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Page 36
Mallet repaired to General Hulin, who had the command of Paris. He
informed him that he had been directed by the Minister of Police to
arrest him and seal his papers. Hulin asked to see the order, and then
entered his cabinet, where Mallet followed him, and just as Hulin was
turning round to speak to him he fired a pistol in his face. Hulin fell:
the ball entered his cheek, but the wound was not mortal. The most
singular circumstance connected with the whole affair is, that the
captain whom Mallet had directed to follow him, and who accompanied him
to Hulin's, saw nothing extraordinary in all this, and did nothing to
stop it. Mallet next proceeded, very composedly, to Adjutant-General
Doucet's. It happened that one of the inspectors of the police was
there. He recognised General Mallet as being a man under his
supervision. He told him that he had no right to quit the hospital house
without leave, and ordered him to be arrested. Mallet, seeing that all
was over, was in the act of drawing a pistol from his pocket, but being
observed was seized and disarmed. Thus terminated this extraordinary
conspiracy, for which fourteen lives paid the forfeit; but, with the
exception of Mallet, Guidal, and Lahorie, all the others concerned in it
were either machines or dupes.
This affair produced but little effect in Paris, for the enterprise and
its result were make known simultaneously. But it was thought droll
enough that the Minister and Prefect of Police should be imprisoned by
the men who only the day before were their prisoners. Next day I went to
see Savary, who had not yet recovered from the stupefaction caused by his
extraordinary adventure. He was aware that his imprisonment; though it
lasted only half an hour, was a subject of merriment to the Parisians.
The Emperor, as I have already mentioned, left Moscow on the day when
Mallet made his bold attempt, that is to say, the 19th of October.
He was at Smolensko when he heard the news. Rapp, who had been wounded
before the entrance into Moscow, but who was sufficiently recovered to
return home, was with Napoleon when the latter received the despatches
containing an account of what had happened in Paris. He informed me that
Napoleon was much agitated on perusing them, and that he launched into
abuse of the inefficiency of the police. Rapp added that he did not
confine himself to complaints against the agents of his authority. "Is,
then, my power so insecure," said he, "that it may be put in peril by a
single individual, and a prisoner? It would appear that my crown is not
fixed very firmly on my head if in my own capital the bold stroke of
three adventurers can shake it. Rapp, misfortune never comes alone; this
is the complement of what is passing here. I cannot be everywhere; but I
must go back to Paris; my presence there is indispensable to reanimate
public opinion. I must have men and money. Great successes and great
victories will repair all. I must set off." Such were the motives which
induced the Emperor to leave his army. It is not without indignation
that I have heard his precipitate departure attributed to personal
cowardice. He was a stranger to such feelings, and was never more happy
than on the field of battle. I can readily conceive that he was much
alarmed on hearing of Mallet's enterprise. The remarks which he made to
Rapp were those which he knew would be made by the public, and he well
knew that the affair was calculated to banish those illusions of power
and stability with which he endeavoured to surround his government.
On leaving Moscow Napoleon consigned the wrecks of his army to the care
of his most distinguished generals to Murat who had so ably commanded the
cavalry, but who abandoned the army to return to Naples; and to Ney, the
hero, rather than the Prince of the Moskowa, whose name will be immortal
in the annals of glory, as his death will be eternal in the annals of
party revenge. Amidst the general disorder Eugene, more than any other
chief, maintained a sort of discipline among the Italians; and it was
remarked that the troops of the south engaged in the fatal campaign of
Moscow had endured the rigour of the cold better than those troops who
were natives of less genial climates.
Napoleon's return from Moscow was not like his returns from the campaigns
of Vienna and Tilsit when he came back crowned with laurels, and bringing
peace as the reward of his triumphs. It was remarked that Napoleon's
first great disaster followed the first enterprise he undertook after his
marriage with Maria Louisa. This tended to confirm the popular belief
that the presence of Josephine was favourable to his fortune; and
superstitious as he sometimes was, I will not venture to affirm that he
himself did not adopt this ides. He now threw off even the semblance of
legality in the measures of his government: he assumed arbitrary power,
under the impression that the critical circumstances in which he was
placed would excuse everything. But, however inexplicable were the means
to which the Emperor resorted to procure resources, it is but just to
acknowledge that they were the consequence of his system of government,
and that he evinced inconceivable activity in repairing his losses so as
to place himself in a situation to resist his enemies, and restore the
triumph of the French standard.
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