Napoleon related that about a week before the arrest of Georges, a petition had been delivered into his own hands, on the parade, by one of the most determined of the conspirators. Others insinuated themselves among the household at St. Cloud or Malmaison; finally Georges himself seems to have been so near his person as to have been in the same apartment with him.
Independently of good luck, the Emperor attributes his safety, in a great measure, to certain circumstances which were peculiar to himself. That which had doubtless, he said, contributed to preserve him was his having lived after his own fancy; without any regular habits or fixed plan. His close occupations kept him much at home, and almost constantly confined him to his closet. He never dined abroad, seldom visited the theatres, and never appeared but at those times and places at which he was not expected.
As we were descending to the garden after the Emperor had finished dressing, he observed to me that the two designs on his life which had placed him in the most imminent danger were those of Cerachi the sculptor, and the fanatic of Schönbrunn. Cerachi, and some other desperate wretches, had laid a plan for assassinating the First Consul. They agreed to carry their design into execution at the moment of his withdrawing from his box at the theatre. Napoleon, who received intimation of the plot nevertheless proceeded to the theatre, and fearlessly passed by the conspirators, who had shown themselves most eager to occupy their respective stations. They were not arrested until about the middle or near the close of the performance.
Cerachi, said the Emperor, had formerly adored the First Consul; but he vowed to sacrifice him, when, as he pretended, he proved himself a tyrant. This artist had been loaded with favours by General Bonaparte, whose bust he had executed; and, when he entered into the plot against his benefactor, he endeavoured by every possible means to procure another sitting, under pretence of making an essential improvement on the bust. Fortunately, at that time, the Consul had not a single moment’s leisure, and, thinking that want was the real cause of the urgent solicitations of the sculptor, he sent him six thousand francs. But how was he mistaken! Cerachi’s real motive was to stab him during the sitting.
