Cadoudal, Georges

Related Category: French History: Biographies

(zhôrzh käddäl´), 1771–1804, French royalist conspirator. A commander of the Chouans, he led the counterrevolutionists in the Vendée. He fled to England in 1801 after the failure of an attempted assassination of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1803 he returned as the leader of another conspiracy against Napoleon. Generals Charles Pichegru and Jean Victor Moreau were implicated in the plot. Insurrections were planned in Paris and in the provinces, but the conspiracy was uncovered by Joseph Fouché, the minister of police, and Cadoudal was executed. The conspiracy, exaggerated in report, was used as a pretext to transform the Consulate into Napoleon's empire.