Malet had influence with Fouché, through which, before that Minister's disgrace, he had obtained his transfer from La Force to a "Maison de Santé" in the Faubourg St. Antoine. In this half asylum, half place of detention, the inmates were suffered to come and go on parole, to associate freely with one another, and to receive any visitors they pleased from outside. In this convenient retreat, which sheltered other irreconcilable spirits, Malet soon matured his plot. His chief confederate--the only one, indeed, he fully trusted--was a certain Abbé Lafone, a man of great audacity and determination, who had already been mixed up in Royalist plots against the empire. The two kept their own counsel, alive to the danger of treachery and betrayal in taking others into their full confidence; but Malet could command the services of two generals, Guidal and Laborie, with whom he had been intimate at La Force, but who never knew the whole aim and extent of the conspiracy.
About 8 p.m. on the 23rd of October, 1812, Malet and the Abbé left the Faubourg St. Antoine, and Malet, now in full uniform, appeared at the gates of the neighbouring barracks, where he announced the news, received by special courier, of the emperor's death, produced a resolution from the Senate proclaiming a Provisional Government, and investing him with the supreme command of the troops. Under his orders, officers were despatched with strong detachments to occupy the principal parts of the city, the barriers, the quays, the Prefecture, the Place Royal, and other open squares. Another party was sent to the prison of La Force to extract Generals Laborie and Guidal, the first of whom, when he joined Malet, was despatched to the prefecture and thence to the Ministry of Police, to seize both the _préfet_ and Savary and carry them off to gaol. Guidal was to support Laborie. Malet himself, with another body of troops, proceeded to the Place Vendôme, the military headquarters of Paris, and proposed to make the Commandant Hullin his prisoner.
The arrest of the heads of the police was accomplished without the slightest difficulty about 8 a.m. on the 24th of October, and they were transported under escort to La Force. (Savary ever afterwards was nicknamed the Duc de la Force.) Malet meanwhile had roused General Hullin, to whom he presented his false credentials. As the general passed into an adjoining room to examine them, Malet fired a pistol at him and "dropped" him. Then the Adjutant-General Dorcet interposed, and, seizing his papers, instantly detected the forgery. Malet was on the point of shooting him also, when a staff-officer rushed up from behind, and, backed by a handful of his guard, easily overpowered Malet. From that moment the attempt collapsed. The Police Minister and the _préfet_ were released from prison; the conspirators were arrested. Yet for a few hours Malet had been master of Paris.