ed a courier to a famous
banker of that day with the news of a defeat at Marengo. Victory, you
will remember, did not declare itself for Napoleon until seven o'clock
in the evening of the battle. At midday the banker's agent, considering
the day lost and the French army about to be annihilated, hastened to
despatch the courier. On receipt of that news Fouche was about to put
into motion a whole army of bill-posters and cries, with a truck full
of proclamations, when the second courier arrived with the news of the
triumph which put all France beside itself with joy. There were heavy
losses at the Bourse, of course. But the criers and posters who were
gathered to announce the political death of Bonaparte and to post up
the new proclamations were only kept waiting awhile till the news of the
victory could be struck off!

"Malin, on whom the whole responsibility of the plot of which he had
been the working agent was likely to fall if it ever became known, was
so terrified that he packed the proclamations and other papers in carts
and took them down to Gondreville in the night-time, where no doubt they
were hidden in the cellars of that chateau, which he had bought in
the name of another man--who was it, by the bye? he had him made
chief-justice of an Imperial court--Ah! Marion. Having thus disposed
of these damning proofs he returned to Paris to congratulate the First
Consul on his victory. Napoleon, as you know, rushed from Italy to Paris
after the battle of Marengo with alarming celerity. Those who know the
secret history of that time are well aware that a message from Lucien
brought him back. The minister of the interior had foreseen the attitude
of the Montagnard party, and though he had no idea of the quarter from
which the wind really blew, he feared a storm. Incapable of suspecting
the three ministers and Carnot, he attributed the movement which stirred
all France to the hatred his brother had excited by the 18th Brumaire,
and to the confident belief of the men of 1793 that defeat was certain
in Italy.

"The battle of Marengo detained Napoleon on the plains of Lombardy until
the 25th of June, but he reached Paris on the 2nd of July. Imagine
the faces of the five conspirators as they met the First Consul at the
Tuileries, and congratulated him on the victory. Fouche on that very
occasion at the palace told Malin to have patience, for _all was not
over yet_. The truth was, Talleyrand and Fouche both held that Bonapart