Note 239 — Chapter LXIV

"A secret society in the army, whose immediate object it was to overthrow the Imperial power, and whose ultimate purposes were not perhaps known to themselves. Their founder was Colonel Jacques Joseph Odet, a Swiss, at once a debauchee and an enthusiast, on the plan of his countryman Rousseau. He was shot the night before the battle of Wagram, not, as his followers alleged, by a party of Austrians, but by gendarmes, commissioned for that purpose. His sect continued to subsist, and Massena did not escape suspicions of being implicated in its intrigues. There was a communication in their name to Lord Wellington, in May 1809; but the negotiation was not of a character which the British general chose to encourage."—Southey's Peninsular War, vol. ii., p. 303.—S.