This is part of a series where we translate the memoirs of Hortense Bonaparte’s reader Louise Parquin aka Mme. Cochelet. When we last left off Mme. Cochelet was receiving a warning that Napoleon’s government was really stuffed with infiltrators.
The Count d’Artois [later Charles X] who is implicated in this passage is someone highly suspected to have been behind the alleged plot to murder Napoleon.
[The old woman] lifted her petticoat to take something from one of her pockets.
My fear returned with all its force: I thought I saw a pistol which she gently drew from her pocket.
So, I approached the door and I was about to open it, when she unfolded a large notebook covered with a brown sheet: "There, she said, I wanted to warn you. A friend of mine, a good man, who is in Bicêtre, has written everything down in detail so that you can take the information and protect yourself from the traps that are set for you. These Bourbons have many agents, and my friend knows them. Half of your ministers are sold; beware of them all. I wanted to speak only to you; that's why I came to Saint-Leu. I do not want anything. What I do is done out of friendship, Farewell.
And she left, leaving me the big notebook that I ran to carry to the Queen.
She told me to read her some passages which seemed to us to be out of a grimoire.
The prisoner of Bicêtre spoke of emissaries sent by the Count d’Artois to the continent, and gave many other details which seemed to us all the more extraordinary since, from our pension in Saint-Germain, where Mme. Campan had often told us about the misfortunes of Queen Marie Antoinette and her family, other than that, I had never heard about the Bourbon family members, and I did not know who the Count d’Artois was, who was said to be plotting against us in this writing, by sending agents to the continent.
The Queen was not much more educated on this than I was. She decided to send all this information to the Minister of Police [Savary, Duke de Rovigo]; for, regarding devotion to the Emperor, one could not doubt that one.
I believe that my mistress never again inquired to the Duke de Rovigo about whether there could be some truth in this large notebook; for everything was so secret in the government of the Emperor, as far as politics were concerned, that the Minister might not have understood the threats.
The Queen left Saint-Leu with regret in returning to Paris, where however she was to occupy her new room which had just been arranged so as to be sunny.
The hanging was in white cashmere with beautiful gold fringe. The curtains of the bed and the windows were in muslin from India embroidered in gold.
Her beautiful vermeil water basin was placed on a carpet of sky blue velvet also embroidered with gold. Upon entering this room, the Queen said (and I have often recalled this since):
“As long as the Cossacks do not come to force me to abandon this pretty room!"
And each of us laughed at this thought, as at the most baroque idea that we could possibly have ...
Concerns of all kinds came to us; for the battles of Leipzig and Hanau had cast great discouragement in France.
The Emperor arrived at Saint-Cloud on November 9; his return always revived everyone's courage.
It was believed that it was up to him to sign the peace. The Queen went with the Empress Marie Louise to assist on December 19 at the opening of the Legislative Body; the Emperor's speech affirmed the desire for peace.
So everyone says, "Why doesn't he do it? Can’t he do anything he wants?”
Madame de la Colinière, my mother's good and excellent friend, came to ask me to beg the Queen to take an interest in one of her nephews, M. de Char-
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Ceci fait partie d'une série où nous traduisons les mémoires de la lectrice de Hortense Bonaparte, Louise Parquin alias Mme. Cochelet.
La dernière fois que nous avons laissé Mme. Cochelet recevait un avertissement que le gouvernement de Napoléon était vraiment bourré d’infiltrateurs.
Le comte d’Artois [Charles X] impliqué dans ce passage est une personne hautement soupçonnée d’être à l’origine du complot présumé de meurtre de Napoléon.
