General Malet's conspiracy

Claude-François de Malet was a republican general, sidelined and watched, confined in a Paris nursing home. During the night of 22 to 23 October 1812 he walked out with a uniform, a few accomplices and a file of forgeries: a supposed senatus-consultum announcing the Emperor's death before Moscow and the establishment of a provisional government.

Before dawn he presented himself at a barracks of the Paris guard, read his paper to officers roused from sleep, and was obeyed. No one asked for verification.

With the troops thus won over, Malet had generals Lahorie and Guidal released from La Force. Lahorie went to the ministry of Police and arrested Savary, the minister, then the prefect of police. Malet presented himself at the garrison staff, wounded commandant Hulin with a pistol shot, and finally failed before an officer who demanded his written orders.

It was all over before noon. Brought before a court martial, Malet, Lahorie, Guidal and several of their accomplices were condemned to death and shot on the plain of Grenelle a few days later.

What mattered was not the plot, which was derisory, but the reaction. For a few hours ministers, senior officers and officials had believed the Empire finished — and not one of them thought of proclaiming the king of Rome, the constitutional heir, aged eighteen months. The regime existed only through one man.

The news reached Napoleon in the middle of the retreat and weighed in his decision to leave the army and return to Paris. In February 1813 a senatus-consultum would at last organise Marie-Louise's regency. It was two years too late: in 1814 the dynastic reflex would prove no stronger.