eing a true repository for his thoughts. Talleyrand and Fouche were not
the only ones who gave him umbrage. The misfortune of usurpers is that
those who have given them a crown are as much their enemies as those
from whom they snatch it. Napoleon's sovereignty was never convincingly
felt by those who were once his superiors or his equals, nor by those
who still held to the doctrine of rights; none of them regarded their
oath of allegiance to him as binding.

Malin, an inferior man, incapable of comprehending Fouche's hidden
genius, or of distrusting his own perceptions, burned himself, like
a moth in a candle, by asking him confidentially to send agents to
Gondreville, where, he said, he hoped to obtain certain clues to the
conspiracy. Fouche, without alarming his friend by any questions,
asked himself why Malin was going to Gondreville, and why he did not
immediately and without loss of time, give the information he already
possessed. The ex-Oratorian, fed from his youth up on trickery, and well
aware of the double part played by a good many of the conventionals,
said to himself: "From whom is Malin likely to obtain information when
we ourselves know little or nothing?" Fouche concluded therefore that
there was some either latent or prospective collusion, and took care to
say nothing about it to the First Consul. He preferred to make Malin
his instrument rather than destroy him. It was Fouche's habit to keep to
himself a good part of the secrets he detected, and he thus obtained
for his own purposes a power over those concerned which was even greater
than that of Bonaparte. This duplicity was one of the Emperor's charges
against his minister.

Fouche knew of the swindling transaction by which Malin became possessed
of Gondreville and which led him to keep his eyes so anxiously on the
Simeuse brothers. These gentlemen were now serving in the army of Conde;
Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne was their cousin; possibly they were in
her neighborhood, and were sharers in the conspiracy; if so, it would
implicate the house of Conde to which they were devoted. Talleyrand
and Fouche were bent on casting light into this dark corner of the
conspiracy of 1803. All these considerations Fouche saw at a glance,
rapidly and with great clearness. But between Malin, Talleyrand,
and himself there were strong ties which forced him to the utmost
circumspection, and made him anxious to know the exact state of things
within the walls of Gondrevill