Sieyès, after the success of the 30th Prairial, laboured to destroy what yet remained of the government of the year III., in order to establish the legal system on another plan. He was whimsical and systematic; but he had the faculty of judging surely of situations. He re-entered upon the scene of the revolution of a singular epoch, with the intention of strengthening it by a definitive constitution. After having co-operated in the principal changes of 1789, by his motion of the 17 of June, which transformed the states-general into a national assembly, and by his plan of internal organization, which substituted departments for provinces, he had remained passive and silent during the subsequent interval. He waited till the period of public defence should again give place to institutions. Appointed, under the directory, to the embassy at Berlin, the neutrality of Prussia was attributed to his efforts. On his return, he accepted the office of director, hitherto refused by him, because Rewbell was leaving the government, and he thought that parties were sufficiently weary to undertake a definitive pacification, and the establishment of liberty. With this object, he placed his reliance on Roger-Ducos in the directory, on the council of ancients in the legislature, and without, on the mass of moderate men and the middle-class, who, after desiring laws, merely as a novelty, now desired repose as a novelty. This party sought for a strong and secure government, which should have no past, no enmities, and which thenceforward might satisfy all opinions and interests. As all that had been dene, from the 14th of July till the 9th Thermidor, by the people, in connexion with a part of the government, had been done since the 13th Vendémiaire by the soldiers, Sieyès was in want of a general. He cast his eyes upon Joubert, who was put at the head of the army of Italy, in order that he might gain by his victories, and by the deliverance of Italy, a great political importance.
The constitution of the year III. was, however, still supported by the two directors, Gohier and Moulins, the council of five hundred, and without, by the party of the Manège. The decided republicans had formed a club that held its sittings in that hall where had sat the first of our assemblies. The new club, formed from the remains of that of Salm, before the 18th Fructidor; of that of the Panthéon, at the beginning of the directory; and of the old society of the Jacobins, enthusiastically professed republican principles, but not the democratic opinions of the inferior class. Each of these parties also had a share in the ministry which had been renewed at the same time as the directory. Cambacérès had the department of justice; Quinette, the home department; Reinhard, who had been temporarily placed in office during the ministerial interregnum of Talleyrand, was minister of foreign affairs; Robert Lindet was minister of finance, Bourdon (of Vatry) of the navy, Bernadotte of war, Bourguignon, soon afterwards replaced by Fouché (of Nantes), of police.
This time Barras remained neutral between the two divisions of the legislature, of the directory and of the ministry. Seeing that matters were coming to a more considerable change than that of the 30th Prairial, he, an ex-noble, thought that the decline of the republic would lead to the restoration of the Bourbons, and he treated with the Pretender Louis XVIII. It seems that, in negotiating the restoration of the monarchy by his agent, David Monnier, he was not forgetful of himself. Barras espoused nothing from conviction, and always sided with the party which had the greatest chance of victory. A democratic member of the Mountain on the 31st of May; a reactionary member of the Mountain on the 9th Thermidor; a revolutionary director against the royalists on the 18th Fructidor; extreme republican director against his old colleagues on the 30th Prairial; he now became a royalist director against the government of the year III.
The faction disconcerted by the 18th Fructidor and the peace of the Continent, had also gained courage. The military successes of the new coalition, the law of compulsory loans and that of hostages, which had compelled every emigrant family to give guarantees to government, had made the royalists of the south and west again take up arms. They reappeared in bands, which daily became more formidable, and revived the petty but disastrous warfare of the Chouans. They awaited the arrival of the Russians, and looked forward to the speedy restoration of the monarchy. This was a moment of fresh competition with every party. Each aspired to the inheritance of the dying constitution, as they had done at the close of the convention. In France, people are warned by a kind of political odour that a government is dying, and all parties rush to be in at the death.
Fortunately for the republic, the war changed its aspect on the two principal frontiers of the Upper and Lower Rhine. The allies, after having acquired Italy, wished to enter France by Switzerland and Holland; but generals Masséna and Brune arrested their hitherto victorious progress. Masséna advanced against Korsakov and Suvorov. During twelve days of great combinations and consecutive victories, hastening in turns from Constance to Zurich, he repelled the efforts of the Russians, forced them to retreat, and disorganized the coalition. Brune also defeated the duke of York in Holland, obliged him to re-embark, and to renounce his attempted invasion. The army of Italy alone had been less fortunate. It had lost its general, Joubert, killed at the battle of Novi, while leading a charge on the Austro-Russians. But this frontier, which was at a distance from the centre of action, despite the defeat of Novi, was not crossed, and Championnet ably defended it. It was soon to be repassed by the republican troops, who, after each resumption of arms, having been for a moment beaten, soon regained their superiority and recommenced their victories. Europe, by giving additional exercise to the military power, by its repeated attacks, rendered it each time more triumphant.
But at home nothing was changed. Divisions, discontent, and anxiety were the same as before. The struggle between the moderate republicans and the extreme republicans had become more determined. Sieyès pursued his projects against the latter. In the Champ-de-Mars, on the 10th of August, he assailed the Jacobins. Lucien Bonaparte, who had much influence in the council of five hundred, from his character, his talents, and the military importance of the conqueror of Italy and of Egypt, drew in that assembly a fearful picture of the reign of terror, and said that France was threatened with its return. About the same time, Sieyès caused Bernadotte to be dismissed, and Fouché, in concert with him, closed the meetings of the Manège. The multitude, to whom it is only necessary to present the phantom of the past to inspire it with fear, sided with the moderate party, dreading the return of the reign of terror; and the extreme republicans failed in their endeavour to declare la patrie en danger, as they had done at the close of the legislative assembly. But Sieyès, after having lost Joubert, sought for a general who could enter into his designs, and who would protect the republic, without becoming its oppressor. Hoche had been dead more than a year. Moreau had given rise to suspicion by his equivocal conduct to the directory before the 18th Fructidor, and by the sudden denunciation of his old friend Pichegru, whose treason he had kept secret for a whole year; Masséna was not a political general; Bernadotte and Jourdan were devoted to the party of the Manège; Sieyès was compelled to postpone his scheme for want of a suitable agent.
Bonaparte had learned in the east, from his brother Lucien and a few other friends, the state of affairs in France, and the decline of the directorial government. His expedition had been brilliant, but without results. After having defeated the Mamelukes, and ruined their power in Upper and Lower Egypt, he had advanced into Syria; but the failure of the siege of Acre had compelled him to return to his first conquest. There, after defeating an Ottoman army on the coast of Aboukir, so fatal to the French fleet the preceding year, he decided on leaving that land of exile and fame, in order to turn the new crisis in France to his own elevation. He left general Kléber to command the army of the east, and crossed the Mediterranean, then covered with English ships, in a frigate. He disembarked at Fréjus, on the 7th Vendémiaire, year VIII. (9th October, 1799), nineteen days after the battle of Berghen, gained by Brune over the Anglo-Russians under the duke of York, and fourteen days after that of Zurich, gained by Masséna over the Austro-Russians under Korsakov and Suvorov. He traversed France, from the shore of the Mediterranean to Paris, in triumph. His expedition, almost fabulous, had struck the public mind with surprise, and had still more increased the great renown he had acquired by the conquest of Italy. These two enterprises had raised him above all the other generals of the republic. The distance of the theatre upon which he had fought enabled him to begin his career of independence and authority. A victorious general, an acknowledged and obeyed negotiator, a creator of republics, he had treated all interests with skill, all creeds with moderation. Preparing afar off his ambitious destiny, he had not made himself subservient to any system, and had managed all parties so as to work his elevation with their assent. He had entertained this idea of usurpation since his victories in Italy. On the 18th Fructidor, had the directory been conquered by the councils, he purposed marching against the latter with his army and seizing the protectorate of the republic. After the 18th Fructidor; finding the directory too powerful, and the inactivity of the continent too dangerous for him, he accepted the expedition to Egypt, that he might not fall, and might not be forgotten. At the news of the disorganization of the directory, on the 30th Prairial, he repaired with haste to the scene of events.
His arrival excited the enthusiasm of the moderate masses of the nation. He received general congratulations, and every party contended for his favour. Generals, directors, deputies, and even the republicans of the Manège, waited on and tried to sound him. Fêtes and banquets were given in his honour. His manners were grave, simple, cool, and observing; he had already a tone of condescending familiarity and involuntary habits of command. Notwithstanding his want of earnestness and openness, he had an air of self-possession, and it was easy to read in him an after-thought of conspiracy. Without uttering his design, he allowed it to be guessed; because a thing must always be expected in order to be accomplished. He could not seek supporters in the republicans of the Manège, as they neither wished for a coup-d'état nor for a dictator; and Sieyès feared that he was too ambitious to fall in with his constitutional views. Hence Sieyès hesitated to open his mind to Bonaparte, but, urged by their mutual friends, they at length met and concerted together. On the 15th Brumaire, they determined on their plan of attack on the constitution of the year III, Sieyès undertook to prepare the councils by the commissions of inspectors, who placed unlimited confidence in him. Bonaparte was to gain the generals and the different corps of troops stationed in Paris, who displayed much enthusiasm for him and much attachment to his person. They agreed to convoke an extraordinary meeting of the moderate members of the councils, to describe the public danger to the Ancients, and by urging the ascendancy of Jacobinism to demand the removal of the legislative body to Saint-Cloud, and the appointment of general Bonaparte to the command of the armed force, as the only man able to save the country; and then, by means of the new military power, to obtain the dismissal of the directory, and the temporary dissolution of the legislative body. The enterprise was fixed for the morning of the 18th Brumaire (9th November).
During these three days, the secret was faithfully kept, Barras, Moulins, and Gohier, who formed the majority of the directory, of which Gohier was then president, might have frustrated the coup-d'état of the conspirators by forestalling them, as on the 18th Fructidor. But they gave them credit for hopes only, and not for any decided projects. On the morning of the 18th, the members of the ancients were convoked in an unusual way by the inspectors; they repaired to the Tuileries, and the debate was opened about seven in the morning under the presidentship of Lemercier. Cornudet, Lebrun, and Fargues, the three most influential conspirators in the council, drew a most alarming picture of the state of public affairs; protesting that the Jacobins were flocking in crowds to Paris from all the departments; that they wished to re-establish the revolutionary government, and that a reign of terror would once more desolate the republic, if the council had not the courage and wisdom to prevent its return. Another conspirator, Régnier de la Meurthe, required of the ancients already moved, that in virtue of the right conferred on them by the constitution, they should transfer the legislative body to Saint Cloud, and depute Bonaparte, nominated by them to the command of the 17th military division, to superintend the removal. Whether all the members of the council were accomplices of this manoeuvre, or whether they were terrified by so hasty convocation, and by speeches so alarming, they instantly granted what the conspirators required.
Bonaparte awaited with impatience the result of this deliberation, at his house in the Rue Chantereine; he was surrounded by generals, by Lefèvre, the commander of the guard of the directory, and by three regiments of cavalry which he was about to review. The decree of the council of ancients was passed about eight, and brought to him at half-past eight by a state messenger. He received the congratulations of all around him; the officers drew their swords as a sign of fidelity. He put himself at their head, and they marched to the Tuileries; he appeared at the bar of the ancients, took the oath of fidelity, and appointed as his lieutenant, Lefèvre, chief of the directorial guard.