For d'Aché in his retreat still plotted and made an effort to resume,
with the English minister, the intrigue that had just failed so
miserably, Moreau having withdrawn at the last minute. The royalist
party was less intimidated than exasperated at the deaths of the Duke
d'Enghien, Georges and Pichegru, and did not consider itself beaten even
by the proclamation of the Empire, which had not excited in the
provinces--above all in the country--the enthusiasm announced in the
official reports.

In reality it had been accepted by the majority of the population as a
government of expediency, which would provisionally secure threatened
interests, but whose duration was anything but certain. It was too
evident that the Empire was Napoleon, as the Consulate had been
Bonaparte--that everything rested on the head of one man. If an infernal
machine removed him, royalty would have a good opportunity. His life was
not the only stake; his luck itself was very hazardous. Founded on
victory, the Empire was condemned to be always victorious. War could
undo what war had done. And this uneasiness is manifest in contemporary
memoirs and correspondence. More of the courtiers of the new régime than
one imagines were as sceptical as Mme. Mère, economising her revenues
and saying to her mocking daughters, "You will perhaps be very glad of
them, some day!" In view of a possible catastrophe many of these kept
open a door for retreat towards the Bourbons, and vaguely encouraged
hopes of assistance that could only be depended on in case of their
success, but which the royalists believed in as positive and immediate.
As to the disaster which might bring it about, they hoped for its early
coming, and promised it to the impatient Chouans--the disembarkation of
an Anglo-Russian army--the rising of the West--the entrance of Louis
XVIII into his good town of Paris--and the return of the Corsican to his
island! Predictions that were not so wild after all. Ten years later it