han if he wore the livery of a king,
and carried a crown on his shako instead of that naked damsel that
represents French Liberty. Mahon is the luckiest fellow going, and, I
heartily believe, the most deserving of his fortune! And see if General
Moreau be not of my opinion.

There he is on the balcony, and she is leaning on his arm.'

'_Parbleu!_ the major is right!' said another; 'but, for certain, it was
not in that humour he left us just now; his lips were closely puckered
up, and his fingers were twisted into his sword-knot--two signs of anger
and displeasure there's no mistaking.'

'If he's in a better temper, then,' said another, 'it was never the
smiles of a pretty woman worked the change. There's not a man in France
so thoroughly indifferent to such blandishments.'

'_Tant pis pour lui,_' said the major; 'but they're closing the
window-shutters, and we may as well go home.'

CHAPTER XLV. THE CABINET OF A CHEF DE POLICE

Whatever opinion may be formed of the character of the celebrated
conspiracy of Georges and Pichegru, the mode of its discovery, and
the secret rules by which its plans were detected, are among the great
triumphs of police skill. From the hour when the conspirators first met
together in London, to that last fatal moment when they expired in the
Temple, the agents of Fouche never ceased to track them.

Their individual tastes and ambitions were studied; their habits
carefully investigated; everything that could give a clue to their turn
of thought or mind well weighed; so that the Consular Government was not
only in possession of all their names and rank, but knew thoroughly
the exact amount of complicity attaching to each, and could distinguish
between the reckless violence of Georges and the more tempered, but
higher ambition of Moreau. It was a long while doubtful whether the
great general would be implicated in the scheme. His habitual reserve--a
habit less of caution than of constitutional delicacy--had led him to
few intimacies, and nothing like even one close friendship; he moved
little in society; he corresponded with none, save on the duties of the
service. Fouche's well-known boast of, 'Give me, two words of a man's
writing and I'll hang him,' were then scarcely applicable here.

To attack such a man unsuccessfully, to arraign him on a weak
indictment, would have been ruin; and yet Bonaparte's jealousy of his
great rival pushed him even to this peril, rather than risk the g