"I am a Secret Agent!" (1)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
About this next post — historians don't seem to agree on whether the "Col. Browne" connected with the OTL Milan Commission was James Browne or Thomas Henry Browne. My own research makes me think it was the latter.
Oh, and I did consider naming the ship Otarie, but I went with… well, you'll see.
In 1817, shortly after the disaster at Middelbeers, Sir Thomas Henry Browne arrived in Paris as secretary to the ambassador Sir Charles Stuart (not to be confused with Viscount Castlereagh’s younger half-brother Sir Charles Stewart, Marquess of Londonderry, whose secretary Browne had been at Vienna). Sir Charles Stuart was in Paris to begin negotiating a truce between Britain and France, which would hold until the Congress of Stockholm began next year. Browne, it soon became clear, was here on a different mission.
Given the details of Browne’s life prior to his arrival in Paris, it is difficult to believe that he could have been the blundering incompetent he would later be depicted as. Born in 1787, he had been a soldier for most of his adult life, and had served against Denmark as a colour-bearer in the Gunboat War, and against the French in the West Indies and the Peninsula, earning steady promotions until he reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. At Vittoria he had been captured, but he later escaped. in 1814 he was created Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order, and in 1815 he was made aide-de-camp to Lord Stewart, thus entering him in the world of international diplomacy.
Many, however, considered him ill-suited to the role of a secret agent. “He is said to be a person of no ability, of great imprudence and indiscretion, and likely to get into scrapes,” wrote one diarist. (It should be noted that Stewart himself had a similar reputation.) His mission was not helped by the fact that the Moniteur’s editorial page was regularly enjoining its readers, especially those in position to know important secrets, to beware of British spies — and giving them advice on how those spies might be recognized. Browne, with his constant attempts to befriend the servants in the Bonaparte household, could hardly have been more obvious. Minister of Foreign Affairs Armand de Caulaincourt mused to Talleyrand (now serving the ministry in an advisory role) that this Englishman might have been sent as a distraction, “to draw our attention away from more professional espionage attempts.”
Browne’s actions might have placed him in physical danger, if Fouché and Carnot had not given strict orders to the gendarmerie and the fédérés that no member of the British embassy was to be arrested, harmed or interfered with in any way — not even “M. Browne, l’espion anglais.” Carnot made sure to give these orders to each troop of fédérés in the capital, and to give the message to Jacobin Party leaders as well. This was necessary, as the fédérés were (as one observer put it) “half sheepdog and half wolf” and required a good deal of supervision.
So great did Browne’s notoriety in Paris become that at one point in the spring of 1818 a group of students from the Sorbonne (one of them a young Honoré de Balzac) decided to play a practical joke on him. They disguised themselves as sailors, arranged a “chance” meeting with him, claimed to serve aboard the French first-rate warship Lion de la Mer and invited him for a drink. Over their wine, they gossiped loudly about the imminent French invasion of the British Isles, relating fanciful details probably invented by Balzac himself.
Skeptical but nonetheless concerned, Browne wrote to Edward Pellew, recently created Viscount Exmouth and appointed Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, inquiring as to whether there might be any truth to this. The great naval officer assured him in reply that the Royal Navy continued to hold absolute control of the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay: that the French had nothing like the naval capacity required to effect an invasion at the present time; that if such an invasion were to be attempted, it would require immense movement of manpower and resources that could not be possibly hidden from British espionage; that no such preparations had been observed; that there was no record of any first-rate named the “Lion de la Mer”; and that someone was probably having a jape at his expense.
At this point, some spies would have considered this assignment to be hopelessly compromised. But to Browne, the suspicion he was under represented a sort of success — if everyone thought he was spying on behalf of the Foreign Office, then no one knew his true mission…
…Their true identities are lost to history. We know them only by the names with which Prince Lucien, the radical of the Regency, introduced them to Caroline of Brunswick — “Gaetan Jeannot” and “Aloïse St.-Leger.” Jeannot is described as being a “smallish, dark-haired man with a thin mustache, as undistinguished from his fellows as a cobblestone in the street” and St. Leger as “a stout, handsome woman with graying hair.”
They entered into Caroline’s service shortly after Lucien moved her household into the Chateau d’Issy, and quickly won her trust and favour. St. Leger was her constant companion for days at a time, accompanying her on her many visits to the orphanages of France. However, she was able to be excused from time to time by claiming to have a natural-born daughter whose family required occasional assistance. Jeannot, who seemed to have the connections in Paris to purchase foodstuffs and luxury goods at bargain prices, served as a factor. He met the princess only occasionally, but came and went as he pleased, virtually invisible.
In short, these two were well-positioned to gather information within Caroline’s household while escaping the watchful eye of Pergami. Late that year, they made their first surreptitious contact with Browne, who was delighted to find that they were only too happy to sell the secrets of their mistress for a price…
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme
Oh, and I did consider naming the ship Otarie, but I went with… well, you'll see.
In 1817, shortly after the disaster at Middelbeers, Sir Thomas Henry Browne arrived in Paris as secretary to the ambassador Sir Charles Stuart (not to be confused with Viscount Castlereagh’s younger half-brother Sir Charles Stewart, Marquess of Londonderry, whose secretary Browne had been at Vienna). Sir Charles Stuart was in Paris to begin negotiating a truce between Britain and France, which would hold until the Congress of Stockholm began next year. Browne, it soon became clear, was here on a different mission.
Given the details of Browne’s life prior to his arrival in Paris, it is difficult to believe that he could have been the blundering incompetent he would later be depicted as. Born in 1787, he had been a soldier for most of his adult life, and had served against Denmark as a colour-bearer in the Gunboat War, and against the French in the West Indies and the Peninsula, earning steady promotions until he reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. At Vittoria he had been captured, but he later escaped. in 1814 he was created Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order, and in 1815 he was made aide-de-camp to Lord Stewart, thus entering him in the world of international diplomacy.
Many, however, considered him ill-suited to the role of a secret agent. “He is said to be a person of no ability, of great imprudence and indiscretion, and likely to get into scrapes,” wrote one diarist. (It should be noted that Stewart himself had a similar reputation.) His mission was not helped by the fact that the Moniteur’s editorial page was regularly enjoining its readers, especially those in position to know important secrets, to beware of British spies — and giving them advice on how those spies might be recognized. Browne, with his constant attempts to befriend the servants in the Bonaparte household, could hardly have been more obvious. Minister of Foreign Affairs Armand de Caulaincourt mused to Talleyrand (now serving the ministry in an advisory role) that this Englishman might have been sent as a distraction, “to draw our attention away from more professional espionage attempts.”
Browne’s actions might have placed him in physical danger, if Fouché and Carnot had not given strict orders to the gendarmerie and the fédérés that no member of the British embassy was to be arrested, harmed or interfered with in any way — not even “M. Browne, l’espion anglais.” Carnot made sure to give these orders to each troop of fédérés in the capital, and to give the message to Jacobin Party leaders as well. This was necessary, as the fédérés were (as one observer put it) “half sheepdog and half wolf” and required a good deal of supervision.
So great did Browne’s notoriety in Paris become that at one point in the spring of 1818 a group of students from the Sorbonne (one of them a young Honoré de Balzac) decided to play a practical joke on him. They disguised themselves as sailors, arranged a “chance” meeting with him, claimed to serve aboard the French first-rate warship Lion de la Mer and invited him for a drink. Over their wine, they gossiped loudly about the imminent French invasion of the British Isles, relating fanciful details probably invented by Balzac himself.
Skeptical but nonetheless concerned, Browne wrote to Edward Pellew, recently created Viscount Exmouth and appointed Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, inquiring as to whether there might be any truth to this. The great naval officer assured him in reply that the Royal Navy continued to hold absolute control of the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay: that the French had nothing like the naval capacity required to effect an invasion at the present time; that if such an invasion were to be attempted, it would require immense movement of manpower and resources that could not be possibly hidden from British espionage; that no such preparations had been observed; that there was no record of any first-rate named the “Lion de la Mer”; and that someone was probably having a jape at his expense.
At this point, some spies would have considered this assignment to be hopelessly compromised. But to Browne, the suspicion he was under represented a sort of success — if everyone thought he was spying on behalf of the Foreign Office, then no one knew his true mission…
…Their true identities are lost to history. We know them only by the names with which Prince Lucien, the radical of the Regency, introduced them to Caroline of Brunswick — “Gaetan Jeannot” and “Aloïse St.-Leger.” Jeannot is described as being a “smallish, dark-haired man with a thin mustache, as undistinguished from his fellows as a cobblestone in the street” and St. Leger as “a stout, handsome woman with graying hair.”
They entered into Caroline’s service shortly after Lucien moved her household into the Chateau d’Issy, and quickly won her trust and favour. St. Leger was her constant companion for days at a time, accompanying her on her many visits to the orphanages of France. However, she was able to be excused from time to time by claiming to have a natural-born daughter whose family required occasional assistance. Jeannot, who seemed to have the connections in Paris to purchase foodstuffs and luxury goods at bargain prices, served as a factor. He met the princess only occasionally, but came and went as he pleased, virtually invisible.
In short, these two were well-positioned to gather information within Caroline’s household while escaping the watchful eye of Pergami. Late that year, they made their first surreptitious contact with Browne, who was delighted to find that they were only too happy to sell the secrets of their mistress for a price…
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme
Last edited:
