Bernadotte went to the garden of the Tuileries, and passed along the front of the 79th demi-brigade. The officers having recognised him, though not in uniform, came up to him, and asked him for information as to what was going to happen. Bernadotte answered in general terms, expressing his wish that the public tranquillity might not be endangered by the movement about to take place. The soldiers, having in their turn recognised the general who had commanded them at the siege and taking of Maestricht, loudly expressed their astonishment at his not being along with the generals, who, said they, were then deciding, in the palace, the fate of France.
Bernadotte having observed what he might expect, in case of need, from this corps, and from some detachments before whom he had presented himself on the Boulevard and on the Pont de la Révolution, went to General Jourdan's, presuming that the Directory would send for him to take care of the safety of the government. He found at Jourdan's a good many members of the Council of Five Hundred, among others Augereau, afterwards Duke of Castiglione. He had scarcely arrived, when a great number of the members came to announce the communication of the decree of the Council of Ancients, which, in virtue of the 102d article of the Constitution, transferred the sitting of the Legislative Body to St. Cloud.
Bernadotte, on his return home, learned from his wife that the Adjutant-General Rapatel, attached to General Moreau's staff, had just been there, and that he had been sent by Buonaparte and Moreau, to persuade him to join them at the Tuileries. Buonaparte had said to him—"You have served under General Bernadotte. I know that he has confidence in you. Tell him that all his friends are assembled at the Tuileries, and that they are desirous of seeing him among them; add that they love their country as much as he, and that they strongly wish to see him appear among the number of those to whom she this day owes her safety."
Siêyes and Roger Ducos had already joined Buonaparte at the Tuileries. The three Directors, Gohier the President, Moulins and Barras, remained at the Luxembourg. The secretary-general, Lagarde, was still faithful to the majority of the Directory. As General Bernadotte had foreseen, that majority cast their eyes on him for the ministry of war, and the general command of the troops, and of the national guards of the 17th division. The resignation of Barras, and the defection of the secretary-general, put a stop to this nomination. Buonaparte, having no longer any thing to fear, made a new division of the different commands, and assigned to Moreau, with an hundred horse, that of the Luxembourg, where Gohier and Moulins were detained.
Moreau, dissatisfied with the indifference with which he had been treated by Buonaparte, and acquainted with his intentions and projects, was already thinking of forsaking his cause, which he regarded as unjust and traitorous to the nation. He again desired Rapatel to go, towards evening, to Bernadotte's, to invite him, on the part of Moreau, to go to the Luxembourg, that they might consult together as to the measures to be taken for preventing Buonaparte from seizing the Dictatorship. Bernadotte's answer to these overtures was, that he was bound by the word of honour which he had given, not to undertake any thing as a citizen; but that he was free to act if called on or summoned to do so by a public man; that if Moreau would march out of the Luxembourg, at the head of the detachment which he commanded, present himself at his door, and summon him, in the name of the public good, to make common cause with him in the defence of liberty and of the constitution which had been sworn to, he, Bernadotte, would mount his horse with his aides-de-camp, put himself under Moreau's command, address the troops, and cause Buonaparte to be immediately arrested and tried as a deserter from the army of Egypt, and as having violated the constitution, by accepting a command given him by a mere fraction of the Legislative Body. Moreau, bound down by the duty of military discipline, according to which he was under the orders of General Buonaparte, did not agree to Bernadotte's proposal; and the latter, therefore, did not think himself at liberty to go to the Luxembourg.
Bernadotte, from seven o'clock till ten, had conferences with Salicetti, Augereau, Jourdan, Gareau, and a dozen of the most influential members of the Council of Five Hundred. It was decided, that, next morning, Bernadotte should be named commandant of the guard of the Legislative Body, and of all the troops in the capital, and they separated. Salicetti ran to the Tuileries to tell Buonaparte what had happened, and he, who dreaded so courageous an adversary as Bernadotte, charged Salicetti to be present next morning at five o'clock, at the preparatory meeting which was to take place before going to St. Cloud, and to tell every one of the deputies, that he, Buonaparte, had made the greatest efforts to prevent a decree of deportation being issued against the deputies who had formed the design of giving to Bernadotte the command of the armed force.
On the 19th, at seven o'clock in the morning, Generals Jourdan and Augereau, followed by eight or ten deputies of the Council of Five Hundred, (among whom were Gareau and Talot,) went to General Bernadotte's in the rue Cisalpine. They informed him that Salicetti had made them aware, on the part of Buonaparte, that Siêyes had proposed to arrest a number of the deputies of the two Councils, in order to prevent their appearing at St. Cloud. They asked Bernadotte what he thought of the events of the day. He saw nothing in the communication of Salicetti, but the desire of rendering these deputies favourable to Buonaparte. Some of these legislators seemed to feel grateful for the service which Buonaparte had done them the evening before. Bernadotte did not appreciate this act of generosity as they did; but he agreed in their opinion as to the conciliatory measures which they seemed to wish to adopt, and, entering into their views, he explained himself in these terms:—"Let one of you mount the tribune; let him describe succinctly the internal situation of France, and her successes abroad; let him say, that the departure of an army for Egypt, while it has involved us in war, has deprived us of an army of more than 30,000 veterans, and a great many experienced generals; that, nevertheless, the Republic is triumphant; that the coalition is broken up, since Suwarrow is returned to Russia; that the English, with a prince of the blood at their head, have left the Batavian republic and retired to England; that the line of defence is maintained between the Alps and the Ligurian Appenines; that 200,000 conscripts are hastening to arrange themselves into battalions to reinforce the armies, and 40,000 cavalry are raising; that the insurrection of the west is reduced to a few scattered bands, and that a royalist army in the Upper Garonne has been destroyed or dispersed; that, to obtain a peace quite as honourable as that of Campo Formio, it is only necessary for France to maintain this formidable attitude; that, in order to maintain it, union and mutual confidence are indispensable; that, although the Council of Ancients have violated the constitution, in naming Buonaparte general-in-chief of the 17th division, and in giving him the command of the national guard and the guard of the Directory, the Council of Five Hundred is not now engaged in deliberating on this violation of the constitution, but rather on the means of giving security to the French people, the two Councils, and the Government of the State; that, for this purpose, the Council of Five Hundred names General Bernadotte colleague to General Buonaparte; that these two generals shall understand each other in regard to the employment of the armed force, and the distribution of commands, in case of this force being employed; but that the tranquillity which prevails in Paris and the vicinity, renders it certain that there will be no occasion for this force being put in motion. Send me this decree; in twenty minutes after receiving it, I shall be in the midst of you with my aides-de-camp; I shall take the command of the corps that I shall find on my way, and we shall see what is to be done. If it is necessary to declare Buonaparte an outlaw, you will always have on your side a general, and a great proportion at least of the troops."
The deputies immediately set off for St. Cloud. The unhappy custom of delivering set speeches from the tribune, produced the loss of precious time. The debate became warm: and the taking individually the oath to the constitution caused a useless loss of more than an hour and a half. No other resolution was taken. Buonaparte made his appearance, and the events which then happened at St. Cloud are well known.
After having been repulsed from the Council of Five Hundred, Buonaparte, stammering with agitation, addressed the soldiers. "Are you for me?"—"We are for the Republic," said they—(It was at this time that Lucien, President of the Council, harangued the troops.) What would have become of him had Bernadotte been there? Buonaparte felt this himself; for he said, at this period—"I am not afraid of Bernadotte's consenting to my being assassinated; but he will harangue the troops, and that is what I have to fear."
Buonaparte was made aware, the same evening, of the language which Bernadotte had used to the deputies at his house in the rue Cisalpine. The expressions he had really made use of, though they must have been disagreeable enough to Buonaparte, particularly in so far as related to his escape from Egypt, and his ulterior designs against the liberty of France, were exaggerated, and represented to Buonaparte so as to indicate personal hatred.