In 1797, after the Coup of 18 Fructidor, he was convicted to be transported to Cayenne, together with Charles Pichegru, François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy and thirteen others. He ran from justice, and after a few months was pardoned. In 1799, Bonaparte sent him to the Temple Prison, but he was again released in 1801. He started the philosophical and atheist weekly magazine "L'Antidote" in 1802. He was again arrested, and banished to Dijon and then to Oléron. He escaped from there, and became a French spy in England to report on French emigrants opposed against Napoleon. He posed as a counter-revolutionary, and convinced the royalists in England that France was waiting to overthrow Bonaparte. In 1804 de La Touche revealed the plot, and the support it received from Francis Drake, the minister to the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg.