Moving spirit

At the beginning of the year 1804 the most formidable conspiracy which had yet threatened the government and the life of Napoleon was discovered. […] Georges Cadoudal, the Breton peasant, who was the very soul of the royalist party, was the moving spirit.

We had formed a conspiracy against an unpopular and ignorant teacher. Its moving spirit [translating Seele] was a fellow-student who seems since then to have taken Henry VIII of England as his model.

Pompadour was the moving spirit in the elegant refurbishment of most of the royal residences, and in the development of a number of minor residences such as Crécy, Bellevue and the Trianon, in all of which she indulged the king's penchant for intimacy and privacy.

A couple of years later, he met Timothy Duffy, who was the moving spirit behind the Music Maker Relief Foundation.