In some respects the constitution which the Convention voted in August, 1795, was skilfully adapted to meet the needs of the time. Though democratic in spirit, it granted a vote only to those citizens who had resided for a year in some dwelling and had paid taxes, thus excluding the rabble who had proved to be dangerous to any settled government. It also checked the hasty legislation which had brought ridicule on successive National Assemblies. In order to moderate the zeal for the manufacture of decrees, which had often exceeded one hundred a month, a second or revising chamber was now to be formed on the basis of age; for it had been found that the younger the deputies the faster came forth the fluttering flocks of decrees, that often came home to roost in the guise of curses. A senatorial guillotine, it was now proposed, should thin out the fledglings before they flew abroad at all. Of the seven hundred and fifty deputies of France, the two hundred and fifty oldest men were to form the Council of Ancients, having powers to amend or reject the proposals emanating from the Council of Five Hundred. In this Council were the younger deputies, and with them rested the sole initiation of laws. Thus the young deputies were to make the laws, but the older deputies were to amend or reject them; and this nice adjustment of the characteristics of youth and age, a due blending of enthusiasm with caution, promised to invigorate the body politic and yet guard its vital interests. Lastly, in order that the two Councils should continuously represent the feelings of France, one third of their members must retire for re-election every year, a device which promised to prevent any violent change in their composition, such as might occur if, at the end of their three years' membership, all were called upon to resign at once.
But the real crux of constitution builders had hitherto been in the relations of the Legislature to the Executive. How should the brain of the body politic, that is, the Legislature, be connected with the hand, that is, the Executive? Obviously, so argued all French political thinkers, the two functions were distinct and must be kept separate. The results of this theory of the separation of powers were clearly traceable in the course of the Revolution. When the hand had been left almost powerless, as in 1791-2, owing to democratic jealousy of the royal Ministry, the result had been anarchy. The supreme needs of the State in the agonies of 1793 had rendered the hand omnipotent: the Convention, that is, the brain, was for some time powerless before its own instrument, the two secret committees. Experience now showed that the brain must exercise a general control over the hand, without unduly hampering its actions. Evidently, then, the deputies of France must intrust the details of administration to responsible Ministers, though some directing agency seemed needed as a spur to energy and a check against royalist plots. In brief, the Committee of Public Safety, purged of its more dangerous powers, was to furnish the model for a new body of five members, termed the Directory. This organism, which was to give its name to the whole period 1795-1799, was not the Ministry. There was no Ministry as we now use the term. There were Ministers who were responsible individually for their departments of State: but they never met for deliberation, or communicated with the Legislature; they were only heads of departments, who were responsible individually to the Directors. These five men formed a powerful committee, deliberating in private on the whole policy of the State and on all the work of the Ministers. The Directory had not, it is true, the right of initiating laws and of arbitrary arrest which the two committees had freely exercised during the Terror. Its dependence on the Legislature seemed also to be guaranteed by the Directors being appointed by the two legislative Councils; while one of the five was to vacate his office for re-election every year. But in other respects the directorial powers were almost as extensive as those wielded by the two secret committees, or as those which Bonaparte was to inherit from the Directory in 1799. They comprised the general control of policy in peace and war, the right to negotiate treaties (subject to ratification by the legislative councils), to promulgate laws voted by the Councils and watch over their execution, and to appoint or dismiss the Ministers of State.
Such was the constitution which was proclaimed on September 22nd, 1795, or 1st Vendémiaire, Year IV., of the revolutionary calendar. An important postscript to the original constitution now excited fierce commotions which enabled the young officer to repair his own shattered fortunes. The Convention, terrified at the thought of a general election, which might send up a malcontent or royalist majority, decided to impose itself on France for at least two years longer. With an effrontery unparalleled in parliamentary annals, it decreed that the law of the new constitution, requiring the re-election of one-third of the deputies every year, should now be applied to itself; and that the rest of its members should sit in the forthcoming Councils. At once a cry of disgust and rage arose from all who were weary of the Convention and all its works. "Down with the two-thirds!" was the cry that resounded through the streets of Paris. The movement was not so much definitely royalist as vaguely malcontent. The many were enraged by the existing dearth and by the failure of the Revolution to secure even cheap bread. Doubtless the royalists strove to drive on the discontent to the desired goal, and in many parts they tinged the movement with an unmistakably Bourbon tint. But it is fairly certain that in Paris they could not alone have fomented a discontent so general as that of Vendémiaire. That they would have profited by the defeat of the Convention is, however, equally certain. The history of the Revolution proves that those who at first merely opposed the excesses of the Jacobins gradually drifted over to the royalists. The Convention now found itself attacked in the very city which had been the chosen abode of Liberty and Equality. Some thirty thousand of the Parisian National Guards were determined to give short shrift to this Assembly that clung so indecently to life; and as the armies were far away, the Parisian malcontents seemed masters of the situation. Without doubt they would have been but for their own precipitation and the energy of Buonaparte.
But how came he to receive the military authority which was so potently to influence the course of events? We left him in Fructidor disgraced: we find him in the middle of Vendémiaire leading part of the forces of the Convention. This bewildering change was due to the pressing needs of the Republic, to his own signal abilities, and to the discerning eye of Barras, whose career claims a brief notice.
Paul Barras came of a Provençal family, and had an adventurous life both on land and in maritime expeditions. Gifted with a robust frame, consummate self-assurance, and a ready tongue, he was well equipped for intrigues, both amorous and political, when the outbreak of the Revolution gave his thoughts a more serious turn. Espousing the ultra-democratic side, he yet contrived to emerge unscathed from the schisms which were fatal to less dextrous trimmers. He was present at the siege of Toulon, and has striven in his "Mémoires" to disparage Buonaparte's services and exalt his own. At the crisis of Thermidor the Convention intrusted him with the command of the "army of the interior," and the energy which he then displayed gained for him the same position in the equally critical days of Vendémiaire. Though he subsequently carped at the conduct of Buonaparte, his action proved his complete confidence in that young officer's capacity: he at once sent for him, and intrusted him with most important duties. Herein lies the chief chance of immortality for the name of Barras; not that, as a terrorist, he slaughtered royalists at Toulon; not that he was the military chief of the Thermidorians, who, from fear of their own necks, ended the supremacy of Robespierre; not even that he degraded the new régime by a cynical display of all the worst vices of the old; but rather because he was now privileged to hold the stirrup for the great captain who vaulted lightly into the saddle.
The present crisis certainly called for a man of skill and determination. The malcontents had been emboldened by the timorous actions of General Menou, who had previously been intrusted with the task of suppressing the agitation. Owing to a praiseworthy desire to avoid bloodshed, that general wasted time in parleying with the most rebellious of the "sections" of Paris. The Convention now appointed Barras to the command, while Buonaparte, Brune, Carteaux, Dupont, Loison, Vachot, and Vézu were charged to serve under him.[32] Such was the decree of the Convention, which therefore refutes Napoleon's later claim that he was in command, and that of his admirers that he was second in command.
Yet, intrusted from the outset by Barras with important duties, he unquestionably became the animating spirit of the defence. "From the first," says Thiébault, "his activity was astonishing: he seemed to be everywhere at once: he surprised people by his laconic, clear, and prompt orders: everybody was struck by the vigour of his arrangements, and passed from admiration to confidence, from confidence to enthusiasm." Everything now depended on skill and enthusiasm. The defenders of the Convention, comprising some four or five thousand troops of the line, and between one and two thousand patriots, gendarmes, and Invalides, were confronted by nearly thirty thousand National Guards. The odds were therefore wellnigh as heavy as those which menaced Louis XVI. on the day of his final overthrow. But the place of the yielding king was now filled by determined men, who saw the needs of the situation. In the earlier scenes of the Revolution, Buonaparte had pondered on the efficacy of artillery in street-fighting—a fit subject for his geometrical genius. With a few cannon, he knew that he could sweep all the approaches to the palace; and, on Barras' orders, he despatched a dashing cavalry officer, Murat—a name destined to become famous from Madrid to Moscow—to bring the artillery from the neighbouring camp of Sablons. Murat secured them before the malcontents of Paris could lay hands on them; and as the "sections" of Paris had yielded up their own cannon after the affrays of May, they now lacked the most potent force in street-fighting. Their actions were also paralyzed by divided counsels: their commander, an old general named Danican, moved his men hesitatingly; he wasted precious minutes in parleying, and thus gave time to Barras' small but compact force to fight them in detail. Buonaparte had skilfully disposed his cannon to bear on the royalist columns that threatened the streets north of the Tuileries. But for some time the two parties stood face to face, seeking to cajole or intimidate one another. As the autumn afternoon waned, shots were fired from some houses near the church of St. Roch, where the malcontents had their headquarters.[33] At once the streets became the scene of a furious fight; furious but unequal; for Buonaparte's cannon tore away the heads of the malcontent columns. In vain did the royalists pour in their volleys from behind barricades, or from the neighbouring houses: finally they retreated on the barricaded church, or fled down the Rue St. Honoré. Meanwhile their bands from across the river, 5,000 strong, were filing across the bridges, and menaced the Tuileries from that side, until here also they melted away before the grapeshot and musketry poured into their front and flank. By six o'clock the conflict was over. The fight presents few, if any, incidents which are authentic. The well-known engraving of Helman, which shows Buonaparte directing the storming of the church of St. Roch is unfortunately quite incorrect. He was not engaged there, but in the streets further east: the church was not stormed: the malcontents held it all through the night, and quietly surrendered it next morning.
Such was the great day of Vendémiaire. It cost the lives of about two hundred on each side; at least, that is the usual estimate, which seems somewhat incongruous with the stories of fusillading and cannonading at close quarters, until we remember that it is the custom of memoir-writers and newspaper editors to trick out the details of a fight, and in the case of civil warfare to minimise the bloodshed. Certainly the Convention acted with clemency in the hour of victory: two only of the rebel leaders were put to death; and it is pleasing to remember that when Menou was charged with treachery, Buonaparte used his influence to procure his freedom.
Bourrienne states that in his later days the victor deeply regretted his action in this day of Vendémiaire. The assertion seems incredible. The "whiff of grapeshot" crushed a movement which could have led only to present anarchy, and probably would have brought France back to royalism of an odious type. It taught a severe lesson to a fickle populace which, according to Mme. de Staël, was hungering for the spoils of place as much as for any political object. Of all the events of his post-Corsican life, Buonaparte need surely never have felt compunctions for Vendémiaire.[34]
After four signal reverses in his career, he now enters on a path strewn with glories. The first reward for his signal services to the Republic was his appointment to be second in command of the army of the interior; and when Barras resigned the first command, he took that responsible post. But more brilliant honours were soon to follow, the first of a social character, the second purely military.