Georges Cadoudal was the last of the active conspirators to be captured, questioned, and sent to Temple Prison to await judgment. Jean-Victor Moreau preceded him there by only a few hours. Although technically not a conspirator, the former General of the Republic was damned by his associations.
He had remained at large less than a day after his meeting with Cadoudal and Pichegru. Bouvet de Lozier, the Royalist being detained in the Abbaye Prison, had provided the information under the mildest of tortures.
Jean-Charles Pichegru, former General of the Army of Restoration, lasted nearly a week. Then he was dragged from his bed in the house of a Royalist sympathizer named LeBlanc. He was still in his nightshirt when a city policeman threw him down the steps of the Temple, the oldest operating prison in Paris.
Chief Inspector Limodin, who had stopped Cadoudal’s flight with a pistol across his face, conducted his prisoner to the Quai Desaix, where Nicolas Dubois took charge of the interrogation. The Royalist sat on a hard chair with his shackled hands dangling between his knees, blood dripping from his smashed nose and down his chin to form a puddle on the floor.
The Prefect’s demeanor was best described as protean.
With superiors like Bonaparte and Fouché, he was the humble servant of the people, decorous and self-effacing. Interviewing witnesses who were not under suspicion, he was a polite fumbler. When discussing police business with subordinates he was the quiet commander, patient but firm.
At home he was a meek husband, in awe of the mother of his children and a bit afraid of her. To his children he was kindness incarnate, warm and comforting, and generous with the First Consul’s peppermints.
Cadoudal would never meet any of those men.
“Piece of shit! Assassin! You crippled one of my officers and murdered another, a man with a wife and three children! The firing squad’s too good for you. I shall kill you myself!”
He snatched the leather hat off the shackled man’s head, threw it aside, and stuck the muzzle of his pistol under Cadoudal’s chin, tipping his head back while the bleeding reversed itself and spilled down his throat, choking him.
This was the Dubois no one saw outside his office where he preferred to conduct questioning. Of all those close to him, only Limodin knew it existed. The chief inspector sat in his customary chair, smoking his pipe and recording everything on folded sheets of foolscap.
He knew, too, although he never said it aloud, that this Dubois was the real Dubois. In this he was truly alone: The Prefect himself only suspected it.
Now, an arm’s length from the man in custody, Dubois thumbed back the pistol’s hammer and pulled the trigger.
The pin snapped on the empty chamber. Cadoudal lurched, wetting himself.
“The weapon of the man you killed, Monsieur Merde. The one you used to maim another.”
“I acted in my own defense. How was I to know they were policemen?”
“You’re the most wanted man in France. What did you expect, an honor guard?”
“You’ve made a mistake. My name is Giles Couturier.”
Dubois stuck the muzzle deeper into the tender flesh on the underside of Cadoudal’s chin, tilting his head back as far as it would go. “Stay with that story and I shall break your neck.”
He swallowed blood and snot, licked his cracked lips. He broke. “I am General Georges Cadoudal.”
“With what army?”
“The King’s.”
“No such person exists.”
He lifted his chin. “You’re wrong. We await the arrival of a Bourbon prince.”
“Which one? They breed like rats.”
Cadoudal said nothing. Both eyes were swollen nearly shut. He watched Dubois through half-moon slits.
“Did you plot to assassinate the First Consul and plop this prince on the throne?”
“No. Unlike Bonaparte, we’re not murderers.”
“Who is we?”
Nothing.
“Your friends were more helpful. Moreau and Pichegru said you met with them to plan the assassination.”
“There’s no such plan. The object has always been to seize the upstart and hold him hostage until the government surrenders and agrees to the Restoration. Once that succeeded, Bonaparte would be released—and exiled, of course.”
“You nearly exiled him to pieces on Christmas Eve.”
“I had no part in that.”
“Your agents François Carbon and Pierre Saint-Réjant named you as the engine behind Four Nivose. The infernal machine that destroyed buildings and tore thirty-five people to ribbons wasn’t designed merely to detain the First Consul.”
“I never granted those fools permission to kill.”
“You admit you knew them.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your friend Pichegru—”
“I don’t know any of these fellows you’re talking about.”
Dubois changed hands on the pistol and swept the muzzle across the prisoner’s right temple. Even Limodin flinched.
The chief inspector wondered about the Prefect’s motives. A forced confession was hardly necessary. There would be no trial in the usual sense of the term, and therefore no defense, only prosecution followed by muskets. He wondered if Dubois weren’t trying to satisfy himself of the man’s guilt before turning him over to Fouché and his methods.
Dubois’ tone softened.
“Come, come, General. We know all your friends. They gave you up like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Your actions today left a young widow and three orphans.”
“Next time send bachelors.”
Cadoudal braced himself, Limodin, too; but no more blows came. The Prefect stood patting his empty palm with the pistol.
“Where is your assassin?”
“What assassin?”
But the prisoner had hesitated an instant before responding.
“The man responsible for two murders that we know of just outside Paris, and two assaults. The man who crossed the Channel from England on the third day of Germinal, and who’s been working his way toward Paris ever since.”
“He must be traveling by turtle, whoever he is.”
“He was delayed by a mishap. Also there’s a war on. The country’s aswarm with soldiers. He’s a cautious man, this Meuchel. Does the name resonate?”
Another brief pause.
“I don’t know any Germans.”
Dubois had scored; Limodin could see it on his face. That line of questioning had intrigued the chief inspector. He’d been told of the events in Pontoise, but in none of their discussions had either of them expressed certainty that the violent stranger was part of the Royalist plot; Cadoudal’s hesitation had confirmed it.
The Prefect was either a brilliant detective or un fortuné fils du chienne: one lucky son of a bitch.
Dubois turned to Limodin. “Drop this man in the dungeon like the festering turd he is. I’m off to report to the Minister of Police.”
“Should I send for a doctor?”
“When our friend with the explosive pistols is more than just a name.”
Georges Cadoudal ceased to exist within twenty-four hours of his capture. His riddled body was buried in the Temple Prison cemetery without a stone to identify it. Under strenuous questioning by Ministry experts, he’d mumbled “Le Vipère” through broken teeth. Immediately it replaced Meuchel as the name of Fouché’s quarry, and the Royalist general was consigned to the firing squad.
Because of his former service to the Republic, and because under torture he kept to his claim that he’d rejected the overtures of Cadoudal and Pichegru, General Moreau was spared. He was returned to exile in French Guiana.
General Pichegru was discovered dead in his cell and declared a suicide: Self-strangulation was the official cause.
There remained only the Viper.