No person possessing the least degree of intelligence will be convinced that the conspiracy of Moreau, Georges, Pichegru, and the other persons accused would ever have occurred but for the secret connivance of Fouche’s police.

Moreau never for a moment desired the restoration of the Bourbons.  I was too well acquainted with M. Carbonnet, his most intimate friend, to be ignorant of his private sentiments.  It was therefore quite impossible that he could entertain the same views as Georges, the Polignacs, Riviera, and others; and they had no intention of committing any overt acts.  These latter persons had come to the Continent solely to investigate the actual state of affairs, in order to inform the Princes of the House of Bourbon with certainty how far they might depend on the foolish hopes constantly held out to them by paltry agents, who were always ready to advance their own interests at the expense of truth.  These agents did indeed conspire, but it was against the Treasury of London, to which they looked for pay.

Without entering into all the details of that great trial I will relate some facts which may assist in eliciting the truth from a chaos of intrigue and falsehood.

Most of the conspirators had been lodged either in the Temple or La Force, and one of them, Bouvet de Lozier, who was confined in the Temple, attempted to hang himself.  He made use of his cravat to effect his purpose, and had nearly succeeded, when a turnkey by chance entered and found him at the point of death.  When he was recovered he acknowledged that though he had the courage to meet death, he was unable to endure the interrogatories of his trial, and that he had determined to kill himself, lest he might be induced to make a confession.  He did in fact confess, and it was on the day after this occurred that Moreau was arrested, while on his way from his country-seat of Grosbois to Paris.

Fouche, through the medium of his agents, had given Pichegru, Georges, and some other partisans of royalty, to understand that they might depend on Moreau, who, it was said, was quite prepared.  It is certain that Moreau informed Pichegru that he (Pichegru) had been deceived, and that he had never been spoken to on the subject.  Russillon declared on the trial that on the 14th of March the Polignacs said to some one, “Everything is going wrong—­they do not understand each other.  Moreau does not keep his word.  We have been deceived.”  M. de Riviera declared that he soon became convinced they had been deceived, and was about to return to England when he was arrested.  It is certain that the principal conspirators obtained positive information which confirmed their suspicions.  They learned Moreau’s declaration from Pichegru.  Many of the accused declared that they soon discovered they had been deceived; and the greater part of them were about to quit Paris, when they were all arrested, almost at one and the same moment.  Georges was going into La Vendee when he was betrayed by the man who, with the connivance of the police, had escorted him ever since his departure from London, and who had protected him from any interruption on the part of the police so long as it was only necessary to know where he was, or what he was about.  Georges had been in Paris seven months before it was considered that the proper moment had arrived for arresting him.