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.