The joy of the people, who at that day certainly preferred a hero to suffrage, was spontaneous and sincere. His journey from the coast to Paris was a triumphal march. Le retour du héros was the word in everybody’s mouth. On every side the people cried: “You alone can save the country. It is perishing without you. Take the reins of government.”
At Paris he found the government waiting to be overthrown. “A brain and a sword” was all that was needed to carry out a coup d’état organized while he was still in Africa. Everybody recognized him as the man for the hour. A large part of the military force in Paris was devoted to him. His two brothers, Lucien and Joseph, were in positions of influence, the former president of the Five Hundred, as one of the two chambers was called. All that was most distinguished in the political, military, legal, and artistic circles of Paris rallied to him. Among the men who supported him were Talleyrand, Sieyès, Chénier, Roederer, Monge, Cambacérès, Moreau, Berthier, Murat.
On the 18th Brumaire (the 9th of November), 1799, the plot culminated, and Napoleon was recognized as the temporary Dictator of France.
The private sorrow to which Napoleon returned, was as great as the public glory. During the campaign in Egypt he had learned beyond a doubt that Josephine’s coquetry had become open folly, and that a young officer, Hippolyte Charles, whom he had dismissed from the Army of Italy two years before, was installed at Malmaison. The liaison was so scandalous that Gohier, the president of the Directory, advised Josephine to get a divorce from Napoleon and marry Charles.
These rumors reached Egypt, and Napoleon, in despair, even talked them over with Eugène de Beauharnais. The boy defended his mother, and for a time succeeded in quieting Napoleon’s resentment. At last, however, he learned in a talk with Junot that the gossip was true. He lost all control of himself, and declared he would have a divorce. The idea was abandoned, but the love and reverence he had given Josephine were dead. From that time she had no empire over his heart, no power to inspire him to action or to enthusiasm.
When he landed in France from Egypt, Josephine, foreseeing a storm, started out to meet him at Lyons. Unfortunately she took one road and Napoleon another, and when he reached Paris at six o’clock in the morning he found no one at home. When Josephine arrived Napoleon refused to see her, and it was three days before he relented. Then his forgiveness was due to the intercession of Hortense and Eugène, to both of whom he was warmly attached.
But if he consented to pardon, he could never give again the passionate affection which he once had felt for her. He ceased to be a lover, and became a commonplace, tolerant, indulgent, bourgeois husband, upon whom his wife, in matters of importance, had no influence. Josephine was hereafter the suppliant, but she never regained the noble kingdom she had despised.
Napoleon’s domestic sorrow weakened in no way his activity and vigor in public affairs. He realized that, if he would keep his place in the hearts and confidence of the people, he must do something to show his strength, and peace was the gift he proposed to make to the nation. When he returned he found a civil war raging in La Vendée. Before February he had ended it. All over France brigandage had made life and property uncertain. It was stopped by his new régime.
Two foreign enemies only remained at war with France—Austria and England. He offered them peace. It was refused. Nothing remained but to compel it. The Austrians were first engaged. They had two armies in the field; one on the Rhine, against which Moreau was sent, the other in Italy—now lost to France—besieging the French shut up in Genoa.
