Michel Vaillard is a major antagonist in the Bernard Cornwell novel Sharpe's Trafalgar. He was a French diplomat in 1805.
Biography[]
Michel Vaillard was a French agent involved in secret negotiations with the Mahrattas. He made a deal with a Mahratta leader who was still opposed to the British, telling him to pretend to sue for peace in exchange for weapons and also to encourage other Mahrattas to rebel against British rule.
Vaillard was working with Anthony Pohlmann in order to smuggle the papers sealing the deal back to France from India. They booked passage aboard the British merchant ship Calliope, with Pohlmann posing as a Hanoverian nobleman, the Baron von Dornberg, and Vaillard posing as his servant. He encountered Ensign Richard Sharpe, one of the other passengers, and claimed to be Swiss in order to explain being fluent in both French and German.
Vaillard and Pohlmann conspired with the ship's captain, Peculiar Cromwell, to surrender the ship to the French vessel Revenant, with them all getting a share of the prize money. Cromwell allowed the Calliope to be captured, then he, Vaillard and Pohlmann transferred over to the Revenant, bound for France.
However, the Revenant ended up joining up with the French fleet massing for the Battle of Trafalgar. During the battle, the ship was captured and boarded by Marines from the British HMS Pucelle, commanded by Sharpe, who had come aboard the ship after its crew recaptured the Calliope. Sharpe found Vaillard hiding in the hold and tried to take him prisoner but Vaillard insisted that he had diplomatic immunity and thus would be released and allowed to travel to Cadiz. Sharpe replied that if Vaillard wanted to go to Cadiz, he should start swimming. He threw Vaillard overboard, where he drowned.
