Excerpt from History of the Consulate and the Empire of France Under Napoleon, Vol. 19: Forming a Sequel to the History of the French Revolution These replies were so natural, and so truthful, that they rendered any defence nearly useless. The debate was short, and almost without consultation, the conseil de guerre unanimously acquitted the General. We may easily imagine the joy, and above all, the manifestation of this joy, amongst the military men, numbers of whom had accompanied the General. He was brought back to his own house in triumph, and in a few days, the impression experienced at Lille spread throughout France amongst the numerous enemies of the government. The more enlightened friends Of the reigning dynasty regretted a pro ceeding by which so many serious'questions were all at: the same time so awkwardly asserted, and solved after so dangerous a fashion. The evident consequences of General Exelmans' trial were, that the army did not consider Murat as an enemy, and did not recognise the War Minister's right to fix the resi dence of half-pay officers; and it proved that all the military, whether as judges or accused, did not hesitate to put themselves in determined Opposition to the established authority. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.