His courageous pride did not fail him either in the interrogations he had to submit to, or before the court of justice.  His replies to the President are superb in disdain and abnegation.  He assumed all responsibility for the plot, and denied knowledge of any of his friends.  He carried his generosity so far as to behave with courteous dignity even to those who had betrayed him; he even tried to excuse the indifference of the princes whose selfish inertia had been his ruin.  He remained great until he reached the scaffold; eleven faithful Chouans died with him, among the number being Louis Picot, Joyaut and Burban, whose names have appeared in this story.

Thus ended the conspiracy.  Bonaparte came out of it emperor.  Fouche, minister of police, and his assistants were not going to be useless, for if in the eyes of the public, Georges’ death seemed the climax, it was in reality but one incident in a desperate struggle.  The depths sounded by the investigation had revealed the existence of an incurable evil.  The whole west of France was cankered with Chouannerie.  From Rouen to Nantes, from Cherbourg to Poitiers, thousands of peasants, bourgeois and country gentlemen remained faithful to the old order, and if they were not all willing to take up arms in its cause, they could at least do much to upset the equilibrium of the new government.  And could not another try to do what Georges Cadoudal had attempted?  If some one with more influence over the princes than he possessed should persuade one of them to cross the Channel, what would the glory of the parvenu count for, balanced against the ancient prestige of the name of Bourbon, magnified and as it were sanctified by the tragedies of the Revolution?  This fear haunted Bonaparte; the knowledge that in France these Bourbons, exiled, without soldiers or money, were still more the masters then he, exasperated him.  He felt that he was in their home, and their nonchalance, contrasted with his incessant agitation, indicated both insolence and disdain.

The police, as a matter of fact, had unearthed only a few of the conspirators.  Many who, like Raoul Gaillard, had played an important part in the plot, had succeeded in escaping all pursuit; they were evidently the cleverest, therefore the most dangerous, and among them might be found a man ambitious of succeeding Cadoudal.  The capture to which Fouche and Real attached the most importance was that of d’Ache, whose presence at Biville and Saint-Leu had been proved.  For three months, in Paris even, wherever the police had worked, they had struck the trail of this same d’Ache, who appeared to have presided over the whole organisation of the plot.  Thus, he had been seen at Verdet’s in the Rue du Puits-de-l’Hermite, while Georges was there; he had met Raoul Gaillard several times; in making an inventory of the papers of a young lady called Margeot, with whom Pichegru had dined, two rather enigmatical notes had been found, in which d’Ache’s name appeared.