Conspiracy
Page 26
*
Keane’s mission to Paris is largely based on similar events which befell the real Colquhoun Grant in 1812. Grant, as always, wearing his British uniform, was captured by French dragoons in April 1812 and his servant Leon was shot. Sent to Marshal Marmont and, something of a celebrity prisoner, Grant was invited to dine with the marshal, who hoped to find out more about Wellington, but was angered by Grant’s unwillingness. In prison Grant, aided by Father Patrick Curtis, sent and received secret messages. Ultimately Marmont offered Grant parole but encouraged by his second in command, de la Martinière, he appears to have ordered Grant’s execution.
Marmont sent Grant to Paris. But seeing a copy of Marmont’s letter to the Parisian authorities, Grant became aware that his death had been arranged. Consequently, he felt no compunction in breaking his parole and contrived to escape.
Aided by Macpherson, Grant passed himself off as an American officer, and infiltrated the salons of Paris, sending intelligence reports to Wellington. He then escaped to England, rejoining the army in Spain in early 1814.
Morillo and Sanchez were genuine guerrilla leaders (see my note in book 1) who established a close relationship with Wellington and his spy network.
Father Patrick Curtis, known also as Don Patrizio Cortes, who was aged 72 in 1812, was indeed a professor at the University of Salamanca and one of Wellington’s chief spies in the Peninsula. After the war he was granted a state pension and was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1819. He died of cholera in 1832.
The Irish Legion was originally formed as a single battalion intended to lead an invasion of Ireland in 1803 and later expanded to a four-battalion regiment. From 1807 the 2nd battalion served in Spain. It fought with honour at the siege of Astorga and at Fuentes de Onoro.
The 1st battalion fought in the Low Countries at the battle of Flushing in 1809 and the regiment fought against the Russians in the German campaign of 1813.
*
Macpherson is based on a real character, an aged Jacobite of the same surname, employed by Wellington as a spy, but, in the absence of factual information, I have taken a few liberties with his character and situation.
Fouché was Napoleon’s Chief of Police and once again I have tried to tie his character in the book to the truth as depicted by his biographers. He was known to be addicted to gambling and it seems reasonable to assume that he might have attended the gaming houses in the infamous Palais Royal. Although by this time he had fallen from favour with the Emperor and was no longer officially employed as Chief of Police, it was well known that his network of spies and informers was still very much in existence and active in serving his interest.
The essence of Malet’s plot is entirely based on truth.
Napoleon’s stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais accused Malet of conspiring against the Emperor and the general was imprisoned in France. In 1812, following his wife’s entreaties, he was allowed to retire to a sanatorium where he met a number of royalist agents. Although it appears Malet was a republican, rather than a royalist, he was quite prepared to work with the royalists to bring down the Emperor.
Napoleon’s absence with the Grande Armée afforded Malet the opportunity to make his move.
At 4 a.m. on 23 October, 1812, Malet escaped from the sanatorium in a general’s uniform. He approached Colonel Gabriel Soulier, commandeer of the 10th Cohort of the Garde Nationale and told him that Napoleon had died while on active service in Russia, supporting this claim with forged documents. Soulier, instantly ‘promoted’ to general by Malet, called out his men and went with Malet to the prison of La Force where they liberated the two disgraced generals Lahorie and Guidal. Malet then sent Lahorie to arrest the Minister of Police; and Guidal, he sent to seize the Minister of War, Henri Clarke, Duc de Feltre, and the Arch-Chancellor, Jean-Jacques de Cambacérès.
The two generals went together to take the latter and placed him in La Force, but in a cataclysmic lack of judgment, they failed to arrest the others.
Lahorie was now created Minister of General Police. At the same time, Malet confronted General Hulin, the commander of the Paris garrison, in his house. The general demanded to see the official papers authorizing his surrender of the seal of office and Malet shot him in the jaw.
Malet then entered the military headquarters opposite Hulin’s house and attempted to command Colonel Doucet to join him in the new government. But Doucet was suspicious, however, having seen letters written by Napoleon after the supposed date of his death as announced in Malet’s forged papers.
He also thought that he recognized Malet and, once alone with the general, overpowered him. Doucet then ordered the National Guard to return to barracks, released Cambacérès and informed Clarke of the coup.
Malet, Lahorie, and Guidal were tried before a council of war and executed by firing squad on 29 October. Others, including the hapless Colonel Soulier, were shot two days later. Colonel Jean-François Rabbe, commander of the Paris Guard, who had also been tricked, was spared execution.
*
Paris – the city of light – was, as I have portrayed it, a place of jaw-dropping wonder for most strangers. Napoleon had worked hard on its outward appearance, seeking to transform the old city into a fitting capital for his empire. Much of it though, such as the part-completed Arc de Triomphe with its canvas fakeries, was merely a façade.
*
The cemeteries of Paris had become horribly overcrowded by the late eighteenth century and that of the Innocents was by far the worst. After a particularly rainy period in the spring of 1780, the cemetery was finally closed as the earth literally began to fall apart. Bodies began to be exhumed and bones moved to the catacombs from 1786.
*
The church was destroyed in 1787 and the cemetery was scheduled to be replaced by a vegetable market. However, the Revolution intervened and the place was not fully cleared until the end of the empire. During this period it became the refuge of the most dangerous and criminal classes of the city.
The Fountain of the Nymphs, erected in 1549 next to the church, was dismantled and rebuilt in what became the new market. Today known as the Fountain of the Innocents it stands on what is now the place Joachim-du-Bellay.
The smugglers’ tunnels were also real although many of them were made into catacombs and some blocked up. It is a well-documented fact that 185 miles of tunnels still exist today beneath the modern city.