rowing the whole
squadron into disorder.--Bourrienne. Gillray's caricatures should
be at the reader's side during the perusal of this work, also
English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I., by J. Ashton Chatto:
and Windus, 1884.]--

After visiting Belgium, and giving directions there, the First Consul
returned from Brussels to Paris by way of Maestricht, Liege, and
Soissons.

Before my visit to the Tuileries, and even before the rupture of the
peace of Amiens, certain intriguing speculators, whose extravagant zeal
was not less fatal to the cause of the Bourbons than was the blind
subserviency of his unprincipled adherents to the First Consul, had taken
part in some underhand manoeuvres which could have no favourable result.
Amongst these great contrivers of petty machinations the well-known
Fauche Borel, the bookseller of Neufchatel, had long been conspicuous.
Fauche Borel, whose object was to create a stir, and who wished nothing
better than to be noticed and paid, failed not to come to France as soon
as the peace of Amiens afforded him the opportunity. I was at that time
still with Bonaparte, who was aware of all these little plots, but who
felt no personal anxiety on the subject, leaving to his police the care
of watching their authors.

The object of Fauche Borel's mission was to bring about a reconciliation
between Moreau and Pichegru. The latter general, who was banished on the
18th Fructidor 4th (September 1797), had not obtained the First Consul's
permission to return to France. He lived in England, where he awaited a
favourable opportunity for putting his old projects into execution.
Moreau was in Pains, but no longer appeared at the levees or parties of
the First Consul, and the enmity of both generals against Bonaparte,
openly avowed on the part of Pichegru; and still disguised by Moreau, was
a secret to nobody. But as everything was prosperous with Bonaparte he
evinced contempt rather than fear of the two generals. His apprehensions
were, indeed, tolerably allayed by the absence of the one and the
character of the other. Moreau's name had greater weight with the army
than that of Pichegru; and those who were plotting the overthrow of the
Consular Government knew that that measure could not be attempted with
any chance of success without the assistance of Moreau. The moment was
inopportune; but, being initiated in some secrets of the British Cabinet,
they knew that the peace was but a truce, a