Napoleon's sovereignty was never convincingly felt by those who were once his superiors or his equals, nor by those who still held to the doctrine of rights; none of them regarded their oath of allegiance to him as binding.
Malin, an inferior man, incapable of comprehending Fouche's hidden genius, or of distrusting his own perceptions, burned himself, like a moth in a candle, by asking him confidentially to send agents to Gondreville, where, he said, he hoped to obtain certain clues to the conspiracy.

Fouche, without alarming his friend by any questions, asked himself why Malin was going to Gondreville, and why he did not immediately and without loss of time, give the information he already possessed.

The ex-Oratorian, fed from his youth up on trickery, and well aware of the double part played by a good many of the conventionals, said to himself: "From whom is Malin likely to obtain information when we ourselves know little or nothing ?" Fouche concluded therefore that there was some either latent or prospective collusion, and took care to say nothing about it to the First Consul.

He preferred to make Malin his instrument rather than destroy him.

It was Fouche's habit to keep to himself a good part of the secrets he detected, and he thus obtained for his own purposes a power over those concerned which was even greater than that of Bonaparte.