Historians have recounted in detail the various attempts made by Napoleon's enemies to end his life. This ranges from an individual act to a conspiracy. There is a very particular case where the culprit, although arrested, was neither condemned nor executed. A witness to the facts recounted the circumstances of this affair, recorded in the memoirs of General Bigarré.
It was in the early days of the Empire that the incident took place. The security of the Tuileries Palace is ensured by the Guard and it is etiquette that regulates its operation. Placed under the command of the “Grand Marshal of the Palace”, General Duroc, this surveillance is carried out militarily by a group of more than one hundred and fifty people. These are divided into four guard posts: one of them occupies the guard room in the very heart of the palace, the other three standing at both ends of the building and the entrance to the Tuileries garden. They each include a captain, two lieutenants, a second lieutenant, five sergeants, eight corporals, and twenty-seven soldiers. Each of the entrance gates to the palace and the Tuileries garden is guarded by a soldier, while two others stand in the vestibule (1). Madame de Rémusat, wife of the prefect of the palace and herself lady-in-waiting to Joséphine, therefore very familiar with the place, wrote: “The palace police were very well done; we knew the names of everyone who entered. » However, an event demonstrates that there is no place that cunning cannot allow a determined man to reach.
Bigarré's testimony
Bigarré relates in his memoirs: “In the first days of January 1805, I found myself on guard duty at the Château des Tuileries (2) when an individual covered in a green frock coat, with a three-cornered hat on his head [sic], absolutely in the shape of that which the Emperor Napoleon ordinarily wore, entered the salon where the officers on duty were, without having been seen by the sentry placed at the top of the grand staircase, nor by any of the servants of the palace; The Emperor had gone to Saint-Cloud that day. This individual, approaching me with a bold air, asked me if the Emperor was in his cabinet. The tone and assurance with which he asked me this question impressed me to the point that I imagined that it could only be a private secretary of the Emperor or someone of a very high rank who had privileged entrances to the castle. But as this individual had, against custom, kept his hat on his head, and as I noticed in his manners somewhat embarrassed, I took the liberty of pointing out to him that in the Emperor's palace, one had to wear one's hat. Upon this simple observation, this man drew a naked saber that he had under his frock coat and rushed at me with such rapidity that I only had time to put the sword in my hand and parry the first one. saber blow that this singular character sought to land on my head. Seeing him ready to return to the charge, I did not hesitate to march on him, and pressed him so closely with the point of my sword, that I pierced his chest while leaning him against one of the walls of the Palace, and holding his right arm with his left hand. Seeing blood gushing from the wound I had just made him, I called the guard to my aid, while continuing to keep him in check, because I saw that I was dealing with a furious man. A corporal and three hunters came running to my voice; At the sight of these men, I withdrew my sword from the chest of this unfortunate man and told the guards to seize it and take him to the gendarmerie station. At the moment when the corporal came to seize him, this devil of a man, to whom I had clumsily left the saber in his hand, dealt a blow to the corporal who cut off the thumb of his left hand. The hunters, seeing their corporal wounded, pursued him with bayonets forward; They gave him a blow in the lower abdomen, which made him fall unconscious on the carpet of the room where the scene had just taken place. He was immediately transported to the elite gendarmerie station where prompt assistance was provided to him (3). When he had regained the use of his senses, he was asked who he was and for what purpose he had entered the Château des Tuileries armed with a naked saber. He replied that he was a quartermaster of the mounted hunters of the imperial guard and that he had come with the desire to assassinate the Emperor. I immediately reported this event to the senior adjutant of the palace, Renaud, who reported it to Marshal Duroc and the latter to the Emperor. According to all the information that we managed to obtain about this man, the Emperor recognized him as the quartermaster of his mounted guides who, during the first Egyptian campaign, had constantly been responsible for carrying your telescope and maps. He ordered that he be taken without delay to Bicêtre and that the greatest care be taken, and when he learned that it was as a result of a privilege (4) that had been made to this soldier that this unfortunate man had indulged in an act of despair, he only wanted to see in him a victim of the injustice of his leaders, and again recommended that he not be left me wanting for nothing. The Emperor instructed Marshal Duroc to tell me on his behalf that he had been satisfied with the zeal I had shown in fulfilling my duties in such a difficult circumstance; the latter made me understand that it would not be long before I was rewarded and promised me not to give publicity to an affair that he said was a family affair. I have never known since this unfortunate event what had become of this quartermaster; having left two months later to attend the Emperor's coronation in Milan and having been appointed major in the fourth line regiment (5), I forgot his name and lost sight of him entirely. »
Narration by Frédéric Masson
In his work Napoléon chez lui, published in 1894, Frédéric Masson recounts an adventure similar exactly to that experienced by Belle-Îlois. The latter reports the first days of 1805, but Masson, who does not mention the name of Bigarré, places the event in the course of the year xi, that is between September 1802 and August 1803. Does memory have is lacking in Bigarré? Should we trust Masson? Here is what the latter relates: “During the day, adjutants, deputies or quartermasters made frequent rounds in the uninhabited parts of the palace. However, they did not enter the ordinary apartment which was sufficient to guard the officers on duty. One might believe that they did not have to act personally: that would not be correct. In the year xi (6), a man, in bourgeois clothes, entered the first antechamber. Questioned by the officer on duty, a captain with the voltigeurs, because he kept his hat on his head, he suddenly takes out from under his frock coat a saber with which he wants to kill the officer. He warns himself and pins the madman against the wall. We run, we hurry: we recognize the man as a former quartermaster of the guides to whom an injustice had been done and who, exasperated, panicked, had come to kill the Consul. We treat him, we cure him, we cover up the affair, and Bonaparte gives his assassin a pension. »
The comparison of the two texts is interesting. Bigarré is captain of foot hunters in the Imperial Guard; the officer cited by Masson would be a captain of voltigeurs. However, the voltigeurs did not appear in the guard until much later; However, it should be noted that the elements forming this new corps come from riflemen-hunters and conscript-hunters! There is therefore not far from one to the other, when almost a hundred years separate the facts from the narration. Furthermore, the circumstances of the incident are common to both perpetrators. The location: the Tuileries Palace; the protocol error: the hat kept on the head; the quality of the aggressor: a former guide of the Army of the Orient; the reasons: a dispute between the intruder and the administration and finally the follow-up was given: the soldier was entrusted to doctors and the affair was hushed up, Napoleon showing the same clemency towards an old combat “companion”.
Between two versions
Varied sets the date of the event relatively precisely. It indicates, on the one hand, the first days of January 1805 and, on the other hand, that approximately two months later, part of the guard had left the capital to reach Milan where the coronation of Napoleon was to be celebrated. king of Italy. Indeed, on an order of January 14, companies of grenadiers and foot soldiers left their Parisian barracks to go to Lyon before reaching Milan. As for the departure of the Emperor from Paris for this occasion, it is indisputably fixed for April 2, 1805.
Furthermore, Bigarré declares having reported the event to the senior adjutant of the palace “Renaud”, who himself reported it to “Marshal” Duroc. This brings up several thoughts. First, the officer that Bigarré refers to under the surname of Renaud is, in reality, the future general Hilaire-Benoît Reynaud. Reynaud, made battalion chief on July 4, 1797, moved to the consuls' guard as deputy squadron leader on February 22, 1800. He was named adjutant commander on August 27, 1803. He was finally designated colonel of the 15th line, the April 6, 1804… but while retaining his job as deputy to the grand marshal of the palace, who had meanwhile become “imperial” (7).
Then, if Duroc was never a marshal as Bigarré says, on the other hand, Bonaparte's aide-de-camp was made division general on August 27, 1803. Through his new functions, he held the title of "great officer of the Emperor's palace" from July 10, 1804, and became "grand marshal of the imperial palace" on February 2, 1805. His ability to receive Reynaud's report is therefore possible from July 10, 1804. Which rules out, consequently, the dating of Masson. Furthermore, the latter mentions a captain of acrobats and not of hunters. However, the voltigeurs did not appear in the Guard until a decree of December 30, 1810. However, it is interesting to note that the elements that contributed to the formation of this new corps came from the tirailleurs-chasseurs and conscript hunters. Hence, perhaps, confusion in the minds of the “narrator”, as we will discover later, and that of the editor.
Bigarré's version therefore wins our support. Our research did not allow us to establish the identity of the marshal in question. Nothing related to this affair, although important, could be found in the various archives or military or Public Assistance (hospitals of Charenton, Bicêtre, etc.). It therefore seems that Napoleon's wish was well respected. The question then arises: how could Frédéric Masson have known about it? The answer is simple.
During the year 1812, while in the capital, Bigarré, who had become a general, met a young woman then aged twenty-three. Alexandrine is the daughter of Nicolas Lebon, a lawyer who had his moment of fame at the time of the Revolution by defending Abbé Brotier, accused of conspiracy in the so-called "Paris Agency" affair, a royalist office at the head of which the ecclesiastic was. However, Alexandrine had previously been married to Jean-Claude Masson, a lawyer at the Seine Court of First Instance (8). From this union, she had, notably, in 1811, a son, François; and from his marriage, in 1837, resulted in the birth of Louis-Claude-Frédéric Masson on March 8, 1847. It is on the latter that we focus because he became the immense Frédéric Masson, historian, and permanent secretary of the French Academy.
Thus, Alexandrine Bigarré was the grandmother of the Napoleon specialist. Born in 1847, Frédéric Masson was unable to meet Bigarré, who died in 1838. On the other hand, he is assured that he learned from the mouth of his grandmother the event he recounts in his work. We know that he was very close to her: on the disastrous evening of April 11, 1877, when Alexandrine, hit by a car in a street in Rennes, died, her grandson Frédéric was there, close to her for 'attend in his last moments. His signature appears at the bottom of his grandmother's death certificate as the main declarant.
La seule différence entre les deux relations des faits survenus aux Tuileries porte donc sur la date de ceux-ci. Il est regrettable que l’académicien, désireux de préserver de tout pillage son terrain de recherches, n’ait jamais cité, dans un seul de ses ouvrages, les sources auxquelles il a puisé pour la rédaction de son œuvre. Toutefois, il est certain qu’ici sa source, introuvable chez d’autres auteurs ni même dans les archives, soit de bon aloi : Alexandrine Bigarré s’est faite l’interprète de son époux, décédé, auprès de son petit-fils.
(1) Pierre Branda, Napoléon et ses hommes, Fayard, 2011 ; « Le grand maréchal du Palais : protéger et servir », Napoleonica, La Revue, vol. 1, n°1, 2008, pp. 2-44.
(2) Mémoires du général Bigarré, aide de camp du roi Joseph, 1775-1813, Ernest Kolb éditeur, [1893] (rééd. en 2002 aux éditions du Grenadier, avec présentation et notes de Michel Legat).
(3) La gendarmerie d’élite faisait partie de la Garde. Elle avait son rôle à tenir dans la sécurité des lieux où séjournait l’Empereur.
(4) La notion de « passe-droit » n’était alors pas celle qui existe de nos jours. Le Littré donne comme signification : « Injustice faite à quelqu'un en lui préférant une personne qui a moins de titres que lui. » Même si l’on ignore l’importance de l’injustice commise à l’égard de l’inconnu des Tuileries, il est évident que son geste est démesuré et qu’il relevait plus du domaine médical que criminal.
(5) Bigarré was appointed major in the 4th line regiment on February 6, 1805.
(6) This is very imprecise because it fixes the facts between September 23, 1802, and September 23, 1803.
(7) SHD, 8 Yd 1161, individual file of General Hilaire-Benoît Reynaud, 1772-1855.
(8) Alexandrine Lebon, at the time of her marriage to Jean-Claude Masson on October 28, 1805, was sixteen years old.
Other attempts
At the origin of the various assassination attempts against Bonaparte and then Napoleon, we find politicians, opportunists, and also “illuminated people”. Some wanted to overthrow power to return it to royalty, like Georges Cadoudal; there are Jacobins, like Alexandre Chevalier, a chemist trapped by Fouché; others wanted to get rid of the character for very personal reasons: this was the case of the Germans Frédéric Staps, guided by "supernatural visions", and Ernest von der Sahala remained known under the name of La Sahla, a young student, Saxon like the previous one, aged eighteen, nourished by the prophecies of the Old Testament. Others tried, very simply, to exploit the circumstances, like General Malet who wanted to make Parisians understand that the Emperor had perished in Russia. All this remained just attempts. The police or even chance – his “lucky star” – never stopped watching over the most powerful man in the world. But, for both, the punishment was severe. They perished either under the blade of the guillotine or under the bullets of a firing squad. Only La Sahla was “emasculated” in… Vincennes. Napoleon had thus signed Savary's report: "We must not publicize this affair...", adding the reason: "[...] so as not to be obliged to end with a bang [...]. Let time take its course. »The Prussians took La Sahla out of his dungeon in 1814.
General Bigarré
Born in Belle-Île-en-Mer on January 1, 1775, after serving as a cabin boy in the navy, Auguste-Julien Biggaré was received as a second lieutenant in the 9th infantry regiment, a unit then garrisoned on his native island. The beginning of his career was marked by the wars in the West against the Chouans – he was injured in the affair of the landing of emigrants at Quiberon. He was successively lieutenant in the 17th demi-brigade of battle then captain in the 1st legion of the Franks, a corps which he was responsible for setting up to assist in the second Irish expedition which bad weather conditions caused to turn around. fiasco but where he particularly distinguished himself during the dramatic return to the Breton shores. This legion soon took a new name and Bigarré thus found himself captain of riflemen in the 14th light infantry demi-brigade. During the summer of 1801, a happy encounter at the Luxeuil baths would transform the course of his existence. One evening, he is invited to the table of the wife of the First Consul. “A young officer like you,” exclaims Joséphine, “has his place in my dear husband’s guard…” Strong emotion at Bigarré. “Write to him personally. » Even if, through an incredible breach of protocol – the request was made hastily on pink paper – Bigarré was, on March 1, 1802, appointed captain of the foot hunters of the consular guard. Does he owe his new position solely to the benevolence of Joséphine or does he not rather take advantage of the latter's new organization to join the ranks of the Guard? (A) The two events probably contributed to his happiness. The latter was assigned to head the 5th company of the 2nd battalion, barracked in Rueil. He remained within this elite force until February 6, 1805, the day when he passed, with the rank of major, to the 4th line infantry regiment, a unit of which Joseph Bonaparte is the titular colonel. This means that Bigarré is much more than a major but rather a corps commander of the 4th, the occupations of the Emperor's brother distancing him from the occupations of an ordinary colonel.
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