to the west as commissioners invested with almost dictatorial powers for the crushing of the revolt of “the whites.” The vigour with which he carried out these duties earned him other work, and he soon held the post of commissioner of the republic in the department of the Nièvre. Together with Chaumette, he helped to initiate the atheistical movement, the founders of which in the autumn of 1793 began to aim at the extinction of Christianity in France. In the department of the Nièvre he ransacked the churches, sent their spoils to the treasury and established the cult of the goddess of Reason. Over the cemeteries, he ordered these words to be inscribed: “Death is an eternal sleep.” He also waged war against luxury and wealth, and desired to abolish the use of money. The new cult was inaugurated at Paris at Notre Dame by the strange orgy known as “The Festival of Reason” (November 10, 1793).
Fouché then proceeded to Lyons to execute the vengeance of the Convention on that city, which had revolted against the new Jacobin tyranny. Preluding his work by a festival remarkable for its obscene parody of religious rites, he then, along with his colleague, Collot d’Herbois, set the guillotine and cannon to work with a rigour which made his name odious. Modern research, however, proves that at the close of those horrors Fouché exercised a moderating influence. Outwardly his conduct was marked by the utmost rigour, and on his return to Paris early in April 1794, he thus characterised his policy: “The blood of criminals fertilises the soil of liberty and establishes power on sure foundations.” By that time Robespierre had struck down the other leaders of the atheistical party; but early in June 1794, at the time of the “Festival of the Supreme Being,” Fouché ventured to mock at the theistic revival which Robespierre then inaugurated. Sharp passages of arms took place between them, and Robespierre procured the ejection of Fouché from the Jacobin Club (July 14, 1794). Fouché, however, was working with his customary skill and energy, and along with Tallien and others, managed to effect the overthrow of the theistic dictator on Thermidor 10 (July 28), 1794. The ensuing reaction in favour of more merciful methods of government threatened to sweep away the group of Terrorists who had been mainly instrumental in carrying through the coup d’état of Thermidor; but, thanks largely to the skill of Fouché in intrigue, they managed for a time to keep at the head of affairs. Discords, however, crept in which left him for a time almost isolated, and it needed all his ability to withstand the attacks of the moderates. A vigorous attack on him by Boissy d’Anglas, on the 9th of August 1795, caused him to be arrested, but the troubles which ensued in Vendémiaire averted the doom that seemed to be pending; and he owed his release to the amnesty which was passed on the proclamation of the new constitution of the year 1795.
In the ensuing period, known as that of the Directory (1795–1799), Fouché remained at first in obscurity, but the relations which he had with the communists, once headed by Chaumette and now by François N. (“Gracchus”) Babeuf (q.v.), helped him to rise once more. He is said to have betrayed to the director Barras the secret of the strange plot which Babeuf and a few accomplices hatched in the year 1796; but recent research has tended to throw doubt on the assertion. His rise from poverty was slow, but in 1797 he gained an appointment for the supply of military matériel, which offered opportunities direct and indirect. After offering his services to the royalists, whose movement was then gathering force, he again decided to support the Jacobins and the director Barras (q.v.). In the coup d’état of Fructidor 1797 he made himself serviceable to Barras, who in 1798 appointed him to be French ambassador to the Cisalpine republic. At Milan he carried matters with so high a hand against the Gallophobes of that government that his actions were disavowed and he himself was removed; but in the confused state in which matters then were, he was able for a time to hold his own and to intrigue successfully against his successor. Early in 1799 he returned to Paris, and after a brief tenure of office as ambassador at The Hague, he became minister of police at Paris (July 20, 1799). The newly elected director, Sieyès (q.v.), was then in the ascendant and desired to curb the excesses of the Jacobins, who had recently reopened their club. Fouché, casting consistency to the winds, closed the Jacobins club in a manner at once daring and clever. Thereupon he hunted down the pamphleteers and editors, whether Jacobins or royalists, who were obnoxious to the government, so that at the time of the return of Bonaparte from Egypt (October 1799) the ex-Jacobin was one of the most powerful men in France.
Knowing well the unpopularity of the directors, Fouché lent himself to the schemes of Bonaparte and Sieyès for their overthrow. His activity in furthering the coup d’état of Brumaire 18–19 (November 9–10), 1799, procured him the favour of Bonaparte, who kept him in office (v. Napoleon I.). In the ensuing period of the Consulate (1799–1804) Fouché behaved with the utmost adroitness. While curbing the royalists and extreme Jacobins who at first alone opposed Bonaparte, Fouché was careful to temper as far as possible the arbitrary actions of the new master of France. In this difficult task he acquitted himself with so much skill as to earn at times the gratitude even of the royalists. Thus, while countermining a foolish intrigue of theirs in which the duchesse de Guiche was the chief agent, Fouché took care that she should escape. Equally skilful was his action in the affair of the so-called Aréna-Ceracchi plot, in which the agents provocateurs of the police were believed to have played a sinister part. The chief “conspirators” were easily ensnared and were executed when the affair of Nivôse (December 1800) enabled Bonaparte to act with rigour. This far more serious attempt (in which royalist conspirators exploded a bomb near the First Consul’s carriage with results disastrous to the bystanders) was soon seen by Fouché to be the work of royalists; and when the First Consul, eager to entrap the still formidable Jacobins, sought to fasten the blame on them, Fouché firmly declared that he would not only assert but would prove that the outrage was the work of royalists. All his efforts, however, failed to avert the punishment which Bonaparte was resolved to inflict on the leading Jacobins. In other matters (especially in that known as the Plot of the Placards in the spring of 1802) Fouché was thought to have secured the Jacobins concerned from the vengeance of the First Consul. In any case the latter resolved to rid himself of a man who had too much power and too much skill in intrigue to be desirable as a subordinate. On the proclamation of Bonaparte as First Consul for life (August 1, 1802) Fouché was deprived of his office; but the blow was softened by the suppression of the ministry of police and by the attribution of most of its duties to an extended ministry of justice. Fouché also became a senator and received half of the reserve funds of the police which had accumulated during his tenure of office. He continued, however, to intrigue through his spies, whose information was so superior to that of the new minister of police as to render great services to Napoleon at the time of the Cadoudal-Pichegru conspiracy (February–March 1804).
As a result Napoleon, now emperor, brought back Fouché to the re-constituted ministry of police (July 1804); he also later on entrusted to him that of the interior. His work was no less important than at the time of the Consulate. His police agents were ubiquitous, and the terror which Napoleon and Fouché inspired, owing to their proven ability to benefit by plots, partly accounts for the absence of conspiracies after 1804. After Austerlitz (December 1805) Fouché uttered the mot of the occasion: “Sire, Austerlitz has shattered the old aristocracy; the boulevard St Germain no longer conspires.”
That Napoleon retained some feeling of distrust, or even of fear, of Fouché was proved by his conduct in the early days of 1808. While engaged in the campaign of Spain, the emperor heard rumours that Fouché and Talleyrand, once bitter enemies, were having interviews at Paris in which Murat, king of Naples, was concerned. At once the sensitive autocrat hurried to Paris, but found nothing to incriminate Fouché. In that year Fouché received the title of duke of Otranto. During the absence of Napoleon in Austria in the campaign of 1809, the British Walcheren expedition threatened for a time the safety of
