Revolution of 18th Brumaire. (9th November 1799.)

Bonaparte reached Paris on the 16th of October, and his assistance was sought by men of all parties. He allied himself with none, but there can be little doubt that he took the advice mainly of Talleyrand, Fouché, and Sieyès. Nevertheless he did not repulse the leaders of the Councils, and to show their attachment for him the Council of Five Hundred, on the 22d of October 1799, elected his brother Lucien Bonaparte to be their president, and the whole Legislature gave him a grand banquet on 6th November. The first stage of the revolution of Brumaire was a decree by which the Council of Ancients, or rather certain of its members, who had been initiated into the project of a coup d’état, taking advantage of a clause in the Constitution applicable to circumstances of popular agitation, resolved in the early morning of the 18th Brumaire, Year VIII. (9th November 1799), that the two Councils should leave Paris and meet at Saint-Cloud; and the execution of this decree was intrusted to General Bonaparte. In the palace of Saint-Cloud it was easy to surround the legislators by a body of troops faithful to Bonaparte, since the command of the troops in Paris was in the hands of one of his friends, General Lefebvre, who was discontented at not having been elected a Director instead of Moulin. Sieyès and Roger Ducos, who were in the plot, at once declared their resignations; Barras was induced to acquiesce; and the other two Directors were guarded as prisoners in the palace of the Luxembourg by General Moreau. On the following morning, the 19th of Brumaire, Bonaparte entered the Councils, escorted by soldiers; the Ancients listened to him quietly; but the Five Hundred were in a tumult; a proposal was made to declare the general and his supporters hors la loi or outlaws; and after a stormy scene the deputies were driven from the hall by the grenadiers. In the evening a few deputies, who were in the secret of the general’s plans, met and decreed the suppression of the Directory and the creation of a provisional government, consisting of three Consuls. The three men chosen for this office were Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger Ducos. Commissions were appointed to revise the Constitution and to draw up with the Consuls new fundamental laws for the Republic. By this revolution Bonaparte practically became ruler of France, for Sieyès had no influence with the army, and Roger Ducos no influence with anybody. It was a military revolution like that of the 18th Fructidor; it was a bloodless revolution like that of the 18th Fructidor; but it differed in that, instead of establishing the power of five men, it established the power of one. And that one man was the idol of the army, and generally acknowledged to be the greatest general of France. The preponderance of Bonaparte was quickly recognised by his colleagues. ‘Who shall preside?’ said Sieyès at the first meeting of the provisional Consuls on 20th Brumaire. ‘Do you not see that the general is in the chair?’ replied Roger Ducos. And Sieyès, who was the chief epigram maker as well as the constitution-monger of the Revolution, is said to have summed up the situation with the remark to his friends on the same evening: ‘Messieurs, nous avons un maître; il sait tout, il peut tout, il veut tout.’

CHAPTER VII
1799–1804

Constitution of the Year viii.—The Consulate—The Council of State—The Tribunate—The Legislative Body—The Senate—Internal Policy of the Consulate—General Reconciliation—The Code Civil—Ministers of the Consulate—Foreign Policy of the Consulate—Russia—Prussia—The Pope—Campaign of Marengo—Campaign of Hohenlinden—Winter Campaign of Moreau and Macdonald—The Treaty of Lunéville—Arrangements in Italy—Policy and Murder of the Emperor Paul of Russia—The Neutral League of the North—Battle of Copenhagen—War between Spain and Portugal—Treaty of Badajoz—Campaign of 1801 in Egypt—Peace of Amiens between England and France—Reconstitution of Germany—Secularisation of the German ecclesiastical dominions—Reconstitution of Switzerland—Concordat between the Pope and Bonaparte—Internal Organisation of France under the Consulate—The new Departments—Annexation of Piedmont—The Préfectures—System of National Education—Constitutional Changes in France—Bonaparte First Consul for life—Recommencement of War between England and France—Causes—Position of Affairs on the Continent—Plot of Pichegru and Cadoudal—Execution of the Duc d’Enghien—Bonaparte becomes Emperor of the French—Francis ii. resigns the title of Holy Roman Emperor for that of Emperor of Austria.

The Constitution of the Year VIII.

The revolution of the 18th of Brumaire had placed supreme power in the hands of Bonaparte; that power was speedily legalised and defined in the Constitution of the Year VIII. The chief political problem was once more how to regulate the relation between the legislative and executive authorities. The Constitution of 1791, and still more that of 1793, had entirely subordinated the executive to the legislative authority; the Constitution of the Year III. (1795) had endeavoured to co-ordinate them; the Constitution of the Year VIII. (1799) entirely subordinated the legislative to the executive. It fell once more to Sieyès, one of the principal authors of the Constitutions of 1791 and 1795, as Second Provisional Consul, to define the new arrangements. His attempt at co-ordinating the two powers in the State in 1795 had failed in its operation: as was inevitable, the two authorities declined to preserve their legal relations to each other. On the 18th of Fructidor, Year V. (4th September 1797), the executive in the form of the Directory had usurped and partially destroyed the power of the Legislature, and on the 30th of Prairial, Year VII. (18th of June 1799) the Legislature had acted in the same way towards the executive. By the Constitution of the Year VIII., therefore, the executive power was frankly acknowledged to be supreme. In its details it was entirely the work of Sieyès, though his main idea—the appointment of a Grand Elector who should nominate to fill all offices, but should exercise no power—was rejected by Bonaparte. The new Constitution was soon ready; it was submitted to the primary assemblies of the people on the 14th December 1799, and was accepted by them by 3,011,107 votes against 1567, and was officially proclaimed on the 24th of December.

The Consulate.

The key-stone of the new Constitution was the Consulate. There were to be three Consuls nominated for ten years, but these officials were not to be equal in authority, as had been the case with the Directors. On the contrary, the First Consul was to be perpetual president and perpetual representative of the governing triumvirate. All administrative power was placed in his hands, and the Second and Third Consuls were little more than his chief assistants. The Consuls acting together nominated the Ministers, and also the Council of State, which was intended to be at the same time an administrative tribunal of appeal, and the originating source in matters of legislation.

The Legislature.