Metge had published a pamphlet entitled "Le Turc et le militaire français" ("The Turk and the French Military"), comparing Napoleon to the despotic Roman ruler Julius Cæsar, who was killed by Marcus Brutus, and calling for “the birth of thousands of Bruti to stab the tyrant Bonaparte.” Chevalier had experimented with explosives in a hangar and was suspected of making a bomb to dispatch Napoleon; however, the machine infernale that exploded a month later in the rue Saint-Nicaise was not Chevalier's bomb.