wly owing to
changes which need not be noticed. Georges Cadoudal quitted London,
and landed at Biville, a smuggler's haunt not far from Dieppe, on
August 23rd, 1803. Thence he made his way to Paris, and spent some
months in striving to enlist trusty recruits. It has been stated that
the plot never aimed at assassination, but at the overpowering of the
First Consul's escort, and the seizure of his person, during one of
his journeys. Then he was to be forcibly transferred to the northern
coast on relays of horses, and hurried over to England.[292] But,
though the plotters threw the veil of decency over their enterprise by
calling it kidnapping, they undoubtedly meant murder. Among Drake's
papers there is a hint that the royalist emissaries were _at first_ to
speak only of the seizure and deportation of the First Consul.

Whatever may have been their precise aims, they were certainly known
to Napoleon and his police. On November 1st, 1803, he wrote to
Regnier:

"You must not be in a hurry about the arrests: when the author
[Mehee] has given in all the information, we will draw up a plan
with him, and will see what is to be done. I wish him to write to
Drake, and, in order to make him trustful, inform him that, before
the great blow can be dealt, he believes he [Mehee] can promise to
have seized on the table of the First Consul, in his secret room,
notes written in his own hand relating to his great expedition,
and every other important document."

Napoleon revelled in the details of his plan for hoisting the
engineers with their own petards.[293] But he knew full well that the
plot, when fully ripe, would yield far more than the capture of a few
Chouans. He must wait until Moreau was implicated. The man selected by
the _emigres_ to sound Moreau was Pichegru, and this choice was the
sole instance of common sense displayed by them. It was Pichegru who
had marked out the future fortune of Moreau in the campaign of 1793,
and yet he had seemed to be the victim of that general's gross
ingratitude at Fructidor. Who then so fitted as he to approach the
victor of Hohenlinden? Through a priest named David and General
Lajolais, an interview was arranged; and shortly after Pichegru's
arrival in France, these warriors furtively clasped hands in the
capital which had so often resounded with their praises (January,
1804). They met three or four times, and cleared away some of the
misunderstan