expectant audience, which had already heard the news. They then quietly withdrew. The effect on the public was electrical, and the measures subsequently taken by the government were heartily applauded. From this circumstance Bonaparte reaped a rich harvest, his perfidy being comparable to that of the plotters themselves. The shameful deed was first charged on the radicals, and by decree of the senate a hundred and thirty of them were deported to the slow torture of places like the Seychelles, tropical islands in the Indian Ocean. Fouché, suspected of lingering Jacobinism, was on a trifling pretext temporarily deprived of his portfolio, and was not ostensibly restored to favor until 1804. Appointed senator, however, and enjoying high consideration, his treatment did not please the brothers of the First Consul. Their irritation was further increased by their knowledge of confidential relations between Napoleon and the senator. During the latter's retirement from his ministry he seems to have been quite as influential secretly as he was openly and manifestly when he resumed office. In the interim Ceracchi, Arena, and their fiery-tongued companions were falsely condemned and executed. It was soon known that the true culprits were the Vendeans, but Bonaparte declared that the banished radicals would not be allowed to return because their absence was a guarantee of the public safety. Only two of the real criminals were eventually captured and executed. But the most disgraceful consequences of this conspiracy, known in French history as the Plot of Nivôse, were the fall of Moreau and the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, the remoter causes of which lie as far back as the First Consul's determination, formed at this time, that he would diminish the chance of such murderous attacks by striking terror to the hearts of all his enemies.