And you all know how he then alarmed him.
"Fouche, Massena and the Prince," continued de Marsay, reflectively, "are the three greatest men, the wisest heads in diplomacy, war, and government, that I have ever known.

If Napoleon had frankly allied them with his work there would no longer be a Europe, only a vast French Empire.

Fouche did not finally detach himself from Napoleon until he saw Sieyes and the Prince de Talleyrand shoved aside.
"He now went to work, and in three days (all the while hiding the hand that stirred the ashes of the Montagne) he had organized that general agitation which then arose all over France and revived the republicanism of 1793.

As it is necessary that I should explain this obscure corner of our history, I must tell you that this agitation, starting from Fouche's own hand (which held the wires of the former Montagne), produced republican plots against the life of the First Consul, which was in peril from this cause long after the victory of Marengo.

It was Fouche's sense of the evil he had thus brought about which led him to warn Napoleon, who held a contrary opinion, that republicans were more concerned than royalists in the various conspiracies.
"Fouche was an admirable judge of men; he relied on Sieyes because of his thwarted ambition, on Talleyrand because he was a great _seigneur_, on Carnot for his perfect honesty; but the man he dreaded was the one whom you have seen here this evening.