Fauvelet de Bourrienne

Conspiracy of Carnot - Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Louis Antoine (1769-1834) signed period manuscript copy of an interview which he had together with his friend Napoleon Bonaparte. Geneva, Switzerland 21st November, 1797.

Bourrienne was a French diplomat, famous for his Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, a book based on years of intimate friendship with his subject. They met at the Military Academy at Brienne in Champagne when eight years old. Napoleon recalled the famous snowball battles that he masterminded: “Unfortunately the pleasure did not last long, for we put stones in the snowballs, so that many boys were injured, among them my friend Bourrienne, and the game was forbidden”. Typically, Napoleon recalled that when they graduated in 1787 at age 15 he led in all subjects; Bourrienne recalled that Napoleon led in mathematics, while he was first in all else.

A historically significant artifact, Bourrienne has hand signed this period manuscript copy (6 pages) of an interview which he had together with his friend, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, who was Commander-in-Chief of the French Army in Italy), now on his way to Rastatt, and Felix Desporters (1763-1849), French resident at Geneva, of a man named Casatti, a spy, who is denouncing a conspiracy of Lazare Carnot (1753-1823), who had been driven out of France into exile, the secretary of the English envoy William Wickham (1761-1840) and others, to kill Barras (1755-1829) and Bonaparte himself (Barras shall be killed while hunting, Bonaparte at Rastatt by poisoning his meal). The designated assassins are Flandrin (“egorgeur de Lyon”), Dumas (of Lyon, too) and the Chevalier L’etang.

Bonaparte himself mentions a copy of this interview sent to the Directory in his letter of Rastatt of the 6th Frimaire VI (26th November 1797), but the editor mentions that the copy was missing, cf. Correspondance de Napoléon Ier publiée par ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III., tome III (Paris 1859) letter 2379. In this letter he mentions the arrestment of the banker Bontems of Geneva as a consequence of the interview, and that Bontems as well as Casatti will be send to Paris. Of the conspiracy of Carnot, he doesn’t make any mention, and it seems to have remained unknown!

A remarkable piece of history. A full French transcript is available upon request.