“Every one desires a more central government,” said Napoleon to his brother Joseph. “Our dreams of a republic are the illusions of youth. Since the 9th Thermidor the republican party has dwindled away more and more; the efforts of the Bourbons and the foreigners, coupled with the memories of ‘93, have called forth against the republican system an imposing majority. If it had not been for the 13th Vendemiaire and the 18th Fructidor, this majority would long ago have won the ascendency; the weaknesses, the imperiousness of the Directory, have done the rest. To-day the people are turning their hopes toward me, to-morrow it will be toward some one else.”
Bonaparte did not wish to wait until to-morrow. He had made all his preparations; he had made sure of his generals and officers; he knew also that the soldiers were for him, and that it required but a signal from him to bring about the catastrophe.
He gave the signal by inviting on the 18th Brumaire, to a dejeuner in his house, all his confidants and friends, all the generals and superior officers, and also the commanding general of the National Guards. Nearly all of them came at this invitation; only General Bernadotte kept aloof, as he perceived that the breakfast had other objects than to converse and to eat. Sieyes and Ducos were the only directors who made their appearance; Gohier, that morning, had sent to Bonaparte an invitation to dinner, so as to deceive the more securely him whom he knew was his enemy; Barras and Moulins, suspecting Bonaparte’s schemes, remained in the background, silently awaiting the result.
While the guests were assembling in Bonaparte’s house, and filling all the space in it, a friend and confidant of Bonaparte, in the Council of the Elders, made the following motion: “In consideration of the intense political excitement which prevails in Paris, it is necessary to remove the sessions to St. Cloud, and to give to General Bonaparte the supreme command of the troops.”
After a violent debate, the motion was suddenly adopted; and, when it was brought to Bonaparte, he saw that the moment for action had come.
He told all those about him that at last the time was at hand to restore to France rest and peace, that he was decided to do this, and he called upon them to follow him. Every one was ready, and, surrounded by a brilliant suite, Bonaparte went first to the Council of the Elders, to express his thanks for his nomination, and solemnly to swear that he would adopt every measure necessary to save the country.
Immediately after this he went to the Tuileries to hold a review of the troops stationed there. The soldiers and the people, who had streamed thither in masses to see him, received him with loud acclamations, assuring him of their loyalty and devotedness.
No one this day rose in favor of the deputies, no one seemed to desire that their sittings should as heretofore take place in Paris, nor to think that force would have to be used to remove them.
The palace of Luxemburg, in which their sittings had hitherto taken place, and St. Cloud, in which they were to meet in the future, were both, by orders of Bonaparte, surrounded with troops, and the deputies as well as the Council of the Elders adjourned that very day to St. Cloud.
Moulins and Gohier alone had the courage to offer opposition, and, in a letter to the Council of the Elders, to describe Bonaparte as a criminal, who threatened the republic, and to demand of them his arrest; and also that they should immediately decree that the republic was in danger, and that it must be defended with all energy. But this letter fell into Bonaparte’s hands; and the directors, when they saw that their request was unheeded, resigned, as Barras had done.