On this night Bonaparte sent in haste for Real.  In his usual manner, by brief questions he soon learned the number of royalists confined in the tower of the Temple or at Bicetre, their names, and on what suspicions they had been arrested.  Quickly satisfied on all these points he ordered that before daylight four of the most deeply implicated of the prisoners should be taken before a military commission; if they revealed nothing they were to be shot in twenty-four hours.  Aroused at five o’clock in the morning, Desmarets was told to prepare the list, and the first two names indicated were those of Picot and Lebourgeois.  Picot was one of Frotte’s old officers, and during the wars of the Chouannerie had been commander-in-chief of the Auge division.  He had earned the surname of “Egorge-Bleus” and was a Chevalier of St. Louis.  Lebourgeois, keeper of a coffee-house at Rouen, had been accused about the year 1800 of taking part in an attack on a stage-coach, was acquitted, and like his friend Picot, had emigrated to England.  Both of these men had been denounced by a professional instigator as having “been heard to say” that they had come to attempt the life of the First Consul.  They had been arrested at Pont-Audemer as soon as they returned to France, and had now been imprisoned in the Temple for nearly a year.

To these two victims Desmarets added another Chouan, Pioge, nicknamed “Without Pity” or “Strike-to-Death,” and Desol de Grisolles, an old companion of Georges and “a very dangerous royalist.”  And then, to show his zeal, he added a fifth name to the list, that of Querelle, ex-surgeon of marine, arrested four months previously, under slight suspicion, but described in the report as a poor-spirited creature of whom “something might be expected.”

“This one,” said Bonaparte on reading the name of Querelle, and the accompanying note, “is more of an intriguer than a fanatic; he will speak.”

The same day the five, accused of enticing away soldiers and corresponding with the enemies of the Republic, were led before a military commission over which General Duplessis presided; Desol and Pioge were acquitted, returned to the hands of the government and immediately reincarcerated.  Picot, Lebourgeois and Querelle, condemned to death, were transferred to the Abbaye there to await their execution on the following day.

“There must be no delay, you understand,” said Bonaparte, “I will not have it.”

But nevertheless it was necessary to give a little time for the courage of the prisoners to fail, and for the police to aid in bringing this about.