which shows the Emperor unsurprised by anything, a man always ready
for anything, however improbable, to happen.
They proceeded by sledge through Saxony to Dresden where they
arrived at midnight on the 13th. The King of Saxony met them at 3 a.m.
and made available his comfortable coach, in which they departed at 7
a.m. on the 14th. Changing vehicles several times, they took another
three days to reach Verdun, travelling via Leipzig, Auerstadt, Erfurt,
Frankfurt and Mainz. After a short stop at Meaux, they arrived in Paris
at a quarter to midnight on r8 December and drove straight to the
Tuileries. Caulaincourt reported that he had not slept properly for
fourteen days and nights and could not reestablish his proper sleep
pattern for another fortnight.
Once back in Paris, Napoleon ordered a round of balls, fetes and
receptions, acting as if nothing much had happened during his absence.
But two days before his arrival the 29th Bulletin had been published in
Le Moniteur. Even this heavily doctored version of the truth caused
consternation among people grown used to the seeming inevitability of
victory and the invincibility of the Emperor. As the scale of the losses
became clear, Napoleon's propagandist attempt to put a brave face on
things and, by the sumptuous balls and luxurious dinners, to pretend it
was 'business as usual' seemed the crassest of insensitivity. It was
fortunate indeed that General Malet had not staged his coup a couple of
months later.
Napoleon now learned the details of what had happened on the night
of 22-23 October r8r2. Malet, who had been involved in the Fouche
Talleyrand plot in r8o8-o9 while the Emperor was in Spain, began by
releasing the anti-Bonapartist generals Lahorie and Guidal and, together
with his fellow plotters Boutreux and Rateau, announced that Napoleon
was dead in Russia. The conspirators managed to arrest both the Minister
and Prefect of Police but fell foul of General Hullin, commander of the
Paris garrison, who refused to join them. Without his support, the
conspirators were sunk: they and their accomplices were rounded up,
tried on 28 October with a rapidity that recalled the d'Enghien affair and
executed by firing squad on the 29th.
Although the imperial police had betrayed extreme incompetence in
allowing themselves to be arrested, the plot was not the serious threat to
Bonaparte it might have been. This time neither Fouche nor Talleyrand
were involved nor, fortunately for the Emperor, were the notables. The
coup was an ad hoc pact between royalists and extreme Republicans; the
idea was that, with Napoleon out of the picture, a new assembly would
decide later between a Republic or a Bourbon restoration. Napoleon's
marcin
(Marcin)
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