Bonaparte was touched to the quick by the comparison make between him and Moreau, and by the wish to represent him as foolhardy ("savants sous Moreau, fougueuse sous Buonaparte"). In the term of "brigands," applied to the generals who fought in La Vendée, he thought he recognized the hand of the party he was about to attack and overthrow. He was tired of the way in which Moreau's system of war was called "savants." But what grieved him still more was to see sitting in the councils of the nation Frenchmen who were detractors and enemies of the national glory.
He urged the Directory to arrest the emigrants, to destroy the influence of foreigners, to recall the armies, to suppress the journals sold to England, such as the 'Quotidienne', the 'Memorial', and the 'The', which he accused of being more sanguinary than Marat ever was. In case of there being no means of putting a stop to assassinations and the influence of Louis XVIII., he offered to resign.
His resolution of passing the Alps with 25,000 men and marching by Lyons and Paris was known in the capital, and discussions arose respecting the consequences of this passage of another Rubicon. On the 17th of August 1797 Carnot wrote to him: "People attribute to you a thousand absurd projects. They cannot believe that a man who has performed so many great exploits can be content to live as a private citizen." This observation applied to Bonaparte's reiterated request to be permitted to retire from the service on account of the state of his health, which, he said, disabled him from mounting his horse, and to the need which he constantly urged of having two years' rest.
The General-in-Chief was justly of opinion that the tardiness of the negotiations and the difficulties which incessantly arose were founded on the expectation of an event which would change the government of France, and render the chances of peace more favourable to Austria. He still urgently recommended the arrest of the emigrants, the stopping of the presses of the royalist journals, which he said were sold to England and Austria, the suppression of the Clichy Club. This club was held at the residence of Gerard Desodieres, in the Rue de Clichy. Aubry, was one of its warmest partisans, and he was the avowed enemy of the revolutionary cause which Bonaparte advocated at this period. Aubry's conduct at this time, together with the part he had taken in provoking Bonaparte's dismissal in 1795, inspired the General with an implacable hatred of him.
Bonaparte despised the Directory, which he accused of weakness, indecision, pusillanimity, wasteful expenditure, of many errors, and perseverance in a system degrading to the national glory.
—[The Directory merited those accusations. The following sketches
of two of their official sittings present a singular contrast:
"At the time that the Directory were first installed in the
Luxembourg (27th October 1795)." says M. Baileul, "there was hardly
a single article of furniture in it. In a small room, round a
little broken table, one of the legs of which had given way from
age, on which table they had deposited a quire of letter-paper, and
a writing desk 'a calamet', which luckily they had had the
precaution to bring with them from the Committee of Public safety,
seated on four rush-bottomed chairs, in front of some logs of wood
ill-lighted, the whole borrowed from the porter Dupont; who would
believe that it was in this deplorable condition that the member's
of the new Government, after having examined all the difficulties,
nay, let me add, all the horrors of their situation, resolved to
confront all obstacles, and that they would either deliver France
from the abyss in which she was plunged or perish in the attempt?
They drew up on a sheet of letter-paper the act by which they
declared themselves constituted, and immediately forwarded it to the
Legislative Bodies."
And the Comte de La Vallette, writing to M. Cuvillier Fleury, says:
"I saw our five kings, dressed in the robes of Francis I., his hat,
his pantaloons, and his lace: the face of La Reveilliere looked like
a cork upon two pins, with the black and greasy hair of Clodion. M.
de Talleyrand, in pantaloons of the colour of wine dregs, sat in a
folding chair at the feet of the Director Barras, in the Court of
the Petit Luxembourg, and gravely presented to his sovereigns as
ambassador from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the French were
eating his master's dinner, from the soup to the cheese. At the
right hand there were fifty musicians and singers of the Opera,
Laine, Lays, Regnault, and the actresses, not all dead of old age,
roaring a patriotic cantata to the music of Mehul. Facing them, on
another elevation, there were two hundred young and beautiful women,
with their arms and bosoms bare, all in ecstasy at the majesty of
our Pentarchy and the happiness of the Republic. They also wore
tight flesh-coloured pantaloons, with rings on their toes. That was
a sight that never will be seen again. A fortnight after this
magnificent fete, thousands of families wept over their banished
fathers, forty-eight departments were deprived of their
representatives, and forty editors of newspapers were forced to go
and drink the waters of the Elbe, the Synamary or the Ohio! It
would be a curious disquisition to seek to discover what really were
at that time the Republic and Liberty.">[
He knew that the Clichy party demanded his dismissal and arrest. He was given to understand that Dumolard was one of the most decided against him, and that, finally, the royalist party was on the point of triumphing.
Before deciding for one party or the other Bonaparte first thought of himself. He did not imagine that he had yet achieved enough to venture on possessing himself of that power which certainly he might easily have obtained. He therefore contented himself with joining the party which was, for the moment, supported by public opinion. I know he was determined to march upon Paris with 25,000 men had affairs taken a turn unfavourable to the Republic, which he preferred to royalty. He cautiously formed his plan. To defend the Directory was, he conceived, to defend his own future fortune; that is to say, it was protecting a power which appeared to have no other object than to keep a place for him until his return.
The parties which rose up in Paris produced a reaction in the army. The employment of the word 'Monsieur' had occasioned quarrels, and even bloodshed. General Augereau, in whose division these contests had taken place, published an order of the day, setting forth that every individual in his division who should use the word 'Monsieur', either verbally or in writing, under any pretence whatever, should be deprived of his rank, and declared incapable of serving in the Republican armies. This order was read at the head of each company.
Bonaparte viewed the establishment of peace as the close of his military career. Repose and inactivity were to him unbearable. He sought to take part in the civil affairs of the Republic, and was desirous of becoming one of the five Directors, convinced that, if he obtained that object, he would speedily stand single and alone. The fulfilment of this wish would have prevented the Egyptian expedition, and placed the imperial crown much sooner upon his head. Intrigues were carried on in Paris in his name, with the view of securing to him a legal dispensation on the score of age. He hoped, though he was but eight-and-twenty, to supersede one of the two Directors who were to go out of office.