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PLOT OF OPPORTO: guilty Loison?

After the grip of the city of Opporto ( port) and Braga the municipality of this last one sent an address to the Marshal Soult to subject to His Majesty Emperor Napoleon to obtain from him, a Prince of its blood or a Prince in its choice. The other cities made(did) the same wishes. One believed to be in allied country!.

Soult believed that he could pull(fire) a big party of these propositions and gave the order to undertake the biggest number of municipalities to subscribe to it. This way of behaving would have for him of grave consequences and gave place to hostile interpretations in its respect. The status as regards military service turning thanks to the English, made Loison the error to abandon Amarante and the bridge which it(he) occupied cutting so the possibility of a pension of the French army. This resolution was inexplicable and this movement could so be the fact of a treason. The position of the army became there delicate. In the night from 8 till 9 May 1809, the general Lefebvre had revealed to the Marshal Soult, whom one of its former(ancient) help - de-camps Adjudant-Major Argenton had come to make(do) him(her) propositions to enter a plot. At once stopped(arrested), it(he) passed in confessions and denounced(cancelled) a big number of generals and colonels. For its(his) defence, in front of the council of war, it(he) denounced(cancelled) the Marshal Soult of resources of the sights on the crown of Portugal.

At the end of the same year Argenton returned in France under a disguise, what seems to indicate that it continued to be the instrument of a political intrigue. It(he) was recognized, stopped(arrested), judged in Paris and shot. In front of the council of war it(he) changed its(his) system of defence. His(her) lawyer, Me Falconet, having heard about projects which one attributed(awarded) about the crown of Portugal, tried to explain the treason of his customer, by the dissatisfaction caused by his ambition. Loison's resolution to leave Amarante's bridge was inexplicable because the general boss of the bridge could meet no serious obstacle. If Silveira had wanted to oppose to his(her) walking, the French divisions by meeting would have him(it), easily crushed. This movement could so only be the fact of a treason and this treason was proved by the arrest of Adjudant-Major of 18-th dragons, named Argenton, who had been sent to the Duke of Wellington by his Colonel Lafitte and by the Colonel Donadieu. Cet Adjudant-Major was seized bearer of letters from general English to these two superior officers.

The Marshal Soult judged, from then on, that a plot, the general Loison of which was the leader, had been organized to deliver him(it) he and its armed force to the enemy. The general Loison would have saved himself he with his troops and his members and, it(he) would have appeared at the Emperor as having kept(preserved) the fragments of the army compromised by the faults or by the ambition of the Marshal Soult. We would have stayed prisoners and the estrangement of the place of the scene would have, maybe not allowed the Emperor to penetrate into this mystery of injustice.

... As for the general Count Loison it(he) had made famous by its(his) bravery but also by its(his) robberies, its(his) paillardise and its(his) indiscipline. The head was then priced in all Brown Portugal and the generals of Villeret and TholozÈ accuse it formally of treason. It is he who had delivered without fight to the Portugueses Amarante's bridge what forced Soult, to save the armed force, to sacrifice the artillery which stayed in him(her) and all the cars and to abandon roads for the mountain. As Quesnel, Loison was so interested to accuse Soult to defend(forbid) itself.

The general Brown of Villeret went(surrendered) with the Emperor to mission in Austria, Schoenbršnn. He was able to to expose(explain) him(her) the position of the Marshal. In the term of a long interview(maintenance) with Brown, the Emperor he put back(handed) a confidential letter to be put back(handed) to the Marshal. It(he) ended by saying:

Brown wrote;

 

COMPOSITION OF THE DIVISION UNDER GENERAL LOISON.