The Last of the Mamelukes — Aboukir — The News from Paris — An Adventurer's Decision — Preparations for Departure — His Plans Concealed — The Last Visit to Corsica — A Narrow Escape — Reception in France — Conjugal Estrangement.
1799
The Turkish army which had sailed from Rhodes numbered about twelve thousand men. The fleet which transported them appeared off Alexandria on July twentieth, and a landing was attempted. Repulsed by the forts, the ships drew off to Aboukir, where the effort was successful. The force was composed of infantry, and as nothing further could be done without cavalry, they began immediately to throw up breastworks, hoping to make a successful stand until the arrival of Murad. But this romantic personage, the last of the Mamelukes to enjoy undisputed sway, was able to come no farther than the Pyramids; the land at which he gazed from the summit of Cheops was never again to be his. Before he could reach his allies they had been overwhelmed, and before the evacuation of Egypt by its invaders he fell a victim to the plague. Mehemet Ali and the Albanians were to inherit his power. By July twenty-fourth the Turks had strongly fortified the peninsula of Aboukir with a double line of works. Not only did they hear nothing from Murad, but Ibrahim, who was expected from Syria, also failed them, and the lack of cavalry threw them on the defensive.But their presence, they hoped, would be sufficient to fan the rebellious spirit of the country, and they might maintain themselves until reinforcements should come by sea, or the belated cavalry arrive by land.
With his accustomed rapidity Bonaparte made ready to strike. Ibrahim was checked, Murad was finally driven back, and Desaix was called in from upper Egypt to keep order below while the contest was going on in the Delta. With six thousand men in the main army, and two thousand reserves under Kléber, Bonaparte set out. On July twenty-fifth the battle was joined. It was short and murderous. The enemy was first outflanked on the left, and that wing driven into the sea; then the right was caught in the same manner, and suffered a like fate. Finally, with a rush the infantry of Lannes surmounted a redoubt in the center. What was their surprise to find Murat with his cavalry already on the other side! The dashing riders had madly circumvented the line of intrenchment. There were but three thousand Turks now left, and these took refuge in a citadel which they had constructed at the apex of the peninsula. On August first, 1799, the anniversary of the battle of the Nile, the entire force surrendered. Bonaparte told the Directory that twelve thousand Turks were drowned. As he said in his despatch to Cairo, "Not a single man of the hostile army which had landed escaped." The French troops were now convinced that their general had always been invincible, and that somehow he would open the doors of their prison-house, and find a way for their return.
Napoleon Exposition, 1895NAPOLEON—BY INGRES(Belonging to Germain Bapst).
Napoleon Exposition, 1895
NAPOLEON—BY INGRES(Belonging to Germain Bapst).
It was nearly six months since the date of the latest authentic news from Paris. At least so thought the general's adjutants and companions, and they were possibly right. They knew that he had been constantly forwarding news of their enterprise, and probablyregular instructions, to the authorities at Paris. Bonaparte mentions in his correspondence the despatch of sixty vessels of various kinds with his letters, and some of them, at least, reached their destination. This certainty, with the wise adaptation of his subsequent course to his ultimate ends, has led to the supposition that he was in constant receipt of secret information from his brothers, by way of Genoa and Tunis. This he never explicitly denied, although he said at St. Helena that newspapers were sent ashore from the English fleet after the battle of Aboukir, adding, as a kind of ingenuous generalization, that, besides, news did not come from France by way of Tunis. Joseph declares in his memoirs that he himself sent a messenger to tell the sorry tale of French affairs to Napoleon. But there is no proof and no likelihood that this courier ever reached his destination. It is certain that Bonaparte learned at Acre of the new coalition against France from Phélippeaux in a parley held across the trenches; it is probable that his private news came by way of the Barbary States; it is unquestioned that his best information was obtained through the English fleet, which was now off Alexandria, negotiating for exchanges on behalf of Turkey. According to Marmont, Sir Sidney Smith, hoping to discourage his enemy, sent a packet of papers ashore, and declared that if the French army should strive to escape, in accordance with the desire of the Directory, he would endeavor to give an account himself to the fugitives.
In any case, what was now definitely made known to Bonaparte was not unwelcome information. He was assured that war had broken out, as he expected and perhaps knew; that the French arms had suffered disgrace in Italy; and that a fleet under Admiral Bruix had been despatched to conquer the Mediterranean andto bring home the Army of Egypt. No doubt he guessed that the Directory was showing hopeless incapacity. What he could not know was that on May twenty-sixth they had actually despatched a special courier to express the hope that he himself would return to take command of the armies of the republic. This messenger, we know, never landed in Egypt, but his services were not required; for no sooner was Bonaparte convinced that the crisis he had long foreseen was actually occurring than the resolution he had twice foreshadowed in his letters to Paris was finally taken. He told Marmont that the state of things in Europe compelled him to return: the French armies defeated, all the fruits of his hard-earned victories in Italy lost! Of what use were these incapables who were at the head of affairs? With them all was hesitation, stupidity, and corruption. "I—I alone have borne the burden, and by constant victory have given strength to this administration, which without me would never have lifted its head. On my departure everything had, of necessity, to crumble. Let us not wait until the destruction is complete; the evil would be irremediable.... The news of my return will be heard in France simultaneously with that of the destruction of the Turkish army at Aboukir. My presence will elevate men's spirits, restore to the army its lost confidence, and to the good people the hope of a prosperous future." No commentary could make this language clearer.
His arrangements were quickly made. A few trusted men were confidentially informed of the situation, and Kléber was appointed to the chief command of the army, which was so dishonorably to be abandoned in a most critical situation, reduced as it was to half its original numbers, destitute of provisions and ammunition, surrounded by a hostile, fanatical population, and confronted by the powerful fleet of its most unrelentingenemy. Secretly, and by night, the two frigates in the harbor of Alexandria were prepared, and anchored off a remote point of the shore. In the early hours of August twenty-second the fugitive general embarked, accompanied by a few devoted and choice friends—capable generals like Murat, Lannes, Marmont, Berthier, Duroc, Bessières, Lavalette, Ganteaume, and Andréossy; equally fine political scholars like Monge, Denon, and Berthollet. It was arranged that Junot and Desaix should come later.
The great deserter could easily persuade himself that this was an act of heroism—risking his life on hostile waters in order to save France. It was not hard to reason speciously that it was a colony which had been intended, and a colony which had been planted; that in his return he was using the discretion granted by the Directory, and carrying out a plan announced from the outset. But it needed no verdict of posterity to declare that it would have been more heroic to remain and share the consequences of a scheme so largely his own. His conscience asserted as much, for he deceived the brilliant and acute Kléber in an appointment to say farewell, which was not kept; while the Grand Council of Cairo was told that he had gone to take command of his fleet, and would return in three months. Orders were left that if fifteen hundred soldiers should die of the pest, Kléber should open negotiations for evacuating the country. An angry and emphatic protest was written by the victimized general; but it was intercepted by the English cruisers, and did not fall into the hands of his betrayer until after he had become First Consul. At St. Helena, Napoleon declared that the failure of the expedition was clear to him from the moment of Nelson's victory; for any force which cannot be recruited must melt away and eventually surrender.
Sir Sidney Smith, not thinking either that a general would abandon his army, or that vessels would sail for Europe against the adverse winds of that season, had made for Cyprus to renew his supply of water. In this interval the two French frigates gained the open sea, their captains entertaining the vague hope of reaching Toulon direct, by some reversal of nature's laws. But the prevalent breezes continued, and compelled them to coast along the African shore. It was three weeks before they even sighted the headlands of Tunis. At last a favoring wind began to blow. With lights extinguished, they passed at night the strait which separates Africa from Sicily, escaping the observation of the English cruisers sent from Nelson's fleet to patrol those waters. Skirting Sardinia, the flotilla reached Corsica early in October. Though, as Bonaparte declared, he was "deeply moved by the sight of his native town," no remnant of his early enthusiasm could sweeten for him the enforced delay of several days in the harbor of Ajaccio. He had left far behind the emotions of that primitive society, and, evidently fretting to be gone, was rather impatient at the abounding caresses of all the friends who thronged the town when he was ashore and crowded the decks when he was afloat. Some deeds have been recorded to his credit: all the money he had by him, about forty thousand francs, he distributed to the garrison, which had not been paid for over a year and a half; his features, it is also said, relaxed with evident joy as he tenderly returned the greeting of the old woman who had been his earliest attendant. It was his last visit to the island of his birth, but not the last time the accents of its dialect fell on his ears, for it was a Corsican who troubled his dying hours at St. Helena.
What moved him really and deeply was the news ofFrench disasters on the Trebbia and at Novi, of Joubert's death, of the dissolution of the Italian republics, and of Moreau's last stand in the Piedmont fortresses. What probably moved him most was the further news that the old Directory had virtually fallen on the thirtieth of Prairial, and that Sieyès, who had returned but partly successful from Berlin, had been chosen as a member of the new one, to preserve at least a semblance of respect for the institution. Finally, the favoring breeze sprang up, and on October eighth sail was made again, not for Italy, to restore the fortunes of the army, as Bourrienne says had been planned during the voyage, but direct for France. Suddenly, at sunset, a British squadron loomed on the horizon. Was Fortune at last to desert her child? It seemed so. The captain of Bonaparte's vessel gave orders to make again for Ajaccio, and prepared a long-boat for the solitary landing of his passenger on the wild shores of the island in case of extremity. But a dark night revived his courage. The English, deceived by the apparent angle of their enemy's yards, mistook his course, and sailed in a wrong direction. The French kept directly on. Next morning the adventurer set foot once more on French soil near Fréjus. A few nights later news of Bonaparte's landing was brought to his sisters in their box at the theater. They received it with exultation, but apparently with no manifestation of surprise.
How was he received, this thwarted leader of a costly fiasco, this general who for nothing had left the bones of thousands to whiten upon Eastern deserts, who had deserted in a plague-stricken land many thousands more of the finest troops which France could furnish? With a passion of delight! From Fréjus through Lyons to Paris, along the old familiar route, the people knew nothing of their hero's failures. They had not forgottenhis Italian victories, which only a short year before had made them masters where now their armies were in disgrace and their name was execrated; they knew only too well the widespread legends of the same man's triumphs in the romantic East, before Cairo and at the feet of the Pyramids. With all this they contrasted the valley of humiliation through which the republic had been dragged by the incapacity of their leaders. Was it wonderful that at Lyons the fêtes were like a jubilee, through which Bonaparte, aware that his goal was near, moved like one already elevated among his fellows—conciliating, deprecating, mysterious?
It was on October sixteenth that he arrived at his house on Victory street, in Paris. Mme. Bonaparte was not there to give him a welcome. During the absence of her husband she had made her house the center of a brilliant society which numbered among its members the ablest men of the time. This circle was untiring in its devotion to Bonaparte's interests, making friends for him at home, plotting in his behalf abroad, turning every political incident to his advantage, and building up a strong party which believed that he was the only possible savior of France. In conduct the associates were gay and even dissolute; occasionally a select inner coterie withdrew to Plombières, nominally for repose, but probably for a seclusion not altogether innocent. Into this loyal but licentious company the sudden announcement of Bonaparte's approach brought something like consternation. Josephine, in particular, having been recklessly unfaithful during his absence, was now over-anxious to display a feigned devotion to her husband. Doubtless she had heard of his desperate licentiousness in Egypt; she must have recalled her own orgies of faithlessness during his absence, in Italy first and now again in Egypt; she may have learnedthat his family were already hinting divorce and that his ears were only too attentive to the suggestion. But she knew her powers and resolved to stake all on another cast. Learning of his approach, she went out some distance to meet him, but took the wrong road, and passed him unawares. Hurrying back, she found the door of his chamber barred, her absence being of course a confirmation of the general's jealous suspicions. For hours her entreaties and tears were vain. At last Eugène and Hortense joined theirs with their mother's, and the door was opened. The breach was apparently healed, but rather to avoid a scandal than from sincere forgiveness.
The Second Coalition — Failures and Defeats of the Directory — The Rastadt Congress — Murder of the French Plenipotentiaries — The Crisis in France — The Revolution of Prairial — The Conscription — The Schemes of the Directors — The Successes of the Bonapartists — The Attitude of Paris — "The Return of the Hero" — The Man of Destiny.
The situation of affairs in Europe at the close of 1799 was, as Bonaparte had anticipated, by no means simple. England having been scorned in the propositions for peace which she made in 1797 at Lille, a second coalition of France's enemies was formed in 1798, largely through the efforts of Paul I, the new Czar of Russia. The organization of the Helvetian Republic in Switzerland had brought the Revolution into the very heart of central Europe, and thus had further estranged the trembling dynasties of both Austria and Prussia. The organization on February eighteenth, 1798, of the Roman Republic had brought the Revolution to the frontiers of Naples; when her king, having joined the coalition, renewed hostilities and inaugurated a general war by throwing an armyinto Rome, the French troops in Italy were divided, and a portion of them, under Championnet, overturned the Neapolitan throne in a kind of pleasure excursion. In January, 1799, the Parthenopean Republic was proclaimed. By a skilfully devised complot in which Lucien Bonaparte was active, the Directory charged the feeble King of Sardinia with unfriendliness, the Cisalpine Republic picked a quarrel with him, Tuscany became involved in the ensuing disorders, and Charles Emmanuel IV was compelled on December ninth, 1798, to abandon all his territories on the mainland, while the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand III, fled shortly after, in 1799, to his relatives in the court of Vienna, leaving his dominions temporarily at the disposal of France.
It was doubtless a pleasant delusion for sincere republicans to imagine that in these events free governments were rising on the wreck of absolutism; but unfortunately the fact was otherwise: every one of these so-called free states was founded, not in the hearts of its people, but in the power of French arms. With the waning of this military ascendancy, they must of necessity lose all vitality. Bonaparte had stated to the Directory, in defense of his own conduct, and of course both repeatedly and emphatically, that to divide the Army of Italy and leave the Austrians on the Adige would be to lose Italy. And yet this was precisely the blunder the directors made in sending Championnet to Naples. Angered by the unexpected renewal of hostilities, their preparations for the coming war, though vigorous and energetic, were made unadvisedly and in haste. Brune was sent to command in Holland, Bernadotte to the middle Rhine, Jourdan into central Germany, Masséna to Switzerland, Macdonald to Naples, and Schérer to upper Italy. Two hundred thousandmen were raised under the new conscription law, and these conscripts-a word then used in that sense for the first time-were sent to fill the depleted ranks of the respective armies. Brune and Masséna were destined to show ability and win success; the others were marked for overwhelming defeat: the crowning example of folly was the appointment of the incapable Schérer to the post of greatest importance. He had once before shown his inability to master the rudiments of warfare in Italy, and this time his command was as inefficient as might have been expected. Jourdan, having been defeated toward the close of March, by the Archduke Charles, both at Ostrach and at Stockach, was succeeded by Lenouf, who was at once compelled to retreat behind the Rhine. On the heels of this disaster, Schérer was driven first behind the Mincio, then to the Oglio; he was shamefully beaten at Magnano in April, and then voluntarily made way for Moreau, laying down his command amid the jeers of his disgusted troops.
Meantime the congress at Rastadt had been keeping up the forms of negotiation, its proceedings being in the main perfunctory, and its sessions deriving their interest mainly from the attempts of the French plenipotentiaries to overawe their colleagues. In this they were largely successful, because they had in their possession the clearest evidence of Austria's earlier determination to secure her importance by the dismemberment of Bavaria. They were now three in number: two of them, Roberjot and Bonnier, were honest supporters of the Directory; the third, Debry, was an old friend of Bonaparte's, and had never swerved from his allegiance. As chief of the embassy he had attracted great attention, and having displayed a spirit far from conciliatory, he gave some cause for the special dislike in which he was held, not only by the other delegates, but even by hisown colleagues. There was the utmost tension in the congress when hostilities were renewed. With the successes of Charles, Austria grew so bold that she determined to break off all negotiation. Already one imperial representative had withdrawn in dudgeon; the others were ready to follow. Aware that war was imminent, both French and Austrian troops had begun early in 1799 to scour the suburbs of Rastadt, and had in frequent forays not merely attacked each other, but had molested the citizens and even the ambassadors. Finally, in April, the imperial troops beset the town, and ordered the remaining members of the congress to leave within a term which, according to usage, was to be fixed by the assembly itself.
The French ministers, in obedience to orders received from Paris, waited until the very last, leaving with their train only at nightfall on April twenty-eighth. In a few moments, and almost before the gates, they were surrounded and hustled, by whom is not altogether certain, though at the time some were believed to be Austrian hussars. In the ensuing tumult the three plenipotentiaries were dragged from their carriages and furiously assaulted; Roberjot and Bonnier were killed, Debry escaped. Next morning he appeared in Rastadt wounded and bloody, but not seriously injured. This murder has become one of the standing historical puzzles. Some have attributed its instigation to the British cabinet, some to Bonaparte, some again to Caroline of Naples, and some to the French émigrés. Many claim that the blows were struck by Debry himself, who, it is thought, was one of those Bonapartist agents, like Garat in Naples and Ginguené in Turin, whose business, as is claimed, was to bring on anarchy at any price, and discredit the Directory. The royalists, supported by the declarations of Mme. Roberjot, who was in thecarriage with her husband, asserted this at the time, and the numerous hewers at the greatness of Napoleon have again repeated it in our day. There are circumstances which could be twisted into corroborative evidence if even the slightest positive proof existed; but no satisfactory testimony has ever been offered from Austrian sources to prove that these attacks, like others of the time and in other lands, were not instigated by the authorities, and made both to conceal inconvenient shortcomings, and to bring on the war for which Austria was now thoroughly prepared.[11]
The second coalition was stronger than the first, because, although Prussia remained neutral for reasons already mentioned, it included not only England and Austria, but also both Turkey and Russia, with Portugal and Naples. The long frontier, from Holland to Naples, which France was called on to defend in the absence of her best troops and generals in Egypt, made her weak and vulnerable as never before. Englandappeared in Holland with an Anglo-Russian army; the Russians poured into Switzerland and Italy; the Austrians were again on the Rhine and the Adige; while Turkey was showing unexpected energy in repelling the invaders from lands which, slack as was the tie, she still considered her own. Worse than all, the false position of the French republic and the Church with reference to each other had kept alive smoldering coals of discontent, and as a result civil war again broke out in Brittany and Vendée. To meet this appalling emergency there was needed either a capable, homogeneous administration heartily supported by the nation, or else a military despotism such as was the logical result of Vendémiaire and Fructidor. The former did not exist. Instead of gaining strength by wise self-denial, the Directory had grown steadily weaker, usurping authority of every kind, and actually seating in the councils of 1798, by the basest arts, creatures of their own as representatives of no less than forty-nine departments. The May elections of 1799 expressed the popular discontent in an uprising of extreme Jacobinism, which sent an opposition delegation into the councils too strong to be thus supplanted or overthrown.
The new legislature met the executive, and at once, with their own weapons. Aided by public clamor, and by the influence of a widely read pamphlet which Carnot had written in justification of his course, they obtained in June a virtual reconstruction of the Directory. Barras, who had become known as a weak trimmer, was suffered to remain. Rewbell, as a supporter of the unsuccessful Schérer and the pertinacious associate of Rapinat, a dishonest contractor connected with the Army of Italy, had been himself suspected of peculation, although unjustly, and his time having expired, he was not reëlected. The others went as a matter of course;Merlin and Larévellière were permitted to resign because, although troublesome, they were nonentities; Treilhard, though honest and able, could not make himself felt, and a flaw in his election was used as a pretext to replace him by Gohier, who, though he had been formerly minister of justice, was a feeble creature. Sieyès was put in Rewbell's place in order to secure a better constitution. He carried into his new sphere the same habits of supercilious mystery which he had always had, continuing likewise the scheming for radical change which he had so long carried on. He looked to Joubert as the popular general most likely to become an easy tool, and formed an intimacy with him. The two other places were filled by utter mediocrities: Roger-Ducos, a moderate, and Moulins, a radical. This revolution of the thirtieth of Prairial, another "day," was held to be a Jacobin counterstroke to that of the eighteenth of Fructidor. The legislature had shown itself as lawless as the Directory; the constitution was proved to be worthless: another must be enacted. With Fouché at the head of the police, and other Robespierrians restored to office, it appeared to the majority of the nation as if all constitutional government were jeopardized, as if the Terror were to be revived, as if such madness could be repressed only by military force.
But where was the general? Championnet had disgraced himself by permitting unbridled license among his soldiery after the capture of Naples on January twenty-third, 1799, and his army fell into a state of disreputable disorganization. Macdonald had gathered together and reorganized the remnants, but only to be defeated by Suvoroff with his Russians on the Trebbia. The army of Joubert, who succeeded Moreau, had been overwhelmed, and its leader killed, by an Austro-Russian force at Novi, on August fifteenth. Mantua wasalready lost. Moreau, having saved some remnants of Joubert's troops, made a successful stand in the Apennines, where his army still was. Masséna was defeated at Zurich, in June, by the Austrians under the archduke Charles; but on September twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth he routed the Russians under Korsakoff at the same place. Brune had defeated on September nineteenth, at Bergen, an Anglo-Russian army under the Duke of York, who was forced to capitulate at Alkmaar on October tenth, and to evacuate the Batavian Republic. Bernadotte was the new secretary of war, more successful in that office than as a diplomat. Although he was Joseph Bonaparte's brother-in-law, he was not a Bonapartist, being first, last, and always a Bernadottist. Under his administration Jourdan had devised and carried out the new conscription measure which filled once more the empty army lists. This sweeping measure was the extreme development of the system introduced by Carnot, whereby all able-bodied French citizens were declared liable to military service, and drafts were made only when voluntary enlistment failed. The conscription law was passed on September fifth, 1798, and compelled the service of all young men, or at least of as many as the government saw fit to draw, between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. This procedure differed but little from that now universal in modern Europe, and created the Napoleonic armies as distinguished from those of the republic. Organized into divisions, brigades, and half-brigades as before, the new ranks appear to have been quite as enthusiastic as the old, for the young of the nation now looked to war as the quickest road to glory. Bernadotte expressed the common conviction of all ambitious young men when he said: "Children, there are certainly great captains among you." The treasury was replenished by aforced loan disguised under the form of an arbitrary tariff. Besides all this, a frightful measure had been passed, known as the Hostage Law, which made the innocent relatives of every Chouan or emigrant responsible for his conduct.
These measures were indicative of a dangerous and rising tide of the new Jacobinism, which was represented by a majority in the Five Hundred, in the Directory by Gohier and Moulins, and outside by a recognized club of terrorists, which began to sit in the famous riding-school where the Convention had held its sessions. The well-to-do men like Talleyrand, Regnault de St.-Jean-d'Angély, and Roederer, the philosophers Cambacérès, Sémonville, Benjamin Constant, and even Daunou, were outraged at the thought of a new Terror, and looked to Sieyès and Barras to prevent it. In view of these disturbing circumstances, many also asked, Where is the statesman? The Jacobins, as of old, had perfect faith that the chapter of accidents would reveal a statesman; a general they had either in the calm Jourdan or in the hotspur Augereau. Their policy was to repeat republican victories, and fortify democracy in the coming constitution, whatever shape it should take. Sieyès and his friends naturally would have turned to the conqueror of Italy, with whom they had already plotted; but he was absent, and, besides, they wanted a tool, not a master. They actually tried Moreau with the offer of a dictatorship to be equally shared with Bonaparte; but he was already under the spell of royalism, and proved coy. It has been suggested that but for the arrival of Bonaparte himself, Masséna, who much resembled Monk in character, might have repeated that general's rôle in France. Certainly the advocates of a limited monarchy would, in the extremity, have welcomed even the Bourbons as a constitutionaldynasty, and this although they were so distrustful that Sieyès, when ambassador in Prussia, had dreamed of choosing a foreign royal house for that purpose, selecting as his own preference that of Brunswick.
Such, then, was the complicated web of defeat and victory in war, of plot and counterplot in politics, of cross-purposes everywhere, which was displayed to Bonaparte on his return to the capital. Should he, the hitherto avowed republican whose devoted soldiers still believed themselves to be fighting for freedom's cause, continue the farce still further, and throw in his fate with the Jacobins? Or should he put down the mask? It soon became clear to him that Paris and the people would never again tolerate a Terror, and that success in the long run lay in an alliance with them. If they would accept his leadership, the game was won. But was this possible? The cool heads, like Baron de Pasquier, had noted the real character of the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns; but even they had an admiration for an adventurer's effrontery, and they were too few to make much impression upon the masses. By large numbers of the hitherto indifferent it was now believed that Bonaparte and his army had been deported to Egypt from jealousy on the part of the Directory; and to some of the conservatives he was a martyr returning from exile, yet bringing new trophies to his country. This rumor was not only never contradicted, but was rather increased by the significant hints of those among the Bonaparte family who were now in the thick of events. Joseph, having three years previously been elected to the Five Hundred, had risen high in the public esteem; and Lucien for two years past had likewise been one of the most influential members. Both were changed men. Polished, at least superficially, and apparently devoted to letters, they were known assolid citizens. Their social gifts had made their homes, like that of Mme. Bonaparte herself, centers of influence among many important people of the capital. Hers, however, was far more exclusive, and affected a lofty superiority to all others. Between it and the other two there existed intense jealousy concerning the general's favor, but all were heartily united in furthering his interests.
The people of Paris did not, like those of Lyons, run to meet Bonaparte as if he were already a sovereign; but they received him warmly. In particular the malcontents who were plotting in his behalf, as if under his personal direction, welcomed him with effusion. Without a moment's delay he took charge of their councils. Sieyès had lost his mainstay in Joubert, and his prestige by the defeat at Novi. With the help of Talleyrand and Roederer he was soon brought to terms, and under Bonaparte's immediate direction the careful, daring plan for a complete change both in the constitution and in the administration which had been already discussed by Sieyès and his followers, the so-called reformists, was revised and finished. It was on its face a determined attempt to remedy the radical defects of the constitution of the year III, and to organize a strong constitutional government. In fact, its author had already shown a certain executive ability in preparing the way. Waving the red signal of the Terror, he had by a series of arbitrary measures suppressed the Jacobin papers and banished their editors. Jourdan at this crisis demanded from the assemblies a vote that the "country was in danger," but his appeal fell flat. Then came the stirring news that under Masséna and Brune the armies of France were renewing their pristine glories, and that the Rhine and the Alps at least were safe. A few days later a messenger from the executive read to the councils,in solemn state, the despatch, composed by Bonaparte for the purpose, containing his exaggerated narrative of the battle of Aboukir. Tremendous enthusiasm swept over both chambers. Gohier, who had fallen a victim to the charms of Josephine in her frequent visits to his flattered wife, was the president of the Directory. To him Bonaparte had paid his first official visit, and on the following day the Directory received in formal audience the general, who, as he himself declared to Gohier, had "left his army to come and share the national perils," reports of which had so disquieted him in Egypt.
The official and the popular good will were therefore before long alike intense: Paris was within a few days as much dazzled by Bonaparte's return as the country had been. The "Return of the Hero" was the catchword of the nation. Recent events had shattered parties into fragments: here was a leader who had never been identified with any one of them. The newspapers took up the pæan of his virtues. Meanness and mediocrity were to disappear; the French people, avid of great things, had found again the favorite of fortune who alone could accomplish them. First Talleyrand, then Sieyès, then all the other well-known men, from Gohier down, openly joined in the train of admirers. The shifty course of large numbers who, like Roederer, were opportunists at heart had become wearisome to the moneyed classes, and they also soon arrayed themselves under Bonaparte's banner. Doubtful or distant persons of influence were courted, and, as in the case of Moreau, were by consummate art often won. Roederer thought the revolution virtually completed by October thirtieth; the work, he said, was three quarters done. Next day Lucien Bonaparte was elected president of the Five Hundred, among whom, though the majoritywere vacillating and uncomprehending, there was a strong minority of unreconstructed Jacobins. Within the fortnight the defeated general had drawn together at Paris a court more powerful than that which he had had at Montebello in the hour of victory. His personal demeanor was much the same as then—quiet and reserved, but conciliatory, simple, and frank. He affected the simple garb of the civilian, sometimes wearing an Oriental scarf with a small scimitar; frequented the Institute, of which he had been made a member; and associated by preference with men like Volney, discussing questions of philosophy and science. Soon it was whispered that his plans were maturing. What could they be? The answer was not long in suspense. The pear was ripe.
We felt ourselves the associates of an all-powerful destiny, wrote Marmont, concerning the voyage from Egypt. Bonaparte himself was the author of this sentiment, which for long was to be the controlling thought of millions. The Orient had quickened in him a latent conviction as to the value of a destiny and a star. When, in threatening crises, others forgot it, the great adventurer reminded them of it, meaning thereby his own clear vision, unclouded by adversity, penetrating in the confusion of circumstances. In no sense was he an Oriental fatalist; on the contrary, his destiny was the power to discern and to dare which resided in himself. It was his presence in France which was to dispel doubts, restore confidence, control events. "My presence," he had said on shipboard, "by raising their spirits will restore to the army its lacking self-reliance, and to good citizens the hope of a better future. There will be a movement of opinion to the benefit of France. We must struggle to arrive, and we shall arrive." To Kléber, the ablest of his generals, he had left the command and with ita masterly set of directions for the guidance of affairs. He could not be charged with failure, for the end was not yet; disaster could not be retrieved in Egypt: he had hastened to the scene where alone succor could be found, and he had arrived with a heart ready for the decision, under conditions the most favorable, with a definite goal and a clear, simple plan for its attainment. To outsiders and to posterity the result has appeared a happy chance. It was not so, though unforeseen circumstances contributed. It was a foregone conclusion.
The Banquet to Bonaparte and Moreau — Plans of the Bonapartists — Terrors of Bonaparte and Talleyrand — The Rôle of the Ancients — The Generals at Bonaparte's House — His Address to the Ancients — The Five Hundred — Sieyès and Roger-Ducos Resign from the Directory — Barras Intimidated — Gohier and Moulins Imprisoned — Bernadotte's Counterplot.
On November first, 1799, Sieyès formally surrendered all control. By agreeing, as he did in a conference with Bonaparte, that the outline of the "perfect" constitution which he had written—it was his own epithet—should not be laid directly before the councils, but should be submitted to a committee, he abdicated the public leadership, and became the dupe of his colleagues. On the sixth a banquet was given to Bonaparte in the church of St. Sulpice. It had originally been intended that the tribute should come from both chambers; in reality the affair was arranged entirely by a few of the Ancients, who were now almost to a man Bonapartists. Moreau was present as a guest. Embittered against the Directory by the impossible labors they had assigned to him, he had entered Paris cautiously and quietly; Bonaparte, equally embittered, but by his own failures, had come amid the plaudits of a nation; butthe two were for all that justly ranked together as the great captains of the hour. The occasion, however, fell flat; for both Jourdan and Augereau, the Jacobin generals, remained away, and they were the intimates of Bernadotte. Moreau himself was sullen, and the only incident of importance was Bonaparte's toast to the "harmony of all the French." He drank it in wine that was brought in a bottle by Duroc, his aide-de-camp; for his guilty conscience made him suspicious that the meat and drink provided in his honor were poisoned.
Immediately after the close of the gloomy ovation he had a meeting with Sieyès, who produced his draft for three measures, the general tenor of which had been previously agreed upon. In the revolutionary movement now arranged, the Council of the Ancients, in which a majority was certain, were, at the proper time, to take the initiative according to constitutional provision, and pass all three as preliminary to the overthrow of the constitution. They were first to declare the existence of a plot, the nature and size of which were not to be mentioned; then to ordain the session of both councils at St. Cloud; and lastly to appoint Bonaparte commander of the troops in Paris. When assembled next day at St. Cloud, they were to accept the resignations from the Directory of Sieyès and Roger-Ducos, the latter having been persuaded to join the new movement. Finally Gohier, Barras, and Moulins were to be cowed into resigning, and thereupon a provisionalconsulate, consisting of Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger-Ducos, was to be intrusted with the work of reconstruction.
A sufficient military force having been made ready, it was determined at a secret meeting of the Bonapartists, held on the fifteenth of Brumaire (November seventh), that the blow should be struck three days later. To that end the Ancients were to meet, according to the program, on the seventeenth of Brumaire in the morning, and summon both assemblies to hold a session on the eighteenth at St. Cloud. Under a provision of the constitution, whenever an amendment to that document was to be considered, the bodies were to sit outside the walls of Paris. This move would naturally excite considerable suspicion among the uninitiated; and although there might be no disorder, there would certainly be much heated discussion in the streets. Still greater was the danger which lay in the temper of the troops. Enthusiastic for what they felt to be still the republic, every appearance of offering violence to any and all avowed republicans like those who sat among the Five Hundred must be avoided. The solution of this latter problem was really the key to the whole combination. Success would depend entirely on the momentary instinct of plain, honest republican soldiers taken unawares. Minor troubles there were also. Sieyès, sensitive under the evident determination of Bonaparte to use him only so long as he was necessary, became restive, and it required the nicest balancing of interests to keep him temporarily in the traces. It was a time of terrible anxiety to the conspirators. Talleyrand never forgot a scene which took place at his house in the Rue Taitbout a few nights before the crisis. He and Bonaparte were still deep in conversation at about one in the morning, when they heard the rumbling of carriage-wheelsand the ring of cavalry hoofs in the street. Suddenly both ceased; the cavalcade had stopped at the door. Bonaparte turned pale, and Talleyrand also, as they paused and listened, fully convinced that both were to be arrested. The latter blew out the candles, and hurried through a passageway to gain a view of the street. After some delay he discovered that the carriage of a gambling-house keeper, returning under police escort from the Palais Royal with his spoils, had broken down. His fears relieved, he returned to joke with Bonaparte about the scare. Before the appointed day, however, everything which master-schemers could foresee was carefully adjusted. The apparent resurrection of Jacobinism was actually the last appearance of its ghost; for the Directory, shorn of all prestige, was divided and shaky; the army, republican to the core, was weary with its inefficiency and furious with its bankruptcy; the mass of the nation, conservative and royalist, despaired of a restoration, and, sick of war, were for the moment in a humor to accept any strong government. The majority of the administration, the nation, and the army were, therefore, in readiness, while the numerous malcontents in each were at least temporarily silenced. Every little hidden wire of private interest was in hand, and plans were ripe to coerce those who could not be cajoled.
All night long, from the sixteenth to the seventeenth of Brumaire, a committee of the Ancients was in session, minutely perfecting its plans. Next morning at seven the faithful majority, having been summoned according to form, convened as the council; the doubtful members had either not been summoned at all, or had received notice of a later hour. As soon as a quorum was present, Cornet, a well-known butt for the wits, rose and denounced the terrible conspiracy which was menacingthem. Regnier then moved that according to articles one hundred and two, three and four of the constitution both branches of the legislature should meet next day at noon, and not before, in the palace of St. Cloud; that General Bonaparte should be intrusted with the execution of their decree, and that to that end he be appointed commander of the Paris garrison, of their own special guard, and of the National Guard; that he therefore appear and take the oath; and that these resolutions be duly communicated to the Directory, to the Five Hundred, and also to the public by printed proclamation. The motion was carried unanimously.
During these proceedings, all the generals present in Paris except Jourdan and Augereau, who had not been invited, but including the stanch republican Lefebvre, commander of the garrison, had gathered in and before Bonaparte's house. They had been requested to come in uniform in order to arrange for a review. It was noticed that Bernadotte, though present, was not in uniform. He had so far yielded to the blandishments of his brother-in-law as to come, but declared that he would obey only what was at that moment the chief authority in the state. Lefebvre was in uniform, but having met on the way bodies of troops moving without his orders, and not being initiated, he was naturally startled. But Bonaparte knew his man. "Would you, a supporter of the republic, leave it to perish in the hands of these lawyers?" was his greeting. "See, here is the sword I carried at the Pyramids. I give it to you as a mark of my esteem and confidence." "Let us throw the lawyers into the river," came the expected answer.
A few moments later arrived the authoritative summons from the Ancients. Bonaparte stepped out on the porch, and read their proceedings aloud. By aunited impulse the officers flourished their swords in response. It was but an instant before they were mounted, and with Bonaparte in front, the cavalcade, headed by men either already famous or destined to become so,—Macdonald, Sérurier, Murat, Lannes, Andréossy, Berthier, and Lefebvre,—proceeded to the council-chamber. It needed but a hasty glance, as they passed through the city, to see that preconcerted orders had already been carefully executed. The troops were all under arms and at their stations in commanding places throughout the town. Arrived at the Tuileries, the general and his glittering escort entered the chamber. "Citizen delegates," he said, "the republic was falling. You understood the situation; your course has saved it. Woe to them who cause disorder or disturbance! With the help of General Lefebvre, of General Berthier, and my other brethren in arms, I will arrest them. Let no man look for precedents in the past. Nothing in history is comparable to the end of the eighteenth century, nothing to the present moment. Your wisdom passed this motion, our arms will execute it. We desire a republic founded in true liberty, in civil liberty, in popular representation. We are going to have it. I swear it in my own name and in that of my brethren in arms!" "We swear it!" was the antiphonal response of the assembled generals. Some one indiscreetly suggested that Bonaparte had sworn, but not the oath of allegiance to the constitution required by their previous action. At once the president hurriedly declared all further proceedings out of order, the assembly having adjourned by its own act.
By this time it was eleven o'clock, and the members of the Five Hundred were gathering. Their meeting was soon called to order, with Lucien in the chair. The recent action of the Ancients was announced amida deep silence, broken only at the conclusion by numerous calls for an explanation. In strict legality, and according to the letter of the constitution, the lower house had on such an occasion no function but to listen, and the president pronounced the session ended. Amid cheers for the constitution of the year III the representatives then dispersed. A more impressive and dramatic scene was the reception of Bonaparte a few seconds later by the soldiers who had been assembled in the courtyard below for the purpose. Their cheers rang out in volleys as he mounted and rode away, the hero of the hour. A few moments later he reached his headquarters to find all his chosen subordinates assembled. Fouché, the Jacobin minister of police, having seen how the weathercock was veering, was there likewise, conciliatory, obsequious, and superserviceable.
In fact, the incidents of that day were all uncommon. The "Moniteur" published an article hinting that the Jacobins contemplated merging the two councils into a convention. The populace, far from being uneasy and riotous, seemed dazzled by the military display, and were not alarmed by the movements of the soldiery. It was only with languid interest that they read a pamphlet scattered everywhere, which had been written by Roederer to prove the need for renewing the constitution. Bonaparte as commandant, and therefore temporary dictator, received according to prearrangement the resignations of Sieyès and Roger-Ducos, to be presented on the morrow at St. Cloud. The Gohiers had been invited to breakfast with Mme. Bonaparte that morning at the unusual hour of eight o'clock. Pleading official duties, the director himself did not go; his wife, amazed by the dazzling assemblage of generals which she found before the Bonapartes' door, hurried backto announce what she had seen. We may surmise that had Gohier accompanied his wife, both might have been won to the support of the movement in hand; in the other event, perhaps, both might have been forcibly detained.
As it was, Gohier's first instinct was to consult Barras, and he hurried in search of his colleague; but the fallen statesman was in his bath, and could see nobody. He sent word to Gohier to count on him; but before his toilet was complete he was forced to receive Bruix and Talleyrand, who had come as emissaries from Bonaparte. A guilty conscience made him like wax in the hands of Talleyrand, who successfully pleaded with him to resign, and secured his signature to a form, prepared in advance by Roederer under Bonaparte's supervision, which declared that all danger to freedom was past, thanks to the illustrious warrior for whom he had had the honor to open the way to glory. Such was the haste that even before Moulins, the remaining director, could reach the Tuileries, where Bonaparte had established an office, this paper of Barras had been delivered, and the Directory had ceased to exist. "What have you done," said the dictator to Barras's messenger—"what have you done with the France I made so brilliant? I left you victory: I find nothing but defeat. I left you the millions from Italy: I find plundering laws and misery. Where are the hundred thousand warriors who have disappeared from the soil of France? They are dead, and they were my comrades! Such conditions cannot last; in three years anarchy will land us in despotism. We want a republic founded on the basis of equality, of morality, of civil liberty, of political long-suffering." It is needless to say that a reporter was present, the poet Arnault, who printed this fine language next day in the newspapers.
Finally Moulins and Gohier were admitted. Welcomed as if they, too, were about to join in the movement "to save the commonwealth," it was with feigned astonishment that Bonaparte heard them plead for the laws, for the constitution, for the sanctity of oaths, and for good faith to the republican armies, once again victorious. Their adversary was of course immovable. With Gohier he tried argument; to Moulins he menacingly remarked that if Santerre, the notorious demagogue and his relative, should this time make a move to raise the populace, his fate would be death. To a point-blank demand for their resignation both firmly answered, "No," and withdrew to the Luxembourg, where the now defunct Directory had had its seat. With no knowledge or intention on their part, they were to serve as a means for the immolation of Bonaparte's last victim and most dangerous rival. In the military dispositions of that day, Lannes had been put in command at the Tuileries, Sérurier at the Point-du-Jour, Marmont at the military school, Macdonald at Versailles, and Murat at St. Cloud. To the central point, the seat of government, the home of the Directory, Moreau had been assigned. If Bonaparte became the statesman of the impending revolution, Moreau reasoned that he himself would of necessity become the general of the new government, and, regarding his selection for this post as a distinction, he accepted. By the order of his temporary superior, Gohier and Moulins, the two unyielding and incorruptible members of the executive, though not shamefully treated, were yet deprived of their liberty. With the proverbial fickleness of humanity, the agent was held by the public solely responsible for this conduct, and was harshly judged. To him was imputed the stain of arbitrarily applying force at the critical moment, and his influence disappeared like a mirage.During these closing hours of the day, Augereau, too, appeared to make his peace, asking with perplexed jocularity, and with the use of the familiar "thou," if Bonaparte could count no more on his "little Augereau." His fears were scarcely allayed by the brusque advice that both he and Jourdan should keep the peace.
All afternoon the bill-posters were busy, according to the time-honored French custom, covering the blank walls with a carefully worded announcement that the Revolution, having gone astray through incompetence, was to be concluded by its friends. There was a conspiracy: it must be met by united action to secure civil liberty, equality, victory, peace; by a last supreme effort the people must come to its own. The counter-revolution would be the real one. Meantime the papers were printing for their morning issue of the nineteenth the program of the new government. Away with the hostage law, forced loans, the proscription of emigrants: enter peace, an enduring peace, secured if needs be by a new series of victories over the enemies of France, but a peace, solid and permanent. Did ever the wheels of conspiracy run so smoothly? The officious Fouché had closed the city barriers. Bonaparte was so secure that he ordered them thrown wide open. The night was apparently as serene as his spirit. In reality there was a counterplot, and that in a dangerous quarter. Bernadotte met with a little junta, comprising a few members of the Five Hundred, at Salicetti's house, and planned, with himself in uniform as commander, to reach St. Cloud next day in advance of all others, and to install himself, with his supporters, in charge of the palace, so as to control events in his favor. But Salicetti was a traitor in the camp. He had long been double-faced with Bonaparte; but, having at last recognized where lay the mastery, had made his peace, andhad been pardoned for the unforgotten imprisonment. Fouché was duly informed by him of the counterplot, and without exciting suspicion, every member of the Bernadotte junta was delayed in the morning far beyond the time appointed, and their scheme failed. Besides the slight danger in this fiasco there appeared a division of opinion among Bonaparte's own friends, some of the more timid recommending in the early morning hours that Bonaparte should accept a seat in the Directory. "There is no Directory," was his reply; and it was determined, after a number had withdrawn, that they should adhere to the original plan, which was to demand an adjournment of the councils until the first of Ventose (February nineteenth, 1800), and that in the long interval Bonaparte should be intrusted with the administration. Unfortunately, the conspirators overlooked two important points. Nothing was prearranged as to who should act in case the Five Hundred proved refractory, and no preparations were made in the palace of St. Cloud for the reception of the deputies. It was a strange fatality that Bonaparte, who elsewhere and at other times had always two strings to his bow, should, in the heart of France and at the very nick of his fortunes, have provided only one. It was a rash satisfaction with the day's events which he expressed to Bourrienne on retiring for a few hours' rest.
The Councils at St. Cloud — Bonaparte's Poor Appearance as a Conspirator — His Attack on the Constitution — Uneasiness of the Five Hundred — Bonaparte Overawed by their Fury — The Day Saved by His Brother Lucien — A Semblance of Constitutional Government Restored — Bonaparte Master of the Situation — Paris Delighted.
Next morning there was much coming and going in the city, much discussion in the streets, but no disorder. Toward noon, the hour appointed for their meeting, the delegates to the two houses of the legislature, accompanied by many of the people, moved in the direction of St. Cloud. Bonaparte, with a few thousand troops, was already there. Nothing was ready for the reception of the councils, and during the almost fatal interval of hasty preparation the Jacobins gathered in groups to discuss the situation, suspecting for the first time that what confronted them was not reform of the constitution, however radical, but its overthrow. It was long after the appointed time, nearly two o'clock, before the rooms of the palace were ready and the members of the councils were called to order—the Five Hundred in the Orangery on the ground floor of one wing, the Ancients upstairs in the other wing, occupying the Hall of Apollo. Bonaparte and the half-hearted, timid Sieyès were closeted in one of the downstairs chambers, awaiting events. A six-horse carriage had been stationed by the latter at the gate, for his own use in case of mishap. Soldiers stood guard at all theapproaches, and the reception-rooms were filled with men and officers, friends of the arch-conspirator. Disquieting news soon began to arrive from the assemblies. Upstairs the Ancients, amid intense excitement, had voted a series of routine motions and adjourned for an interval, a course tending to postpone consideration of the proposition to intrust Bonaparte with the conduct of affairs. They wished to ascertain through a message from the Five Hundred, as the law required, if the executive were duly constituted, and all the directors present; for in that case only would their action be legal. The delay was to them unaccountable and seemed interminable as they strolled about in pairs and groups, uneasy and vacillating. At last the rumor spread that the general was coming to their hall and they hurried to their seats. When they were at last reassembled anarchy broke loose; for the secretary announced, falsely, of course, that four directors had resigned, and that the fifth was in restraint.
At that moment Bonaparte, with his staff, appeared at the door and a sudden silence fell upon the place. The scene appalled him. The bravery of the general is different from the personal courage of the soldier in the face of physical danger, and both are unlike the pluck of him who defies the law. The latter Bonaparte never had. For a moment he was pale; but, gathering resolution by a mighty effort, he spoke in disjointed but rudely eloquent phrase. They were on a volcano, he said. He was no Cæsar or Cromwell, but a plain soldier living quietly in Paris, who had been called unawares to save his country. If he had been a usurper, he would have called not on the legislature, but on the soldiers of Italy. It was the duty of those present to save liberty and equality—"and the constitution," cried a voice. "The constitution!" was his answer. "You violatedit on the eighteenth of Fructidor; you violated it on the twenty-second of Floréal; you violated it on the thirtieth of Prairial. The constitution! All factions invoke it, and it has been violated by all. It is despised by everybody; it can no longer save us, because it commands the respect of nobody." He then proceeded to ask for the powers necessary in the emergency, promising to lay them down when his work was done. "What are the pressing dangers?" said some one. What were they, indeed? If he must speak, he would. "I declare," he cried, "that Barras and Moulins have invited me to head a party in order to overthrow all men of liberal ideas." The clumsy falsehood produced a storm. Was this the Jacobin conspiracy they had been told of—Barras the aristocrat and Moulins the democrat conspiring together! They wanted details.
In the interval of speaking, the orator had found his cue again, and at once launched out, not into the asked-for details, but into a tornado of language, abusing the constitution and the Five Hundred, and at the same time adroitly threatening that if the old cry of outlaw were raised against him, he would call on the grenadiers whose caps he saw, on the soldiers whose bayonets were in view. "Remember that I walk with the goddess of fortune, accompanied by the god of war!" "General," whispered Bourrienne in his ear, "you no longer know what you are saying." The president of the Ancients was at his wit's end. How could the council, eager as they were to do so, grant the general's demands on such a showing as this? A third time came calls from the benches for details of the plot which made necessary the contemplated measures. And a third time Bonaparte's gift of specious prevarication failed. He could think of nothing but Barras and Moulins; but now, in mentioning their names once more, he added that whatmade them dangerous was that they had expressed what was almost universally desired; otherwise they would be no worse than a very large number of others who were at heart of the same mind. "If liberty perish," he cried, "you will be responsible to the universe, to posterity, to France, and to your families." It sounded like an anti-climax and left his auditors perfectly cold. Therewith he was virtually dragged from the room by his dismayed companions. The preconcerted program was then carried out, and a vote of confidence in Bonaparte was passed. To retrieve the blunders of his speech, a revised version, of the same general tenor, but more as it should have been, was next day printed by "authority."
Downstairs the uproar was terrific. Lucien had expected the Ancients to act swiftly and remit their decree at once to the Five Hundred. He hoped to put and carry a motion to sanction it without giving time for deliberation. The opening formalities of the session passed quietly, and the assembly listened without interruption to a short, vague, and feeble speech in which a Bonapartist deputy professed to announce the pretended plot. The delay of two hours in meeting had, however, given the Jacobins time to consider; there was no business before the house, the resignations of the directors had not been presented to them, and, apparently to pass the time, it was proposed that the delegates present should solemnly, one by one, renew each his oath to the constitution. This was done by all but Bergoëng, a single recalcitrant who resigned his seat. Lucien himself performed the solemn rite. But in the tedious process lasting over two hours desultory cries began to be uttered: "No dictation!" "Down with dictators!" "We are all free here!" Finally the shouts swelled in volume so as to reach the sympatheticears of the guards outside. In this critical moment arrived Barras's resignation. It was read in full, including the passage which declared that with the return of the illustrious warrior for whom he had had the honor to open the way, and amid the striking marks of confidence which the legislature had shown in their general, he felt sure that liberty was no longer in danger, and that he was therefore glad to return to the walks of private life.
The delegates, most of them at least, were unaware of the fact that Sieyès and Roger-Ducos had already handed their resignations to Bonaparte, and did not know that Gohier and Moulins were in duress. This language, read between the lines, made it evident that the Directory was on the verge of dissolution, or already dissolved, and confirmed their suspicions of impending revolution. The Jacobin majority was utterly disconcerted. Some proposed the immediate election of a new Directory; others insisted on the constitutional term of delay, and called for an adjournment. The most clear-sighted saw the trap into which they had fallen, and began to speak of what the circumstances meant. "I believe," said Grandmaison, "that among those present some know whence we have come, and whither we are going." At that critical instant the doors opened, and Bonaparte, surrounded by grenadiers, appeared on the threshold. Chaos ensued. The delegates rose from their seats, some made for the windows, some rushed with menacing gestures toward the intruder, some shouted, "Outlaw him!" "Outlaw him!" and demanded that a motion to that effect be put. This redoubled the disorder. "Put him out!" "Outlaw the dictator!" cried the multitude. "Begone, rash man!" said one near by. "You are violating the sanctuary of the law." "Was it for this," said another,"that you were victorious?" In the heat of passion the unavoidable collision occurred, and the angry representatives laid rude hands on Bonaparte. It was said next day that a grenadier whose name was Thomé threw himself in front of Bonaparte, and received in his own coat-sleeve a dagger-thrust of Arena, an old Corsican foe, which had been intended for his general; but no credible witness ever professed to have seen the deed or any wound. Overpowered by excitement and the mortal agony of one who has staked his all on a doubtful event, the leader turned pale and lost consciousness. The soldiers caught him in their arms, and dragged him downstairs into the office which he had occupied, where he soon regained his self-command. The cries of the now frenzied soldiery served as a complete restorative and he demanded a horse. His own horse was not at hand and he made but a sorry figure in mounting and curbing a restive steed, the first which offered. But at last he found his seat and his voice. Bounding to the open terrace, he harangued the troops and met with a quick response in their hearty acclaim; they promptly formed in line.
The decisive moment had arrived. Would the soldiers, enthusiastic as they seemed, really obey if ordered to take violent measures? Among the generals were many anxious, troubled faces. After his incursion upon the Ancients, Bonaparte had rushed into the antechamber where his commanders sat, exclaiming, "There must be an end to this." During his second absence, Sérurier took the cue, and marched up and down, declaiming, "They were going to kill your general, but be calm!" In the Orangery Lucien accomplished a miracle, calmed the assemblage, steadily refused to put the motion for outlawry, and demanded a hearing for his brother. His plea being of no avail, he finally left thechair, and with the despairing cry, "There is no liberty here!" rushed from the room. The dreary honors of the day were to be his. Bonaparte despatched a file of soldiers to escort him through the throng. The drums rolled for silence, and a horse was brought, which he mounted. Presenting himself then to the troops, he declared, as president of the Five Hundred, that the majority of the legislature were honorable men, but that in the room from which he had come were a few assassins, English hirelings, who held the rest in terror. "Hurrah for Bonaparte!" cried the soldiers; but they made no motion to clear the Orangery, and Napoleon uttered no command. This was the historic moment. Lucien, seizing the drawn sword of a bystander, and pointing it at Napoleon's breast, exclaimed: "I swear I would strike down my own brother should he ever endanger the liberties of the French!" There was at last a movement in the lines. "Shall we enter the hall?" said Murat to Bonaparte. "Yes," was the reply; "and if they resist, kill, kill! Yes; follow me! I am the god of the day!" Fortunately, these hysterical words were heard only by a few. "Keep still!" said Lucien. "Do you think you are talking to the Mamelukes?" With that the order rang out, the rolling drums drowned the roar of talk, action began, and with the brothers on horseback at their head, the grenadiers advanced. There was no resistance, the deputies fled swiftly through doors and windows into the dark, and in a few moments the disordered room was empty.
If Bonaparte were to be neither a Cæsar nor a Cromwell, it was Sieyès, as the civilian and the constitution-maker, who should have swayed the legislative councils in behalf of reform; but his heart was no more engaged in Bonaparte's support now than it had ever been. Anxious to be a leader, and to impose on France a constitutionwhich by its "perfection" should command authority, he had ever been relegated to a second place. Instead of seizing this, his greatest opportunity as a lawgiver, he and Roger-Ducos had softly withdrawn to their carriage. The "perfect" constitution he had prepared would, in view of what had just happened, consequently rest, like the one overthrown, upon military force. Nevertheless, he thoroughly understood that Bonaparte had gone too far, and that his mistake must be retrieved. The country was not ripe for a military despot who, like Charles XII of Sweden, would send his boot to preside over the representatives of the people, or else turn them out of doors without a qualm. Accordingly, the few Bonapartist delegates, who had fled with the rest and had found refuge in the taverns or private houses of the neighborhood, were by his advice, but with some difficulty, found and summoned by Lucien to meet, late as it was, in their respective places, cold and uncomfortable as these were. Upward of fifty out of the Five Hundred—some impartial witnesses have put the number as high as one hundred and twenty—ventured to come, and the semblance of representative government was restored. To them the new, impossible, and clumsy constitution made by Sieyès was presented for consideration.
Meantime Bonaparte had thoroughly recovered his self-control. He declared at St. Helena that all the conspiracies of the time were alike without a head because they needed a "sword"; and that, possessing one, he alone could choose what pleased him best. To Mme. de Rémusat he said: "It was one of the epochs in my life when I was most skilful. I saw the Abbé Sieyès, and promised to put his wordy constitution into operation. I received the Jacobin leaders, and the agents of the Bourbons. I refused no one's advice,but I gave only such as was in the interest of my plans. I withdrew from the people's observation because I knew that when the time arrived curiosity to see me would throw them under my feet. Every one fell into my toils, and when I became head of the state there was not a party in France which did not cherish some hope for my success." Mme. de Staël, returning on the eighteenth of Brumaire from Switzerland to Paris, saw Barras driving to his country-seat of Grosbois. On her arrival men talked no longer of abstractions, of the Constituent Assembly, of the people, or of the Convention: it was all of a person—of what General Bonaparte had done. Her own feelings, she says, were mixed. If the battle were joined, and the Jacobins victorious, she might turn about and fly, for blood would flow once more. Still, at the thought of Bonaparte's triumph she felt a prophetic sadness. She could not mourn for liberty, for liberty had never existed in France. This was the voice of the dispirited and disheartened constitutional republicans, who knew and proposed no remedy. The royalists were fully aware of what they desired. They had been sighing for a despot in France, for another Richelieu, a fierce, intractable master, wielding a rod of iron, without which the inhabitants could never be reconstructed into a nation. In the words of a letter written somewhat earlier from Coblentz, their city of refuge on the Rhine, they desired "the union of powers in the hands of an imperious master, ... who, by a splendid and brilliant Cromwellism, would hold in awe the people whom he forced to respect and bless their own servitude." The mass of the nation were tired of war and eager for a peace that would bring prosperity, pleasure, and glory. The few honest and austere radicals went down with their greedy and noisy fellows; the Jacobin party was nomore. There had been a complete rearrangement of factors in the French problem.
For this reason the escaped legislators who reached Paris that night found little or no comfort as they told their dreary tale. Everywhere there was perfect calm, here and there signs of great satisfaction with what was likely to happen or had happened. The great city went about its affairs as usual, and when late in the evening Fouché issued a manifesto to the effect that Bonaparte in his effort to denounce "counter-revolutionary" measures before the Five Hundred had barely escaped assassination, the paper was read on the stage of all the theaters to eager audiences which in every instance applauded with almost frenzied enthusiasm. Paris and all France was weary of the Directory, it was eager for new things, for authority, for order, for foreign and home policies which would safely anchor the civil liberties won by the Revolution but jeopardized by the violence, self-seeking, and incapacity of the adventurers who had been holding the helm of state.