Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 57 pages of information about Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Volume 4.

Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 57 pages of information about Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Volume 4.
three surviving conspirators are said to have been literally torn to pieces by the engines of torture, and the priest was shot for having given absolution to an assassin, and for having concealed his knowledge of the plot an hour after he was acquainted with it.  Even Salmatoris had some difficulty to avoid being disgraced for having written a terrifying note, which had exposed the Emperor’s weakness, and shown that his life was dearer to him at the head of Empires than when only at the head of armies.

My narrative of this event I have from an officer present, whose veracity I can guarantee.  He also informed me that, in consequence of it, all the officers of the Swiss brigades in the French service that were quartered or encamped in Italy were, to the number of near fifty, dismissed at once.  Of the Italian guards, every officer who was known to have suffered any losses by the new order of things in his country, was ordered to resign, if he would not enter into the regiments of the line.

Whatever the police agents did to prevent it, and in spite of some unjust and cruel chastisement, Bonaparte continued, during his stay in Italy, an object of ridicule in conversation, as well as in pamphlets and caricatures.  One of these represented him in the ragged garb of a sans-culotte, pale and trembling on his knees, with bewildered looks and his hair standing upright on his head like pointed horns, tearing the map of the world to pieces, and, to save his life, offering each of his generals a slice, who in return regarded him with looks of contempt mixed with pity.

I have just heard of a new plot, or rather a league against Bonaparte’s ambition.  At its head the Generals Jourdan, Macdonald, Le Courbe, and Dessolles are placed, though many less victorious generals and officers, civil as well as military, are reported to be its members.  Their object is not to remove or displace Bonaparte as an Emperor of the French; on the contrary, they offer their lives to strengthen his authority and to resist his enemies; but they ask and advise him to renounce, for himself, for his relations, and for France, all possessions on the Italian side of the Alps, as the only means to establish a permanent peace, and to avoid a war with other States, whose safety is endangered by our great encroachments.  A mutinous kind of address to this effect has been sent to the camp of Boulogne and to all other encampments of our troops, that those generals and other military persons there, who chose, might both see the object and the intent of the associates.  It is reported that Bonaparte ordered it to be burnt by the hands of the common executioner at Boulogne; that sixteen officers there who had subscribed their names in appropriation of the address were broken, and dismissed with disgrace; that Jourdan is deprived of his command in Italy, and ordered to render an account of his conduct to the Emperor.  Dessolles is also said to be dismissed,

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Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud (Being secret letters from a gentleman at Paris to a nobleman in London) — Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.