The attack was carried out by royalists linked to the Chouan leader Georges Cadoudal, who was in the pay of the British government. The conspirators bought a horse and cart from a Parisian grain dealer, attached a large wine cask to the cart, and loaded the cask with shrapnel and gunpowder. They drove this “infernal machine” to Rue Saint-Nicaise (which no longer exists), near the intersection with Rue Saint-Honoré, on Napoleon’s route to the opera. One of the plotters paid 14-year-old Marianne Peusol, whose mother sold buns nearby, twelve sous to hold the horse and guard the cart while the would-be assassin stood at some distance with the fuse.