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The Infernal Machine

Many attempts were made to assassinate the First Consul. Though France, with unparalleled unanimity, surrounded Napoleon with admiration, gratitude, and homage, there were violent men in the two extremes of society, among the Jacobins and the inexorable Royalists, who regarded him as in their way. Napoleon's escape from the explosion of the infernal machine, got up by the Royalists, was almost miraculous.

On the evening of the 24th of December, 1800, Napoleon was going to the Opera to hear Haydn's Oratorio of the Creation, which was to be performed for the first time. Intensely occupied by business, he was reluctant to go, but, to gratify Josephine, yielded to her urgent request. It was necessary for his carriage to pass through a narrow street. A cart, apparently by accident overturned, obstructed the passage. A barrel suspended beneath the cart contained as deadly a machine as could be constructed with gunpowder and all the missiles of death. The coachman succeeded in forcing his way by the cart. He had barely passed when an explosion took place, which was heard all over Paris, and which seemed to shake the city to its foundations.

Eight persons were instantly killed, and more than sixty were wounded, of whom about twenty subsequently died. The houses for a long distance on each side of the street were fearfully shattered, and many of them were nearly blown to pieces. The agents of the infernal machine had the barbarity to get a young girl, fifteen years of age, to hold the horse who drew the machine. This was to disarm suspicion. The poor child was blown into such fragments that no part of her body, excepting her feet, could afterward be found. Napoleon's carriage rocked as upon the billows of the sea, and the windows were shattered to fragments. Napoleon had been in too many scenes of terror to be alarmed by any noise or destruction which gunpowder could produce. "Ha !" said he, with perfect composure, "we are blown up." One of his companions in the carriage, greatly terrified, thrust his head through the demolished window, and called loudly to the driver to stop. "No, no!" said Napoleon, "drive on."

When the First Consul entered the opera house, he appeared perfectly calm and unmoved. The greatest consternation, however, prevailed in all parts of the house, for the explosion had been heard, and fearful apprehensions were felt for the safety of the idolized Napoleon. As soon as he appeared, thunders of applause, which shook the very walls of the theatre, gave affecting testimony of the attachment of the people to his person. In a few moments, Josephine, who had come in her private carriage, entered the box. Napoleon turned to her with perfect tranquillity and said, "The rascals tried to blow me up. Where is the book of the Oratorio?"

It was at first thought that this conspiracy was the work of the Jacobins. There were in Paris more than a hundred of the leaders of this party, who had obtained a sanguinary notoriety during the Reign of Terror. They were active members of a Jacobin Club, a violent and vulgar gathering, continually plotting the overthrow of the government and the assassination of the First Consul. They were thoroughly detested by the people, and the community was glad to avail itself of any plausible pretext for banishing them from France. Without sufficient evidence that they were actually guilty of this particular outrage, in the strong excitement and indignation of the moment a decree was passed by the legislative bodies sending one hundred and sixty of these bloodstained culprits into exile.

The wish was earnestly expressed that Napoleon would promptly punish them by his own dictatorial power. Napoleon had, in fact, acquired such unbounded popularity, and the nation was so thoroughly impressed with a sense of his justice and his wisdom, that whatever he said was done. He, however, insisted that the business should be conducted by the constituted tribunals, and under the regular forms of law.

Thus cautiously did Napoleon proceed under circumstances so exciting. The law, however, was unjust and tyrannical. Guilty as these men were of other crimes, by which they had forfeited all sympathy, it subsequently appeared that they were not guilty of this crime. Napoleon was evidently embarrassed by this uncertainty of their guilt, and was not willing that they should be denounced as contrivers of the infernal machine. "We believe," said he, "that they are guilty, but we do not know it. They must be transported for the crimes which they have committed, the massacres and the conspiracies already proved against them." The decree was passed. But Napoleon, strong in popularity, became so convinced of the powerlessness and insignificance of these Jacobins, that the decree was never enforced against them. They remained in France, but they were conscious that the eye of the police was upon them.

It was soon proved, much to the surprise of Napoleon, that the atrocious act was perpetrated by the partisans of the Bourbons. Many of the most prominent of the Loyalists were implicated in this horrible conspiracy. Napoleon felt that he deserved their gratitude. He had interposed to save them from the fury of the Jacobins. Against the remonstrances of his friends, he had passed a decree which had restored one hundred and fifty thousand of these wandering emigrants to France. He had done every thing in his power to enable them to regain their confiscated estates. He had been in all respects their friend and benefactor, and he would not believe, until the proof was indisputable, that they could thus requite him.

The wily Fouche, however, dragged the whole matter into light. The prominent conspirators were arrested and shot.

London was the hot-house where they were engendered. Air-guns were aimed at Napoleon. Assassins dogged him with their poniards. A bombshell was invented, weighing about fifteen pounds, which was to be thrown in at his carriage-window, and which, exploding by its own concussion, would hurl death on every side. The conspirators were reckless of the lives of others, if they could only destroy the life of Napoleon. At last Napoleon became aroused, and declared that he would "teach those Bourbons that he was not a man to be shot at like a dog."

One day, at St. Helena, as he was putting on his flannel waistcoat, he observed Las Casas looking at him very steadfastly. "Well! what is your Excellency thinking of?" said Napoleon, with a smile.

"Sire," Las Casas replied, "in a pamphlet which I lately read, I found it stated that your majesty was shielded by a coat-of-mail for the security of your person. I was thinking that I could bear positive evidence that, at St. Helena at least, all precautions for personal safety have been laid aside."

"This," said Napoleon, "is one of the thousand absurdities which have been published respecting me. But the story you have just mentioned is the more ridiculous, since every individual about me well knows how careless I am with regard to self-preservation. Accustomed from the age of eighteen to be exposed to the cannon-ball, and knowing the inutility of precautions, I abandoned myself to my fate. When I came to the head of affairs, I might still have fancied myself surrounded by the dangers of the field of battle, and I might have regarded the conspiracies which were formed against me as so many bomb-shells. But I followed my old course. I trusted to my lucky star, and left all precautions to the police. I was, perhaps, the only sovereign in Europe who dispensed with a body-guard. Every one could freely approach me without having, as it were, to pass through military barracks."