Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac had been a figure among the Plain during the French Revolution. Later, he grew close to the Montagnards, led by the Jacobins. After becoming the leader of the Plain, he turned it into radical Montagnards, and with his support, the Committee of Public Safety and the Sans-culottes army were established.
Though he was a journalist, he was not the sort who wrote gossip about female stars. In short, he went into hiding during the Thermidorian Reaction and avoided meeting the same fate as Saint-Just or Marat.
In the spring of 1794, he became an opponent of Robespierre, just like Napoleon. After Napoleon's coup, he reappeared and reported on public opinion in Paris to Napoleon.
This time, he wrote a pamphlet titled "Letter to the Army," which circulated widely in the Palais-Royal, though Matilda did not know whether it had reached the army.
The last time, soldiers of the Army of the Rhine had believed rumors that Napoleon would send his opponents to Saint-Domingue to die, which was why they had launched the assassination attempt.
They should have realized it long ago, when the Swiss mercenaries mutinied in Marseille after hearing, as they were about to board ship, that they were being sent to Saint-Domingue.
Discipline in the Army of the Rhine was actually very lax. Part of the reason was that its officers had been pulled away to join the Saint-Domingue expedition, and many of those officers had been Moreau's men.
In any case, most civil officials knew nothing about what was happening in the army. Matilda had only overheard bits of it from their conversations.
Lucien's appointment as "Regent" of Spain was also connected to the pamphlet. For some reason, it had spread widely. Lucien confronted Fouché, the chief of police, and was later sent