From this official declaration of Napoleon's confidential
Minister, in a society of known anti-imperialists, I draw the conclusion
that Moreau will never more, during the present reign, return to France.
How very feeble, and how badly advised must this general have been, when,
after his condemnation to two years' imprisonment, he accepted a
perpetual exile, and renounced all hopes of ever again entering his own
country. In the Temple, or in any other prison, if he had submitted to
the sentence pronounced against him, he would have caused Bonaparte more
uneasiness than when at liberty, and been more a point of rally to his
adherents and friends than when at his palace of Grosbois, because
compassion and pity must have invigorated and sharpened their feelings.

If report be true, however, he did not voluntarily exchange imprisonment
for exile; racks were shown him; and by the act of banishment was placed
a poisonous draught. This report gains considerable credit when it is
remembered that, immediately after his condemnation, Moreau furnished his
apartments in the Temple in a handsome manner, so as to be lodged well,
if not comfortably, with his wife and child, whom, it is said, he was not
permitted to see before he had accepted Bonaparte's proposal of
transportation.

It may be objected to this supposition that the man in power, who did not
care about the barefaced murder of the Duc d'Enghien, and the secret
destruction of Pichegru, could neither much hesitate, nor be very
conscientious about adding Moreau to the number of his victims. True,
but the assassin in authority is also generally a politician. The
untimely end of the Duc d'Enghien and of Pichegru was certainly lamented
and deplored by the great majority of the French people; but though they
had many who pitied their fate, but few had any relative interest to
avenge it; whilst in the assassination of Moreau, every general, every
officer, and every soldier of his former army, might have read the
destiny reserved for himself by that chieftain, who did not conceal his
preference of those who had fought under him in Italy and Egypt, and his
mistrust and jealousy of those who had vanquished under Moreau in
Germany; numbers of whom had already perished at St. Domingo, or in the
other colonies, or were dispersed in separate and distant garrisons of
the mother country. It has been calculated that of eighty-four generals
who made, under Moreau, the campaign of 1800, a