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Page 25
It must be owned that Pichegru was far from exciting the same interest as
Moreau. The public, and more especially the army, never pardoned him for
his negotiations with the Prince de Conde prior to the 18th Fructidor.
However, I became acquainted with a trait respecting him while he was in
Paris which I think does him much honour. A son of M. Lagrenee, formerly
director of the French Academy at Rome, had been one of Pichegru's aides
de camp. This young man, though he had obtained the rank of captain,
resigned on the banishment of his general, and resumed the pencil, which
he had lad aside for the sword. Pichegru, while he was concealed in
Paris; visited his former aide de camp, who insisted upon giving him an
asylum; but Pichegru positively refused to accept M. Lagrenee's offer,
being determined not to commit a man who had already given him so strong
a proof of friendship. I learned this fact by a singular coincidence.
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. The deceitful friend who gave him up was
named Le Blanc, and he went to settle at Hamburg with the reward of his
treachery, I had entirely lost sight of Pichegru since we left Brienne,
for Pichegru was also a pupil of that establishment; but, being older
than either Bonaparte or I, he was already a tutor when we were only
scholars, and I very well recollect that it was he who examined Bonaparte
in the four first rules of arithmetic.
Pichegru belonged to an agricultural family of Franche-Comte. He had a
relation, a minim,' in that country. The minim, who had the charge of
educating the pupils of the Military School of Brienne, being very poor,
and their poverty not enabling them to hold out much inducement to other
persons to assist them, they applied to the minims of Franche-Comte. In
consequence of this application Pichegru's relation, and some other
minims, repaired to Brienne. An aunt of Pichegru, who was a sister of
the order of charity, accompanied them, and the care of the infirmary was
entrusted to her. This good woman took her nephew to Brienne with her,
and he was educated at the school gratuitously. As soon as his age
permitted, Pichegru was made a tutor; but all, his ambition was to become
a minim. He was, however, dissuaded from that pursuit by his relation,
and he adopted the military profession. There is this further remarkable
circumstance in the youth of Pichegru, that, though he was older by
several years than Bonaparte, they were both made lieutenants of
artillery at the same time. What a difference in their destiny! While
the one was preparing to ascend a throne the other was a solitary
prisoner in the dungeon of the Temple.
I had no motive to induce me to visit either the Temple or La Force, but
I received at the time circumstantial details of what was passing in
those prisons, particularly in the former; I went, however, frequently to
St. Pelagie, where M. Carbonnet was confined. As soon as I knew that he
was lodged in that prison I set about getting an admission from Real, who
smoothed all difficulties. M. Carbonnet was detained two months in
solitary confinement. He was several times examined, but the
interrogatories produced no result, and, notwithstanding the desire to
implicate him in consequence of the known intimacy between him and
Moreau, it was at last found impossible to put him on trial with the
other parties accused.
The Temple had more terrors than St. Pelagie, but not for the prisoners
who were committed to it, for none of those illustrious victims of police
machination displayed any weakness, with the exception of Bouvet de
Lozier, who, being sensible of his weakness, wished to prevent its
consequences by death. The public, however, kept their attention riveted
on the prison in which Moreau was confined. I have already mentioned
that Pichegru was conveyed thither on the night of the 22d of February; a
fortnight later Georges was arrested, and committed to the same prison.
Either Real or Desmarets, and sometimes both together, repaired to the
Temple to examine the prisoners. In vain the police endeavoured to
direct public odium against the prisoners by placarding lists of their
names through the whole of Paris, even before they were arrested. In
those lists they were styled "brigands," and at the head of "the
brigands," the name of General Moreau shone conspicuously. An absurdity
without a parallel. The effect produced was totally opposite to that
calculated on; for, as no person could connect the idea of a brigand with
that of a general who was the object of public esteem, it was naturally
concluded that those whose names were placarded along with his were no
more brigands than he.
Public opinion was decidedly in favour of Moreau, and every one was
indignant at seeing him described as a brigand. Far from believing him
guilty, he was regarded as a victim fastened on because his reputation
embarrassed Bonaparte; for Moreau had always been looked up to as capable
of opposing the accomplishment of the First Consul's ambitious views.
The whole crime of Moreau was his having numerous partisans among those
who still clung to the phantom of the Republic, and that crime was
unpardonable in the eyes of the First Consul, who for two years had ruled
the destinies of France as sovereign master. What means were not
employed to mislead the opinion of the public respecting Moreau? The
police published pamphlets of all sorts, and the Comte de Montgaillard
was brought from Lyons to draw up a libel implicating him with Pichegru
and the exiled Princes. But nothing that was done produced the effect
proposed.
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