Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

by Thomas E. Watson

While the hope of the Bonaparte family was in the East, its interest had not been neglected in France. Joseph had been established in state at Paris (town house, country house, etc.) and had cultivated influential men of all parties. Lucien had been elected in Corsica as deputy to the Council of Five Hundred. Bold, and gifted with eloquence, he had become a power in the council, and had been elected its president. Josephine herself had been effective, so splendid had been her establishment, so charming her tact and gracious ways. Therefore, when the returning soldier cast his eye over the political field, there was much to give him satisfaction. He was committed to no party; he was weighed down by no record; he was held in no rigid grooves. Towering above all other heads, he alone could draw strength from all parties. As he himself said, in his march to power he was marching with the nation. Barras admits that all France was rushing to him as to a new existence. That he would become the ruler was expected, was desired; it was only a question of when and how. The almost unanimous voice of the people would have made him Director. Details alone caused differences of opinion. Should the constitution be set aside? Should Bonaparte be one of five Directors? Or should he be vested with a virtual dictatorship? Should the powers of government be distributed, as under the Directory, or should they be concentrated? It was on details like these that differences arose; but as to the importance of having the benefit of Napoleon’s services, the great mass of Frenchmen were agreed. True, the brilliant triumphs of Masséna around Zurich, and the overthrow of the English and Russians in Holland, by Brune, had saved the Republic from the pressing dangers of foreign invasion; but the foreign invasion was not the only cause of disquiet in France. The root of the evil was thought to be weakness of the government. The constitution had been violated by the Directors in Fructidor when Augereau had broken in upon the councils and arrested so many members. Three Directors, it will be remembered, had driven out two, Carnot and Barthélemy. Afterward, in Floréal (May 11, 1798), the elections had been set aside to get rid of objectionable members. In each of these cases the vacancies made by force had been filled by the victors.

Then, finally, the reaction had become too strong, and in Prairial (June 18, 1799) the Fructidorians had in turn been beaten, and the Directory changed by the putting in of Sieyès, Gohier, Moulins, and Roger-Ducos.

People grew weary of so many convulsions, so much uncertainty, so much vacillation, so much disorder. Besides, the finances were in hopeless confusion. National bankruptcy virtually existed, and a forced loan of 100,000,000 francs, the law of hostages, and the vexatious manner in which the new Sunday law was enforced gave offence in all classes. Barras had managed to keep his place in the Directory, but not his power. Sieyès had entered the Directory, but wished to overthrow it. Even had there been no Bonaparte to plan a change, a change was inevitable. Sieyès had said, “France needs a head and a sword.” With Sieyès present, only the sword was lacking, and he had tried to find one. Joubert was chosen, but got killed. Bernadotte was mentioned, but he would not take the risk. Moreau was sounded, but would not agree to act. Nevertheless, it was but a question of time when the man and the opportunity would meet. It might possibly have happened that Sieyès with his new constitution and his new executive would have saved the Republic. Better men, coming to the front and casting out the scum which had floated to the top of the revolutionary current, might have established the Republic on a solid basis, and saved the world from the hideous revel of blood and carnage which marked the era of Napoleon. No one can tell. It is easy to say that the directorial régime had failed; it is no less easy to say that a change could have been made without rushing into imperialism. Republics, being merely human, cannot be perfected in a day; and there is some injustice in cutting down the tree because it is not laden with fruit as soon as it is planted.

While Napoleon was exploring the ground and selecting his point of attack, the Directory adopted no measures of self-defence. In a general way they suspected Bonaparte and dreaded him, but they had no proofs upon which they could act. Their minister of war, Dubois de Crancé told them a plot was brewing, and advised the arrest of Napoleon. “Where are your proofs?” demanded Gohier and Moulins. The minister could not furnish them. Then a police agent warned them. Locking the informer in a room, the Directors began to discuss the matter. The agent became alarmed for his own safety, and escaped through a window.

Anxious to get Napoleon away from Paris, the Directors offered him his choice of the armies. He pleaded shattered health, and declined. There were two parties, possibly three, with the aid of either of which Napoleon might have won his way to power. There were the Jacobins, the remnants of the thorough-going democrats, who had made the Revolution. These were represented in the Directory by Gohier and Moulins, men of moderate capacity and fine character. But Napoleon had been cured of his youthful Jacobinism, and believed that if he now conquered with the democrats, he would soon be called on to conquer against them. Again, there were the moderates, the politicians, who were sincere republicans, but who opposed the radicalism of the democrats on the one hand, and the weakness of the Directory on the other. Sieyès and Roger-Ducos represented these in the Directory, and their following among the rich and middle-class republicans was very large. Lastly came the Barras following, the Rotten, as Napoleon called them, who would agree to pretty much any change which would not take from them the opportunities of jobbery.

Each of these parties courted Napoleon, who listened to them all, used them all, and deceived them all. Barras he despised, yet lulled to the last moment. Gohier and Moulins were carefully manipulated and elaborately duped. Sieyès and his associates were used as tools, and then, after the bridge had been crossed, thrown over.

Even the royalists were taken in; they were beguiled with hints that Napoleon was preparing a way for the return of the Bourbons—he to act the part of Monk to the exiled King.

Napoleon’s first plan was to oust from the Directory the hateful Sieyès,—“that priest sold to Prussia,” and this proposition he urged upon Gohier and Moulins. As there were no legal grounds upon which the election of Sieyès could be annulled, and as Napoleon himself had not reached the age of forty, required by the constitution, Gohier and Moulins refused to have anything to do with the scheme. Its mere mention should have put them on guard; but it did not. Then Napoleon seemed, for a moment, to consider an alliance with Barras. Fouché and other friends of that Director brought the two together, and there was a dinner which was to have smoothed the way to an agreement. Unfortunately for Barras he blundered heavily in proposing an arrangement which meant that he should have the executive power, while Napoleon should merely be military chief. Napoleon, in disgust, looked the Director out of countenance, and, taking his carriage, returned home to tell Fouché what a fool Barras had made of himself. The friends of the Director, going to him at once, were able to convince even him that he had bungled stupidly; and next day he hastened to Bonaparte to try again. He was too late. Napoleon, upon leaving Barras the day before had called in to see Sieyès, and to tell him that the alliance of the Bonapartes would be made with him alone.

Naturally these two men were antagonistic. When Napoleon, quitting the army without orders, had landed at Fréjus, Sieyès had proposed to his colleagues in the Directory to have the deserter shot. The weak Directory had no such nerve as such a plan required, and the advice was ignored. Sieyès detested the abrupt, imperious soldier; and Napoleon despised the ex-priest as a confirmed, unpractical, and conceited visionary. Before he had failed with Gohier and Moulins, Napoleon had treated Sieyès with such contempt as to ignore his presence, when they were thrown together at one of the official banquets. The enraged ex-priest exclaimed to his friends, “See the insolence of that little fellow to a member of the government which ought to have had him shot!” Napoleon, intent upon the plan of ousting Sieyès from the Directory, asked his friends, “What were they thinking about to put into the Directory that—priest sold to Prussia?”

Powerful as were these feelings of reciprocal dislike, they were overcome. Talleyrand, Joseph Bonaparte, Cabanis, and others plied both the warrior and the priest with those arguments best suited to each. The promptings of self-interest, as well as the necessities of the case, drew them together. With Sieyès—jealous, irritable, suspicious, impracticable—the task had been most difficult. He knew he was being ensnared,—emphatically said so,—but yielded.