"
"Couldn't you find a substitute?" demanded Bonaparte.
"I could not," said Fouche. "There aren't many persons in Paris who
care for that kind of employment. They'd rather shovel snow."
"You are a gay stage-manager, you are!" snapped Bonaparte. "My
brother Joseph is in town, and yet you say you couldn't find a man to
be hit by a bomb. Leave me, Fouche. You give me the ennuis."
Fouche departed with Talleyrand, to whom he expressed his indignation
at the First Consul's reprimand.
"He insists upon an attempted assassination every week," he said;
"and I tell you, Talleyrand, it isn't easy to get these things up.
The market is long on real assassins, fellows who'd kill him for the
mere fun of hearing his last words, but when it comes to playing to
the galleries with a mock attempt with real consequences to the
would-be murderers, they fight shy of it."
Nevertheless, Fouche learned from the interview with Bonaparte that
the First Consul was not to be trifled with, and hardly a day passed
without some exciting episode in this line, in which, of course,
Napoleon always came out unscathed and much endeared to the populace.
This, however, could not go on forever.
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