The most venturesome of these enterprisers, Beaufond, managed to enter into relations with the general staff of Colonel Henry Prodhomme, with the Ecole Militaire, commanded by Vinot, and with the War Office, where the chief of the artillery, Guyet, contrived to embroil the service of the munitions. His agents, Lasnier and Laroque, worked upon a certain Muley, who, having circumvented the Central Committee, got himself named chief of the seventeenth legion, and to some extent disabled it. An officer of artillery, Captain Piguier, placed at their disposal by the Ministry, traced the plan of the barricades, and one of the band could write on the 8th May, "No torpedoes are laid; the army may enter to the flourish of trumpets." Now they had recourse to direct subornation; now acting the part of fervent Communards, they knew how to draw out information; while the imprudence of the functionaries singularly facilitated their task. Staff officers, chiefs of services, fond of assuming consequential airs, discussed the most delicate matters in the cafes of the boulevards, full of spies.[159] Cournet, who had succeeded Rigault at the prefecture of police, despite the gravity of his deportment, did not better the service of general safety. Lullier, twice arrested, each time escaping, openly spoke in the cafes of sweeping away the Commune. Troncin-Dumersan, known for twenty years as the police agent of the Ministry of the Interior, freely promenaded on the boulevards, passing his retainers in review. The contractors charged with the fortification of Montmartre every day found new pretexts to defer the opening of the works; the Brea Church remained intact; the undertaker of the demolition of the expiatory monument managed to put it off till the entry of the troops. Hazard alone discovered the _brassard_ (armlet) plot, and the fidelity of Dombrowski disclosed that of Vaysset.