he
"royal army" were expected merely to clinch Cadoudal's enterprise by
rekindling the flame of revolt in the north and west. French agents
were trying to do the same in Ireland, and a plot for the murder of
George III. was thought to have been connived at by the French
authorities. But, when all is said, the British Government must stand
accused of one of the most heinous of crimes. The whole truth was not
known at Paris; but it was surmised; and the surmise was sufficient to
envenom the whole course of the struggle between England and Napoleon.

Having now established the responsibility of British officials in
this, the most famous plot of the century, we return to describe the
progress of the conspiracy and the arts employed by Napoleon to defeat
it. His tool, Mehee de la Touche, after entrapping French royalists
and some of our own officials in London, proceeded to the Continent in
order to inveigle some of our envoys. He achieved a brilliant success.
He called at Munich, in order, as he speciously alleged, to arrange
with our ambassador there the preparations for the royalist plot. The
British envoy, who bore the honoured name of Francis Drake, was a
zealous intriguer closely in touch with the _emigres_: he was
completely won over by the arts of Mehee: he gave the spy money,
supplied him with a code of false names, and even intrusted him with a
recipe for sympathetic ink. Thus furnished, Mehee proceeded to Paris,
sent his briber a few harmless bulletins, took his information to the
police, and, _at Napoleon's dictation_, gave him news that seriously
misled our Government and Nelson.[290]

The same trick was tried on Stuart, our ambassador at Vienna, who had
a tempting offer from a French agent to furnish news from every French
despatch to or from Vienna. Stuart had closed with the offer, when
suddenly the man was seized at the instance of the French ambassador,
and his papers were searched.[291] In this case there were none that
compromised Stuart, and his career was not cut short in the
ignominious manner that befell Drake, over whom there may be inscribed
as epitaph the warning which Talleyrand gave to young aspirants--"et
surtout pas trop de zele."

Thus, while the royalists were conspiring the overthrow of Napoleon,
he through his agents was countermining their clumsy approach to his
citadel, and prepared to blow them sky high when their mines were
crowded for the final rush. The royalist plans matured slo