#pichegru

[josefavomjaaga]

There's an astonishing amount of letters from Duroc to Soult that I did not expect; it seems Duroc kept Soult up to date during the Cadoudal conspiracy and triumphantly informed him of every new arrest.

[empirearchives]

One of the guys that tried to kill Napoleon was his former teacher 💀

[aedislumen]

Carnot on Pichegru's treason

Once a relentless enemy of Pichegru, since the latter joined the legislative body, he [Carnot] has met with him every day in secret and intimacy. (1)

I have never been the friend or enemy of Pichegru; I have never been the personal friend or enemy of any of the republic generals-in-chief. I looked for and held the most able ones in esteem and I employed them as much as I could: I tried to discard those, who lacked talent, without causing them any grief.

I started losing faith in Pichegru when his conduct aroused suspicions about the loyalty of his principles. Rewbell reported to the Directory some facts which made those suspicions even greater. Pichegru offered his resignation three times, I eventually proposed to accept it: Pichegru stopped being employed; he went to Paris, he bitterly complained, said that he had not formally offered his resignation and that he had just asked for a leave. He was incited against me; he was truly my enemy, but I, I was not his. The same journals that today make me one of his accomplices, presented my retirement proposal as a crime. It was claimed that he would have starved and that, in order to live, he was forced to be a diligence contractor in Vesoul. Nevertheless, at my suggestion, the Directory retained his salary as division general.

When Pichegru joined the Legislative body I wanted to prevent it. I visited him, I did the same with Jourdan. I was being accompanied by two general officers; we discussed for hours about the situation of political affairs, and about the necessity to re-establish harmony among the first constituted authorities. Pichegru talked with such a finesse and spirit that I would not have expected of him; for I had known him only through the reports attesting his military talent, which do not always suppose the kind of spirit coming from a good education. On the few occasions that I saw him, he seemed to me very focused, very taciturn and not very communicative. On our way out, one of the two general officers told me: “I am not satisfied with what Pichegru said; I do not think he was being sincere.” – “That is because I got the suspicion, I told him, that Pichegru is not commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine anymore.”

Nevertheless, I wanted to stop the source of hatred, to prevent the renewal of the factions that for so long had been tearing the heart of the republic. One day I invited to dinner the officer generals, deputies to the legislative body, in particular Pichegru and Jourdan, who I would have wanted to reconcile. Jourdan came; Pichegru did not, although he had promised. Afterwards, I still invited him; I wanted to know his way of thinking at last; but given that he always found excuses not to come; I eventually stopped begging him.

One evening, however, he came to my place; he was together with eight or ten more representatives of the people; but they entered just by chance and they only stayed for no more than two or three minutes in my garden. Pichegru did not say a word to me, nor did I.

These are the only two times that I had seen Pichegru since he joined the legislative body. This is what Bailleul means with “every day in secret and intimacy”. But if it was in secret and intimacy, how could Bailleul know of these facts? Is it because of the official documents deposited in the presence of the ministers, that mention the places where I saw Pichegru, the hours of reunion, the people who saw me with him. The numerous sentinels of the Luxembourg had never recognized him; the doorkeepers, the domestic servants, the spies of the petty Réveillère, who lived on the same floor where I stayed, had they ever noticed him?

If it is not at my place, where I met with him, it is not anywhere else. The twelve times I went out during the duration of my mandate as Director, I was always with a member of my family; unless it is not supposed that also my wife, my sisters, the children, the domestic servants are accomplices in my intimacy with Pichegru.

The fact which I am discrediting here is the most important of all. Certainly, even supposing that Pichegru was guilty, I could have been deceived on his account and had seen him without suspicion, but who would have warned me of the prejudice that would have resulted against me? What an abyss of darkness in this accusation! What monsters these triumvirs are! What a degraded being J. Ch. Bailleul is!

Some days prior to the catastrophe of 18 Fructidor, Citizeness Eblé, sister of the renowned artillery general officer came to me. “Is it already decided then, Citizen Carnot, she told me, that Pichegru abandons the patriots?” - I have not decided anything, I told her, but his conduct is all but reassuring. - “I want, she told me, to visit him; at last I want to read his soul and know his thoughts.” I approved her intention. She came back two or three days after and she told me: “No, Pichegru does not abandon us; he asks what he should do to prove that he is not abandoning the patriots.” - It is necessary, I replied to her, that Pichegru mounts the rostrum at the Council of Five Hundred, that he speaks in a way that will not leave any doubts about his feelings and will bring fear among the makers of the counter revolution. It is necessary that actions live up to words, and instead of fomenting the hopes of the criminals through his ambiguous behaviour, he should rally around the national flag all the defenders of liberty. This role, I added, is the only suitable one for Pichegru’s reputation at the moment and he does not have time to lose.”

Citizeness Eblé told me she hoped to bring him this exhortation. But, it was, I believe, the 16th of Fructidor, and I have not seen her since. One can ask her about this fact, and I do not think that she would refuse to testify the truth.

Let us hope that one day the legislative body of the great nation will be free enough to dare to humbly ask to our demigods what clues they might have that the victim, who escaped their knife during the night between 17 and 18 Fructidor, was seeing Pichegru every day.

Besides, I am far from wanting to decide whether Pichegru was guilty or not; he indubitably was if only one hundredth of what is said about him in the report by the Commission is true. But, when I show that on all the facts that I intimately had known, the Commission impudently and perfidiously outraged the truth, it is allowed to suppose that said truth had never been respected to begin with, as far as other facts were concerned. And what are we to think when we see said Commission pushing injustice to the point of reducing to nothing the services which Pichegru rendered as general-in-chief of the army, fearing that one might be tempted to put on the same level these services and the delicts, of which he is accused? If Pichegru is not guilty, let it be engraved on his tomb the same inscription present on that of Scipio, which is the countryside, in the outskirts of Naples.

Ingrata patria, neque ossa mea habebis.

- L. Carnot, Réponse à Bailleul, p. 24-33

Notes:

(1) The whole Réponse à Bailleul is divided into sections. Each section is titled with an accusation in italics made against Carnot, which he's going to debunk.

last edited 06/06/2024