‘I don’t want comforting words,’ Napoleon replied quietly. ‘I want you to find the men behind this. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care how many people get hurt to produce information about the bastards who tried to kill me. Find them, Fouché. Find them and bring them to justice.They will pay for this with their heads.’

The Minister of the Interior’s network of agents and informers scoured the streets, cafés and salons of the capital and within weeks they had uncovered the identities of the two men who had improvised the explosive device. They were quickly arrested and taken before Fouché and his interrogators, who knew every refinement of the art of extracting information. Fouché reported to Napoleon that the men were working for Cadoudal, and had no connection with the Jacobins. Nevertheless, that fact would be suppressed in order to justify the arrest and exile of hundreds of political opponents that had taken place in the weeks immediately after the explosion.The two men had broken down under the relentless pressure of Fouché’s interrogators and had implicated a number of leading royalists in the plot, including many émigrés. Once they had given up all they knew, the men were summarily tried, sentenced to death and shot before dawn in the courtyard of Fouché’s ministry.

It came as no surprise to Napoleon to learn that the attack had been planned in England, and paid for with English gold. His heart hardened towards the most resolute and ruthless enemy of the revolution.That the English government had resorted to such underhand terrorist methods was a clear sign to Napoleon of the lengths they were prepared to go to defeat France.

There was little time to nurse his grievance, however. Once again the Austrians were using delaying tactics at the Lunéville negotiations and, when the peace preliminaries had still not been signed by the end of January, Napoleon sent a curt warning that unless they were signed at once the French armies would resume their march on Vienna. The Austrians hurriedly recanted, agreed to French terms and signed the Treaty of Lunéville early in February. A month later a treaty was signed with the King of Naples which closed the ports of his kingdom to English ships. William Pitt’s coalition had failed and in March he was forced from office. England had at last run out of allies. Napoleon drew cold comfort from the fall of his adversary. France dominated Europe and could afford to wait until the English were humbled enough to beg for peace. Meanwhile, he continued to work every hour that he could to change France for ever, so that there could never be a return to the gross inequalities of the years before the revolution.