The world's leading conquerors

by Wilson Lloyd Bevan

With this weakness at home there had been displayed towards other European powers a consistent policy of provocation and aggression. To all of its weaker neighbors, France, in the hands of the Directory, played the rôle of an absolute dictator; all of them were to be forced, willing or unwilling, to organize themselves on the model of the French Republic. Napoleon had set the fashion in Italy; this example was followed through French influence and by French aggression. When the Swiss cantons rose to defend their ancient rights, they met with no more consideration than the absolute monarch, King Charles Emmanuel IV of Piedmont, whose Italian dominions were annexed to France, or the clerical oligarchy of Rome, who had to see themselves despoiled of their temporal power, when the Roman Republic was proclaimed from the Forum by General Berthier.

A new European coalition was brought into existence to resist the general movement of French expansion and to restore the Bourbon monarchy by invading French territory. Much was hoped from the accession of Russia, which along with Austria, engaged to put in the field the largest masses of men. At the opening of the campaign the French met discouraging defeats; Italy was soon lost through the inability of the French generals to withstand the united Russians and Austrians. In Switzerland, Masséna, by brilliant strategy kept the coalition armies in check; while by the superior initiative of a much smaller French force, a British army, operating in Holland, was obliged to sign an ignominious treaty and to evacuate Dutch territory.

With some of these vicissitudes of the Directorial government, Napoleon became acquainted at a dinner, at which he and Sidney Smith met to discuss matters relative to the exchange of prisoners and where the commander of the French army in Egypt received the public papers and letters intended for him which had been seized by English warships. Napoleon saw the necessity of leaving Egypt, where he was cooped up by an English fleet, and also he must have realized that the chance of a permanent French occupation was infinitesimal. With a few of his generals he left the country suddenly on the 22d of August, 1799, and, avoiding by skilful navigation the danger of being captured by the British warships, disembarked on French soil at Fréjus on October 16th. All parties greeted his return; his trip to Paris was a triumph; the Moniteur reported that the crowd on the roads was so great that vehicular traffic was completely blocked. All the places through which he passed from Fréjus as far as Paris were illuminated. Even the Directory disguised their real feelings and gave the hero of the Egyptian campaign a cordial welcome back. Bonaparte won much favor by a discreet modesty of demeanor, ingratiating himself with the generals who were defending France against the coalition, while he represented the Egyptian campaign as an affair undertaken simply for scientific purposes. His popularity was as unrestrained as it was real. The press was filled with stories about him; he dressed as an ordinary citizen rather than as a soldier, wearing a semi-civilian costume at social functions.

But under this ingenuous pose much political intriguing was being set in motion. Napoleon, who was described by one of his brothers as “just as much a manipulator as a general,” was planning with Director Siéyès, now recognized as the chief political expert, to be called in to prepare a new constitution. Napoleon cared nothing for constitutions, but he was glad to have Siéyès’s influence in overturning the Directory. Siéyès, on his side, recognized the civic virtues of his friend, General Bonaparte, but at the same time anticipated that the result of all this scheming would be to establish him in a position where he would exercise sole autocratic rule.

As to whether the opportunity was favorable, there was a difficulty. France was no longer directly menaced by the coalition since the splendid campaign of Masséna in Switzerland; besides, the royalist insurrections had been suppressed, and the extremists muzzled. The middle classes, to whom the wealth of the nation now belonged, felt secure. At this time the Prussian Minister at Paris wrote that confidence was being restored throughout the country, and that even religious dissensions had become less acute. Some of the most questionable and unpopular legislation, passed against the fortunes and persons of citizens who were suspected by the Directory, was on the point of being withdrawn by the legislative body. The debate on these measures was to conclude on the 17th Brumaire.

There was a difference between the two bodies of the legislature on the question of the change of the constitution. The more popular chamber distrusted Siéyès and passed upon him an indirect vote of censure of a severe character, by threatening with death anyone who proposed to alter the existing form of government. Apparently Napoleon’s share in Siéyès’s scheme was not suspected, for the Five Hundred named as their speaker Lucien Bonaparte, who had taken an oath to stab to death anyone aiming to make himself dictator. The complicity of various generals being assured by Bonaparte, Siéyès, who could count on the inactivity or sympathy of his fellow-Directors, proceeded to set the machinery in motion by which the government was to be overthrown. When the Ancients met, they listened to a vague harangue by one of Siéyès’s adherents, who spoke of a conspiracy, by which the country was threatened, the intimation being conveyed that it was instigated by some foreign power. To escape from impending danger a resolution was offered that both houses should meet outside Paris on the 19th of Brumaire at St. Cloud, and that the command of the troops in Paris should be turned over to Bonaparte.

As soon as this was done, there was a great display of military activity. The city was placed in a state of siege, and care was taken that the minority of the Directors should be kept as virtual prisoners in the Luxembourg. The opponents of the change in the Five Hundred had time enough to prepare for resistance, and they did not propose to annul the existing constitution on the basis of a rumor. Napoleon appeared first before the Ancients, where he made an incoherent speech, and showed himself unable to name the conspirators he charged with disloyalty against the country. When he was ushered into the Hall where the Five Hundred were in session, the whole body had just sworn allegiance to the Directorial Constitution. Walking between four grenadiers, his diminutive figure added no gravity to the scene; he was pale, disturbed, and undecided. The members refused to listen to him, and cried “outlaw” or “down with the traitor.” It is alleged that in the tumult daggers were drawn, and that Napoleon was in personal danger, as his adversaries closed round him. But all that happened, according to the most reliable witnesses, was that Napoleon and his escort were jostled and finally ejected from the hall. One grenadier, it is known, had the sleeve of his coat torn. Lucien, who rose to defend his brother, was hissed, and finally gave up his place as presiding officer. Another conspirator, when he refused to pass a motion depriving Napoleon of his command, was replaced by Lucien Bonaparte, who, on his part, collapsed from the nervous strain when he was bidden to put the motion declaring Napoleon an outlaw. He was allowed to go out and find his brother, so that the whole matter might be peaceably settled without extreme measures being taken.

In the meantime the leading conspirator, Napoleon, was suffering from a nervous crisis. When he was outside the hall, he appeared to observers as if he were walking in his sleep; upon trying to address his troops from horseback, he fell to the ground. Lucien just then came on the scene and conveyed him to a room in the palace, where Siéyès said to him: “They wish to put you outside the law; we’ll put them outside the hall.” The story of the display of daggers was now concocted, and Napoleon’s troops were told of the danger their commander had been in. Lucien directed the soldiers to go into the hall and clear out the legislature. This order was executed by two companies of armed grenadiers, who, despite the protests of the deputies, pushed them good-humoredly out of the building, taking some of the members who resisted, in their arms.

The Ancients set forward their part of the revolution by voting the suppression of the Directory, by appointing an executive commission of three members, and by demanding the adjournment of the whole legislative body. But to give the transaction a specious form of legality, Lucien called some of the members of the Five Hundred together, and they, under his direction, proceeded to behave as if they were a majority. An executive consular commission was appointed, composed of Siéyès, Ducas, and Bonaparte, to be called the Consuls of the French Republic. During the adjournment of the legislature, the powers of that body were to be exercised by a commission composed of twenty-five members of each branch. These two commissions were to decide on the measures initiated by the Consuls in matters of administration and finance and also on the changes in the constitution required to free it from its imperfections. This proposal was accepted by the Ancients, and the three Consuls swore to be faithful to the republic, one and undivided, to liberty, to equality, and to the representative system.

The news of the suppression of the Directorial régime caused suspense, but little excitement. People were puzzled rather than alarmed; there had been so many transformations since 1789 that one more seemed hardly irregular. Besides, the Directory had often violated their own constitution; hence the illegality in their suppression was regarded as nothing strange. The Paris workmen stayed quietly in their quarters; there was no Jacobin Club to champion the cause of the radicals or to act as a center of protest. Financial circles were reassured, when government securities rose; there was a difference of seven francs between the quotations on the 17th Brumaire and 24th of the same month.