Even the populace, dazzled with glitter and drunk with sensations, suffered some qualms at seeing the victor of Hohenlinden placed in the dock; and the grief of the scanty survivors of the Army of the Rhine portended trouble if the forms of justice were too much strained.  Trial by jury had been recently dispensed with in cases that concerned the life of Napoleon.  Consequently the prisoner, along with Georges and his confederates, could be safely arraigned before judges in open court; and in that respect the trial contrasted with the midnight court-martial of Vincennes.  Yet in no State trial have judges been subjected to more official pressure for the purpose of assuring a conviction.[310] The cross examination of numerous witnesses proved that Moreau had persistently refused his help to the plot; and the utmost that could be urged against him was that he desired Napoleon’s overthrow, had three interviews with Pichegru, and did not reveal the plot to the authorities.  That is to say, he was guilty of passively conniving at the success of a plot which a “good citizen” ought to have denounced.

For these reasons the judges sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment.  This judgment excessively annoyed Napoleon, who desired to use his imperial prerogative of pardon on Moreau’s life, not on a mere term of imprisonment; and with a show of clemency that veiled a hidden irritation, he now released him provided that he retired to the United States.[311] To that land of free men the victor of Hohenlinden retired with a dignity which almost threw a veil over his past incapacity and folly; and, for the present at least, men could say that the end of his political career was nobler than Pompey’s, while Napoleon’s conduct towards his rival lacked the clemency which graced the triumph of Caesar.

As for the actual conspirators, twenty of them were sentenced to death on June 10th, among them being the elder of the two Polignacs, the Marquis de Riviere, and Georges Cadoudal.  Urgent efforts were made on behalf of the nobles by Josephine and “Madame Mere”; and Napoleon grudgingly commuted their sentence to imprisonment.  But the plebeian, Georges Cadoudal, suffered death for the cause that had enlisted all the fierce energies of his youth and manhood.  With him perished the bravest of Bretons and the last man of action of the royalists.  Thenceforth Napoleon was not troubled by Bourbon plotters; and doubtless the skill with which his agents had nursed this silly plot and sought to entangle all waverers did far more than the strokes of the guillotine to procure his future immunity.  Men trembled before a union of immeasurable power with unfathomable craft such as recalled the days of the Emperor Tiberius.