"These men wished to commit a crime against their sovereign, their commander.

You have no reason to reproach yourself for having delivered the criminals to the law." "And Mariage?
What has become of Mariage ?" "Apparently he received a warning; he has fled.

But we found all the others yesterday at their posts; for we had made all our arrangements so secretly that even the conspirators who surrounded the emperor were not aware of it.
The emperor at first intended to act strictly according to the programme of the conspirators; take the ride with his suite, and not permit me to come to his assistance, with a few trustworthy assistants, until after he had entered the hut and been captured.

But he rejected this plan, because he would have been compelled to arrest his most distinguished generals and subject the greater number of his staff officers to a rigid investigation.
The whole army would then have heard of this bold conspiracy, and conspiracies are like contagious diseases, they always have successors.

So the emperor rejected this plan, and, at the moment that his suite were mounting to attend him on his ride, he dismissed them all, saying that he wished to go into the woods alone, accompanied only by Colonel Lejeune, the Mameluke, and myself.