Bonaparte had so well penetrated the weak side of Moreau’s character that, although he could not avoid doing justice to this general’s military talents and exploits, he neither esteemed him as a citizen nor dreaded him as a rival.  Moreau possessed great popularity; but so did Dumourier and Pichegru before him:  and yet neither of them had found adherents enough to shake those republican governments with which they avowed themselves openly discontented, and against which they secretly plotted.  I heard Talleyrand say, at Madame de Montlausier’s, in the presence of fifty persons, “Napoleon Bonaparte had never anything to apprehend from General Moreau, and from his popularity, even at the head of an army.  Dumourier, too, was at the head of an army when he revolted against the National Convention; but had he not saved himself by flight his own troops would have delivered him up to be punished as a traitor.  Moreau, and his popularity, could only be dangerous to the Bonaparte dynasty were he to survive Napoleon, had not this Emperor wisely averted this danger.”  From this official declaration of Napoleon’s confidential Minister, in a society of known anti-imperialists, I draw the conclusion that Moreau will never more, during the present reign, return to France.  How very feeble, and how badly advised must this general have been, when, after his condemnation to two years’ imprisonment, he accepted a perpetual exile, and renounced all hopes of ever again entering his own country.  In the Temple, or in any other prison, if he had submitted to the sentence pronounced against him, he would have caused Bonaparte more uneasiness than when at liberty, and been more a point of rally to his adherents and friends than when at his palace of Grosbois, because compassion and pity must have invigorated and sharpened their feelings.

If report be true, however, he did not voluntarily exchange imprisonment for exile; racks were shown him; and by the act of banishment was placed a poisonous draught.  This report gains considerable credit when it is remembered that, immediately after his condemnation, Moreau furnished his apartments in the Temple in a handsome manner, so as to be lodged well, if not comfortably, with his wife and child, whom, it is said, he was not permitted to see before he had accepted Bonaparte’s proposal of transportation.

It may be objected to this supposition that the man in power, who did not care about the barefaced murder of the Duc d’Enghien, and the secret destruction of Pichegru, could neither much hesitate, nor be very conscientious about adding Moreau to the number of his victims.  True, but the assassin in authority is also generally a politician.  The untimely end of the Duc d’Enghien and of Pichegru was certainly lamented and deplored by the great majority of the French people; but though they had many who pitied their fate, but few had any relative interest to avenge it; whilst in the assassination of Moreau,