusted with Buonaparte, to produce a revolution and crush the aspiring First Consul. The statements of Lajolais were listened to, and a vessel, under the command of Captain John Wesley Wright, was despatched to the coast of Brittany, with General Georges Cadoudal, the Marquis de la Rivire, the brothers Armand and Jules Polignac, and some others, whom he put safely ashore in the autumn of 1803. Pichegru, Georges Cadoudal, the Polignacs, de la Rivire, and the rest of the Royalists, about thirty in[497] number, had made their way to Paris, and were living there secretly, endeavouring to learn the real state of the public mind, and Pichegru and Cadoudal had been introduced to Moreau. Pichegru saw Moreau at least twice, and on one of these occasions he took with him Georges Cadoudal; but Moreau seemed taken by surprise by their communications with him, and was so horrified by the language and proposals of the daring Chouan, that he desired Pichegru not to bring that irrational savage again into his company. It appeared pretty clear that there was some mistake somewhere; and that Moreau, however much dissatisfied with Napoleon, was by no means disposed to enter into any Royalist conspiracy. Had the delegates found things ripe for such a revolution, they were to inform the Bourbon princes in London, and they were to make a strong descent on the coast of Brittany; but they all felt so satisfied that Lajolais had given them false information, that they were about to quit the capital, and to return to England, Captain Wright having been lingering with his frigate on the Breton coast for that purpose, when Fouch the Minister of Police, pounced upon them. He had been keeping a strict watch on all their movements; he had now established their intercourse with Moreau, and trusted to be able to make sufficient use of that fact to destroy both them and him. It was asserted, although there is no proof whatever of the fact, that the plan included the murder of the First Consul. Further, in order to bring odium upon England, Buonaparte succeeded, by means of his agents, in entrapping Messrs. Drake and Spencer Smith, our Ministers at the courts of Bavaria and Würtemberg, into consenting to the conspiracy. They knew nothing of the real plot, but being informed that a Royalist conspiracy was on foot, gave it a certain amount of countenance. Napoleon thereupon accused them of being accomplices in a diabolical plot to assassinate him, forced the Courts to which they were accredited to expel them, and circulated throughout Europe a violent attack on the British Government. In an exceedingly able and dignified reply Lord Hawkesbury pointed out that Britain was at war with France, and had a right, which she intended to use, to take advantage of the political situation in that country. Napoleon gained little by his Machiavellian man?uvre.The other side of the city was only defended by the Seine, but the Allies, who had first to cross that river, feared that Buonaparte might come up and attack their rear while they were doing so. They determined, therefore, to attack the line of fortifications. The most lying proclamations were issued by the ex-King Joseph to assure the inhabitants that the bodies of the enemy who came in view were only stragglers who had managed to get past the army of the Emperor, who was dispersing the Allies most triumphantly. The forces in Pariseight thousand troops of the line and thirty thousand of the National Guardwere reviewed in front of the Tuileries on a Sunday, to impress the people with a sense of security; but on the morning of the 29th the Empress and her child quitted the palace, attended by a regiment of seven hundred men, and fled to Blois, carrying with her the crown jewels and much public treasure, and followed by nearly all the members of Government. The populationunlike their fathers, who stopped Marie Antoinette in her attempt to escapesuffered this departure with murmurs, but without any attempt to prevent it. When she was gone they began heartily to curse Buonaparte for the trouble and disgrace he had brought upon them. That very morning Joseph issued a most flaming proclamation, assuring the Parisians that the Emperor was at hand[82], and would annihilate the last traces of the audacious enemy. But already the assault had commenced, and the next day, the 30th of March, it was general all along the line. The Parisians fought bravely, especially the boys from the Polytechnic schools; and as the Allies had to attack stone walls and batteries, their slaughter was great. Joseph rode along the line to encourage them in this useless, because utterly hopeless, waste of life. The Allied monarchs had, before commencing the assault, issued a proclamation, promising that all life and property should be strictly protected if the city quietly opened its gates; and, in the midst of the storming, they sent in again, by a French prisoner, the same offer, adding that, should the city be carried by assault, no power on earth could prevent it from being sacked by the enraged soldiers, and probably destroyed. Yet Joseph did not give the order for capitulation till the whole line was in the hands of the Allies, except Montmartre. The Cossacks were already in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and bombs flying into the Chausse d'Antin. Then King Joseph, whose lying proclamation was still selling on the boulevards at a sou each, ordered Marmont to capitulate; and though he had vowed in his proclamation to stand by the Parisians to the last gasp, he then fled after the Empress to Blois. In this defence four thousand French were killed and wounded, and double that number of the Allies, as they had to face the towers and batteries crowded with soldiers and to fight their way up hill.
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