The members of the Commission of Eleven, who, previously to the events of Prairial, had no other mission than to prepare the organic laws of the constitution of '93, and who, after those events, made the constitution of the year III., were at the head of the conventional party. This party neither belonged to the old Gironde nor to the old Mountain. Neutral up to the 31st of May, subject till the 9th Thermidor, it had been in the possession of power since that period, because the twofold defeat of the Girondists and the Mountain had left it the strongest. The men of the extreme sides, who had begun the fusion of parties, joined it. Merlin de Douai represented the party of that mass which had yielded to circumstances, Thibaudeau, the party that continued inactive, and Daunou, the courageous party. The latter had declared himself opposed to all coups-d'état, ever since the opening of the assembly, both the 21st of January, and to the 31st of May, because he wished for the régime of the convention, without party violence and measures. After the 9th Thermidor, he blamed the fury displayed towards the chiefs of the revolutionary government, whose victim he had been, as one of the seventy-three. He had obtained great ascendancy, as men gradually approached towards a legal system. His enlightened attachment to the revolution, his noble independence, the solidity and extent of his ideas, and his imperturbable fortitude, rendered him one of the most influential actors of this period. He was the chief author of the constitution of the year III., and the convention deputed him, with some others of its members, to undertake the defence of the republic, during the crisis of Vendémiaire.
The reaction gradually increased; it was indirectly favoured by the members of the Right, who, since the opening of that assembly, had only been incidentally republican. They were not prepared to repel the attacks of the royalists with the same energy as that of the revolutionists. Among this number were Boissy d'Anglas, Lanjuinais, Henri La Rivière, Saladin, Aubry, etc.; they formed in the assembly the nucleus of the sectionary party. Old and ardent members of the Mountain, such as Rovère, Bourdon de l'Oise, etc., carried away by the counter-revolutionary movement, suffered the reaction to be prolonged, doubtless in order to make their peace with those whom they had so violently combated.
But the conventional party, reassured with respect to the democrats, set itself to prevent the triumph of the royalists. It felt that the safety of the republic depended on the formation of the councils, and that the councils being elected by the middle class, which was directed by royalists, would be composed on counter-revolutionary principles. It was important to entrust the guardianship of the régime they were about to establish to those who had an interest in defending it. In order to avoid the error of the constituent assembly, which had excluded itself from the legislature that succeeded it, the convention decided by a decree, that two-thirds of its members should be re-elected. By this means it secured the majority of the councils and the nomination of the directory; it could accompany its constitution into the state, and consolidate it without violence. This re-election of two-thirds was not exactly legal, but it was politic, and the only means of saving France from the rule of the democrats or counter-revolutionists. The convention granted itself a moderate dictatorship, by the decrees of the 5th and 13th Fructidor (22nd and 30th of August, 1795), one of which established the re-election, and the other fixed the manner of it. But these two exceptional decrees were submitted to the ratification of the primary assemblies, at the same time as the constitutional act.
The royalist party was taken by surprise by the decrees of Fructidor. It hoped to form part of the government by the councils, of the councils by elections, and to effect a change of system when once in power. It inveighed against the convention. The royalist committee of Paris, whose agent was an obscure man, named Lemaître, the journalists, and the leaders of the sections coalesced. They had no difficulty in securing the support of public opinion, of which they were the only organs; they accused the convention of perpetuating its power, and of assailing the sovereignty of the people. The chief advocates of the two-thirds, Louvet, Daunou, and Chénier, were not spared, and every preparation was made for a grand movement. The Faubourg Saint Germain, lately almost deserted, gradually filled; emigrants flocked in, and the conspirators, scarcely concealing their plans, adopted the Chouan uniform.
The convention, perceiving the storm increase, sought support in the army, which, at that time, was the republican class, and a camp was formed at Paris. The people had been disbanded, and the royalists had secured the bourgeoisie. In the meantime, the primary assemblies met on the 20th Fructidor, to deliberate on the constitutional act, and the decrees of the two-thirds, which were to be accepted or rejected together. The Lepelletier section (formerly Filles Saint Thomas) was the centre of all the others. On a motion made by that section, it was decided that the power of all constituent authority ceased in the presence of the assembled people. The Lepelletier section, directed by Richer-Sérizy, La Harpe, Lacretelle junior, Vaublanc, etc., turned its attention to the organization of the insurrectional government, under the name of the central committee. This committee was to replace in Vendémiaire, against the convention, the committee of the 10th of August against the throne, and of the 31st of May against the Girondists. The majority of the sections adopted this measure, which was annulled by the convention, whose decree was in its turn rejected by the majority of the sections. The struggle now became open; and in Paris they separated the constitutional act, which was adopted, from the decrees of re-election, which were rejected.
On the 1st Vendémiaire, the convention proclaimed the acceptance of the decrees by the greater number of the primary assemblies of France. The sections assembled again to nominate the electors who were to choose the members of the legislature. On the 10th they determined that the electors should assemble in the Théâtre Français (it was then on the other side of the bridges); that they should be accompanied there by the armed force of the sections, after having sworn to defend them till death. On the 11th, accordingly, the electors assembled under the presidency of the duc de Nivernois, and the guard of some detachments of chasseurs and grenadiers.
The convention, apprised of the danger, sat permanently, stationed round its place of sitting the troops of the camp of Sablons, and concentrated its powers in a committee of five members, who were entrusted with all measures of public safety. These members were Colombel, Barras, Daunou, Letourneur, and Merlin de Douai. For some time the revolutionists had ceased to be feared, and all had been liberated who had been imprisoned for the events of Prairial. They enrolled, under the name of Battalion of Patriots of '89, about fifteen or eighteen hundred of them, who had been proceeded against, in the departments or in Paris, by the friends of the reaction. In the evening of the 11th, the convention sent to dissolve the assembly of electors by force, but they had already adjourned to the following day.
During the night of the 11th, the decree which dissolved the college of electors, and which armed the battalion of patriots of '89, caused the greatest agitation. Drums beat to arms; the Lepelletier section declaimed against the despotism of the convention, against the return of the Reign of Terror, and during the whole of the 12th prepared the other sections for the contest. In the evening, the convention, scarcely less agitated, decided on taking the initiative, by surrounding the conspiring section, and terminating the crisis by disarming it. Menou, general of the interior, and Laporte the representative, were entrusted with this mission. The convent of the Filles Saint Thomas was the headquarters of the sectionaries, before which they had seven or eight hundred men in battle array. These were surrounded by superior forces, from the Boulevards on each side, and the Rue Vivienne opposite. Instead of disarming them, the leaders of the expedition began to parley. Both parties agreed to withdraw; but the conventional troops had no sooner retired than the sectionaries returned reinforced. This was a complete victory for them, which being exaggerated in Paris, as such things always are, increased their number, and gave them courage to attack the convention the next day.
About eleven at night the convention learned the issue of the expedition and the dangerous effect which it had produced; it immediately dismissed Menou, and gave the command of the armed force to Barras, the general in command on the 9th Thermidor. Barras asked the committee of five to appoint as his second in command, a young officer who had distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon, but had been dismissed by Aubry of the reaction party; a young man of talent and resolution, calculated to do good service to the republic in a moment of peril. This young officer was Bonaparte. He appeared before the committee, but there was nothing in his appearance that announced his astonishing destiny. Not a man of party, summoned for the first time to this great scene of action, his demeanour exhibited a timidity and a want of assurance, which disappeared entirely in the preparations for battle, and in the heat of action. He immediately sent for the artillery of the camp of Sablons, and disposed them, with the five thousand men of the conventional army, on all the points from which the convention could be assailed. At noon on the 13th Vendémiaire, the enclosure of the convention had the appearance of a fortified place, which could only be taken by assault. The line of defence extended, on the left side of the Tuileries along the river, from the Pont Neuf to the Pont Louis XV.; on the right, in all the small streets opening on the Rue Saint Honoré, from the Rues de Rohan, de l'Échelle and the Cul-de-sac Dauphin, to the Place de la Révolution. In front, the Louvre, the Jardin de l'Infante, and the Carrousel were planted with cannon; and behind, the Pont Tournant and the Place de la Révolution formed a park of reserve. In this position the convention awaited the insurgents.
The latter soon encompassed it on several points. They had about forty thousand men under arms, commanded by generals Danican, Duhoux, and the ex-garde-du-corps Lafond. The thirty-two sections which formed the majority, had supplied their military contingent. Of the other sixteen, several sections of the faubourgs had their troops in the battalion of '89. A few, those of the Quinze-vingts and Montreuil, sent assistance during the action; others, though favourably disposed, as that of Popincourt, could not do so; and lastly, others remained neutral, like that of L'Indivisibilité. From two to three o'clock, general Carteaux, who occupied the Pont Neuf with four hundred men and two four-pounders, was surrounded by several columns of sectionaries, who obliged him to retire on the Louvre. This advantage emboldened the insurgents, who were strong on all points. General Danican summoned the convention to withdraw its troops, and disarm the terrorists. The officer entrusted with the summons was led into the assembly blindfold, and his message occasioned some agitation, several members declaring in favour of conciliatory measures. Boissy d'Anglas advised a conference with Danican; Gamon proposed a proclamation in which they should call upon the citizens to retire, promising then to disarm the battalion of '89. This address excited violent murmurs. Chénier rushed to the tribune. "I am surprised," said he, "that the demands of sections in a state of revolt should be discussed here. Negotiation must not be heard of; there is only victory or death for the national convention." Lanjuinais wished to support the address, by dwelling on the danger and misery of civil war; but the convention would not hear him, and on the motion of Fermond, passed to the order of the day. The debates respecting measures of peace or war with the sections were continued for some time, when, about half-past four several discharges of musketry were heard, which put an end to all discussion. Seven hundred guns were brought in, and the convention took arms as a body of reserve.