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Memoirs of Napoleon — Volume 07 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
page 65 of 105 (61%)
that the Consuls and the Governor of Paris must disappear--I believe that
I have a party strong enough in the Senate to obtain possession of
authority, and I will immediately make use of it to protect his friends;
public opinion will then dictate what may be fit to be done, but I will
promise nothing in writing." Admitting these words attributed to Moreau
to be true, they prove that he was dissatisfied with the Consular
Government, and that he wished a change; but there is a great difference
between a conditional wish and a conspiracy.

The commander of the principal guard of the Temple was General Savory,
and he had reinforced that guard by his select gendarmerie. The
prisoners did not dare to communicate one with another for fear of mutual
injury, but all evinced a courage which created no little alarm as to the
consequences of the trial. Neither offers nor threats produced any
confessions in the course of the interrogatories. Pichegru, in
particular, displayed an extraordinary firmness, and Real one day, on
leaving the chamber where he had been examining him, said aloud in the
presence of several persons, "What a man that Pichegru is!"

Forty days elapsed after the arrest of General Pichegru when, on the
morning of the 6th of April, he was found dead in the chamber he occupied
in the Temple. Pichegru had undergone ten examinations; but he had made
no confessions, and no person was committed by his replies.

All his declarations, however, gave reason to believe that he would speak
out, and that too in a lofty and energetic manner during the progress of
the trial. "When I am before my judges," said he, "my language shall be
conformable to truth and the interests of my country." What would that
language have been? Without doubt there was no wish that it should be
heard. Pichegru would have kept his promise, for he was distinguished
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