Description:

Bonaparte Napoleon 1769 - 1821 Extraordinary transcript of 1797 Napoleon Bonaparte assassination attempt allegedly masterminded by Ex-Director Lazare Carnot and the British

Six page AMsS, written entirely in the flowing script of Napoleon Bonaparte's general secretary, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne (1769-1834), recording interview conducted with a Swiss national named Casatti. Long, cream paper sometimes inscribed on both sides, measuring 9.125" x 14.625", in very fine condition with expected creases. Bonaparte (1769-1821) and Swiss national Felix Desportes (1763-1849) served as witnesses. Signed "Secretary of General Bonaparte, Fauvelet Bourrienne" at bottom of last page.

In November 1797, the time when this document was written, Napoleon was Commander-in-Chief of French forces in Italy and Austria. Bonaparte had deftly defeated Italian and Austrian allied forces throughout the past winter, seizing territory in Piedmont, ransacking Venice, and even threatening Vienna. The general's hugely profitable victories made him popular among the armed forces and French citizenry. Bonaparte provided support to the Directory during their successful Coup of 18 Fructidor (September 4, 1797), a royalist purge that ousted former Director Lazare Carnot (1753-1823). This interview was conducted two months later.

Britain observed France's military conquests and territorial expansion warily, seemingly foreseeing the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). William Wickham (1761-1840), the British envoy to the French Republic, also managed an extensive spy network across much of central Europe. This interview involves claims that Carnot, the ousted Co-Director now exiled in Geneva, and the British envoy's secretary, plan to assassinate Bonaparte and Paul Barras (1755-1829), one of the original five Directors who benefited from the Coup of 18 Fructidor.

This document is the transcript of Bourrienne's interrogation, framed in a series of incredibly detailed questions and answers. Casatti recounts how he met Carnot, Wickham's secretary, and "a destitute general" five weeks earlier in Villeneuve. During this meeting, which lasted three and a half hours, Casatti was offered money to buy merchandise to pose as a merchant, like the co-conspirators were also doing. At the meeting, the co-conspirators revealed their general aims: that three assassins, colorfully named Flandrin the cutthroat, Dumas de Lyon, and the Chevalier d'Etang, would kill Bonaparte by poisoning and Barras during a staged hunting party.

As confirming the identities of relevant individuals is paramount to the interrogators, Casatti provides exhaustive details about the personal appearance, dress, and comportment of the three co-conspirators. For example, he describes Carnot as about five feet and four thumbs high, with a round face and big nose, wearing a wig, round hat with a Swiss badge, and gray clothes. The document is rich in providing similar vibrant details, like the fact that the hitman Flandrin rode a solid black horse and stowed his payoff in "a leather belt with many buckles".

Bourrienne's primary goal in interviewing Casatti was extracting information about the planned assassination attempts, but he also used it as an opportunity to conduct further reconnaissance. The secretary asks Casatti about any banks financing this operation as well as the whereabouts of other deported ex-deputies currently hiding in Switzerland. The interview resulted in the arrest of a Swiss banker and the removal of the informant to Paris. Bonaparte mentions this interview in a letter to the Directory dated six days later (Correspondance de NapolÕ©on 1er, tome III, Paris, 1859, letter 2379).

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