To recount this scheme, which, since 1830, the Liberals have openly
confessed in all its ramifications, would trench upon the domain of
history and involve too long a digression. This glimpse of it is
enough to show the double part which Philippe Bridau undertook to
play. The former staff-officer of the Emperor was to lead a movement
in Paris solely for the purpose of masking the real conspiracy and
occupying the mind of the government at its centre, while the great
struggle should burst forth at the north. When the latter miscarried
before discovery, Philippe was ordered to break all links connecting
the two plots, and to allow the secrets of the secondary plot only to
become known. For this purpose, his abject misery, to which his state
of health and his clothing bore witness, was amply sufficient to
undervalue the character of the conspiracy and reduce its proportions
in the eyes of the authorities. The role was well suited to the
precarious position of the unprincipled gambler. Feeling himself
astride of both parties, the crafty Philippe played the saint to the
royal government, all the while retaining the good opinion of the men
in high places who were of the other party,--determined to cast in his
lot at a later day with whichever side he might then find most to his
advantage.
These revelations as to the vast bearings of the real conspiracy made
Philippe a man of great distinction in the eyes of Carpentier and
Mignonnet, to whom his self-devotion seemed a state-craft worthy of
the palmy days of the Convention.
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