and rumours of some awful catastrophe were rife among all classes,
when Mallet conceived the daring project of forging a senatus-consultum,
announcing the fall of Napoleon in a great battle in Russia, and
appointing a provisional government. Having executed this forgery, the
general escaped from his prison, and appeared in full uniform, attended
by a corporal dressed as an aide-de-camp, at midnight, on the 22nd of
October 1812, at the gates of the Minims barracks, then tenanted by some
new and raw levies. The audacity with which he claimed the obedience of
these men to the senatorial decree overawed them. He assumed the
command, and on the instant arrested by their means Savary, minister of
police, and some others of the principal functionaries in the capital.
General Hullin, the military governor, was summoned and hesitated; at
that moment the officer of police, from whose keeping Mallet had
escaped, recognised him, and he was immediately resisted, disarmed, and
confined. The whole affair was over in the course of a few hours, but
the fact that so wild a scheme should have been so nearly successful was
sufficiently alarming. The ease and indifference with which a
considerable body of armed men, in the very heart of Paris, had
transferred their services to a new authority, proclaimed by a stranger,
made Napoleon consider with suspicion the basis of his power. And
ignorant to what extent the conspiracy had actually gone, he heard with
additional alarm, that no fewer than twenty-four persons, including the
leader, had been condemned to death. Of so many he was willing to
believe that some at least had been mere dupes, and apprehended that so
much bloodshed might create a violent revulsion of public feeling. The
Parisians beheld the execution of these men with as much indifference as
their bold attempt; but of this Napoleon was ignorant, until he reached
the Tuileries.

His arrival, preceded as it had been by the twenty-ninth bulletin, in
which the veil was at last lifted from the fatal events of the campaign,
restored for the moment the appearances of composure, amidst a
population of which almost every family had lost a son or a brother.
Such was the influence that still clung to his name. The Emperor was
safe. However great the present calamity, hope remained. The elements,
as they were taught to believe, had not merely quickened and increased,
but wholly occasioned the reverses of the army. The Russian winter was
the