to the _emigres_ at London, and had an interview
with Lord Hawkesbury and the Under-Secretaries of State, Messrs.
Hammond and Yorke. He found it easy to inflame the imagination of the
French exiles, who clutched at the proposed union between the
irreconcilables, the extreme royalists, and the extreme republicans;
and it was forthwith arranged that Napoleon's power, which rested on
the support of the peasants, in fact of the body of France, should be
crushed by an enveloping move of the tips of the wings.

Mehee's narrative contains few details and dates, such as enable one
to test his assertions. But I have examined the Puisaye Papers,[285]
and also the Foreign and Home Office archives, and have found proofs
of the complicity of our Government, which it will be well to present
here connectedly. Taken singly they are inconclusive, but collectively
their importance is considerable. In our Foreign Office Records
(France, No 70) there is a letter, dated London, August 30th, 1803,
from the Baron de Roll, the factotum of the exiled Bourbons, to Mr.
Hammond, our Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, asking
him to call on the Comte d'Artois at his residence, No. 46, Baker
Street. That the deliberations at that house were not wholly peaceful
appears from a long secret memorandum of October 24th, 1803, in which
the Comte d'Artois reviews the career of "that _miserable adventurer_"
(Bonaparte), so as to prove that his present position is precarious
and tottering. He concludes by naming those who desired his
overthrow--Moreau, Reynier, Bernadotte, Simon, Massena, Lannes, and
Ferino: Sieyes, Carnot, Chenier, Fouche, Barras, Tallien, Rewbel,
Lamarque, and Jean de Bry. Others would not attack him "corps a
corps," but disliked his supremacy. These two papers prove that our
Government was aware of the Bourbon plot. Another document, dated
London, November 18th, 1803, proves its active complicity. It is a
list of the French royalist officers "who had set out or were ready to
set out." All were in our pay, two at six shillings, five at four
shillings, and nine at two shillings a day. It would be indelicate to
reveal the names, but among them occurs that of Joachim P.J. Cadoudal.
The list is drawn up and signed by Frieding--a name that was
frequently used by Pichegru as an _alias_. In his handwriting also is
a list of "royalist officers for whom I demand a year's pay in
advance"--five generals, thirteen _chefs de legion_, seven