In the ensuing Directory government ( 1795 – 1799 ), Fouché remained at first in obscurity, but the relations he had with the far left, once headed by Chaumette and now by François-Noël Babeuf, helped him to rise once more.

While engaged in the campaign of Spain, the emperor heard rumours that Fouché and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, once bitter enemies, were having meetings in Paris during which Joachim Murat, King of Naples, had been approached.

At once he hurried to Paris, but found nothing to incriminate Fouché.

In October 1790, he was transferred by the Oratorians to their college at Nantes, in an attempt to control his advocacy of revolutionary principles-however, Fouché became even more of a democrat.

" Ironically enough, it was only a year previous that Fouché had been " an advocate of the role of the clergy in education ," yet he was now " abandoning the role of religion in society altogether in favour of ' the revolutionary and clearly philosophical spirit ' he had first wanted for education.

Lyon, on 23 November, was declared to be in a " state of revolutionary war " by Collot and Fouché.

He was only seventeen when he successfully defended a man denounced by Joseph Fouché before the revolutionary tribunal of Nevers.

" Fouché, claiming that " Terror, salutary terror, is now the order of the day here .... We are causing much impure blood to flow, but it is our duty to do so, it is for humanity's sake ," called for the execution of 1, 905 citizens.

His police agents were ubiquitous, and the terror which Napoleon and Fouché inspired partly accounts for the absence of conspiracies after 1804.

When it became evident, in mid-July 1794, that Robespierre and Saint-Just were planning to strike against their political opponents Joseph Fouché, Jean-Lambert Tallien, and Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier – the latter two were members of the Committee of General Security – the fragile truce within the government was dissolved.

The crisis which resulted from the declaration of war by the Convention against Great Britain and the Dutch Republic ( 1 February 1793, see French Revolutionary Wars ), and a little later against Spain, made Fouché famous as one of the Jacobin radicals holding power in Paris.

In 1814, Fouché had joined the invading allies and conspired against Napoleon.

After Napoléon's ultimate defeat ( Battle of Waterloo ), Fouché again started plotting against his master and joined the opposition of the parliament ( after the defeat of Waterloo ) and headed the provisional government and tried to negotiate with the allies.

Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d ' Otrante ( 21 May 1759 Le Pellerin, near Nantes, France – 25 December 1820 Trieste, then part of the Austrian Empire, now Italy ) was a French statesman and Minister of Police under Napoleon Bonaparte.

Fouché closed the Jacobin Club in a daring manner, hunting down those pamphleteers and editors, whether Jacobins or Royalists, who were influential critics of the government, so that at the time of the return of general Napoleon Bonaparte from the Egyptian campaign ( October 1799 ), the ex-Jacobin was one of the most powerful men in France.

When, during the absence of Napoleon in the Austrian campaign of 1809, the British Walcheren expedition threatened the safety of Antwerp, Fouché issued an order to the préfet of the northern départments of the Empire for the mobilization of 60, 000 National Guards, adding to the order this statement: " Let us prove to Europe that although the genius of Napoleon can throw lustre on France, his presence is not necessary to enable us to repulse the enemy ".

As a military commander despatched by the Jacobins to enforce their new laws, Fouché led a particularly zealous campaign of dechristianisation.

* People engaged in the campaign: Jacques Hébert, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, Joseph Fouché

In the 1949, Hollywood historical drama Reign of Terror, Fouché is played by Arnold Moss.

His career is of particular interest because he was among political figures such as Joseph Fouché who at first aggressively supported the Terror, only to betray its leaders ( including Maximilien Robespierre ) and support the various conservative reactionary régimes that followed.

He thus joined the ranks of Tallien, Fréron, and Fouché as perpetrators of the worst excesses of Terror, and like them found his position growing tenuous.

* Reign of Terror ( 1949, also known as The Black Book ) as Fouché

Joseph Conrad portrayed Fouché briefly in his short story The Duel ( 1924 ), which was filmed in 1977 as The Duellists, written by Gerald Vaughan-Hughes and directed by Ridley Scott.

Fouché was strongly in favor of the king's immediate execution, and denounced those who wavered.

Modern research, however, demonstrates that at the close of those horrors Fouché exercised a moderating influence.

After the proclamation of the First French Empire, Fouché again became head of the re-constituted ministry of police ( July 1804 ), and later of Internal Affairs, with activities as important as those carried out under the Consulate.

The Mémoires of Fouch &# 233 ; ( Paris, 1828-29 ) and those of Fauche-Borel have also been ascribed to him, but in the case of the former it seems certain that he only revised and completed a work really composed by Fouché himself.

Priests were among those drowned in mass executions ( noyades ) for treason under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Carrier ; priests and nuns were among the mass executions at Lyon, for separatism, on the orders of Joseph Fouché and Collot d ' Herbois.

Napoleon made him Minister of the Interior under the Consulate, which enabled Lucien to falsify the results of the plebiscite but which brought him into competition with Joseph Fouché, the chief of police, who showed Napoleon a subversive pamphlet that was probably written by Lucien, and effected a breach between the brothers.

However, he failed to reach any agreement with the French leader, who regarded Kościuszko as a " fool " who " overestimated his influence " in Poland ( letter from Napoleon to Fouché, 1807 ).

In this extremity, < span lang =" fr "> Sieyès </ span > chose as minister of police the old Terrorist < span lang =" fr "> Joseph Fouché </ span >, who best understood how to deal with his brethren.

Perhaps at the urging of < span lang =" fr "> Talleyrand </ span >, Napoleon's foreign minister, and < span lang =" fr "> Fouché, Napoleon </ span >' s minister of police who had warned that " the air is full of daggers ", the First Consul came to the political conclusion that the Duke must be dealt with.

Alas, Fouché's enthusiasm had proved a little too effective, for when the blood from the mass executions in the center of Lyons gushed from severed heads and bodies into the streets, drenching the gutters of the Rue Lafont, the vile-smelling red flow nauseated the local residents, who irately complained to Fouché and demanded payment for damages.

In Pierre François Charles Augereau's anti-Royalist coup d ' état of Fructidor 1797, Fouché offered his services to Barras, who in 1798 appointed him French ambassador to the Cisalpine Republic.

Knowing the unpopularity of the Directors, Fouché joined Bonaparte and Sieyès, who were plotting the Directory's overthrow.

In other matters ( especially in that known as the Plot of the Placards in the spring of 1802 ), Fouché was thought to have saved the Jacobins from the vengeance of the Consulate, and Bonaparte decided to rid himself of a man who had too much power to be desirable as a subordinate.

However, Napoleon never completely disgraced a man who might again be useful, and Fouché received the governorship of the Rome département.

Famous ( or rather infamous ), is the conversation between Fouché and ( also proscribed ) Lazare Carnot, who had been interior minister during the hundred days ' period:

The last Governor-General was Joseph Fouché, who was appointed in July 1813 and held his post for only one month.

They had a son, Dr. Jacobus Johannes (' Bux ') Fouché, who married Cornelia Jacoba Redelinghuys (' Coreen ') Louw.

When the college of the Oratorians was dissolved in May 1792, Fouché gave up the church, whose major vows he had not taken.

Fouché did become a senator and took half of the reserve funds of the police which had accumulated during his tenure of office.

Napoleon opened negotiations only to find that Fouché had forestalled him.

At the moment of his departure, Fouché took the risk of not surrendering to Napoleon all of certain important documents of his former ministry ( falsely declaring that the some had been destroyed ); the emperor's anger was renewed, and Fouché, on learning of this after his arrival to Florence, prepared to sail to the United States.

Ironically, Fouché had voted for the death sentence on Louis XVI.

* Joséphine-Ludmille Fouché ( 1803 – 1893 ), married to Adolphe Comte de La Barthe de Thermes ( 1789 – 1869 ), and had issue.