which had given way from age, on which table they had deposited a quire of letter-paper, and a writing desk 'a calamet', which luckily they had had the precaution to bring with them from the Committee of Public safety, seated on four rush-bottomed chairs, in front of some logs of wood ill-lighted, the whole borrowed from the porter Dupont; who would believe that it was in this deplorable condition that the member's of the new Government, after having examined all the difficulties, nay, let me add, all the horrors of their situation, resolved to confront all obstacles, and that they would either deliver France from the abyss in which she was plunged or perish in the attempt? They drew up on a sheet of letter-paper the act by which they declared themselves constituted, and immediately forwarded it to the Legislative Bodies."
And the Comte de La Vallette, writing to M. Cuvillier Fleury, says: "I saw our five kings, dressed in the robes of Francis I., his hat, his pantaloons, and his lace: the face of La Reveilliere looked like a cork upon two pins, with the black and greasy hair of Clodion. M. de Talleyrand, in pantaloons of the colour of wine dregs, sat in a folding chair at the feet of the Director Barras, in the Court of the Petit Luxembourg, and gravely presented to his sovereigns as ambassador from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the French were eating his master's dinner, from the soup to the cheese. At the right hand there were fifty musicians and singers of the Opera, Laine, Lays, Regnault, and the actresses, not all dead of old age, roaring a patriotic cantata to the music of Mehul. Facing them, on another elevation, there were two hundred young and beautiful women, with their arms and bosoms bare, all in ecstasy at the majesty of our Pentarchy and the happiness of the Republic. They also wore tight flesh-coloured pantaloons, with rings on their toes. That was a sight that never will be seen again. A fortnight after this magnificent fete, thousands of families wept over their banished fathers, forty-eight departments were deprived of their representatives, and forty editors of newspapers were forced to go and drink the waters of the Elbe, the Synamary or the Ohio! It would be a curious disquisition to seek to discover what really were at that time the Republic and Liberty."]
He knew that the Clichy party demanded his dismissal and arrest. He was given to understand that Dumolard was one of the most decided against him, and that, finally, the royalist party was on the point of triumphing.
Before deciding for one party or the other Bonaparte first thought of himself. He did not imagine that he had yet achieved enough to venture on possessing himself of that power which certainly he might easily have obtained. He therefore contented himself with joining the party which was, for the moment, supported by public opinion. I know he was determined to march upon Paris with 25,000 men had affairs taken a turn unfavourable to the Republic, which he preferred to royalty. He cautiously formed his plan. To defend the Directory was, he conceived, to defend his own future fortune; that is to say, it was protecting a power which appeared to have no other object than to keep a place for him until his return.
The parties which rose up in Paris produced a reaction in the army. The employment of the word 'Monsieur' had occasioned quarrels, and even bloodshed. General Augereau, in whose division these contests had taken place, published an order of the day, setting forth that every individual in his division who should use the word 'Monsieur', either verbally or in writing, under any pretence whatever, should be deprived of his rank, and declared incapable of serving in the Republican armies. This order was read at the head of each company.
Bonaparte viewed the establishment of peace as the close of his military career. Repose and inactivity were to him unbearable. He sought to take part in the civil affairs of the Republic, and was desirous of becoming one of the five Directors, convinced that, if he obtained that object, he would speedily stand single and alone. The fulfilment of this wish would have prevented the Egyptian expedition, and placed the imperial crown much sooner upon his head. Intrigues were carried on in Paris in his name, with the view of securing to him a legal dispensation on the score of age. He hoped, though he was but eight-and-twenty, to supersede one of the two Directors who were to go out of office.
—[The Directors had to be forty years of ago before they could be appointed.]—
His brothers and their friends made great exertions for the success of the project, which, however, was not officially proposed, because it was too adverse to the prevailing notions of the day, and seemed too early a violation of the constitution of the year III., which, nevertheless, was violated in another way a few months after.
The members of the Directory were by no means anxious to have Bonaparte for their colleague. They dissembled, and so did he. Both parties were lavish of their mutual assurances of friendship, while they cordially hated each other. The Directory, however, appealed for the support of Bonaparte, which he granted; but his subsequent conduct clearly proves that the maintenance of the constitution of the year III. was a mere pretext. He indeed defended it meanwhile, because, by aiding the triumph of the opposite party, he could not hope to preserve the influence which he exercised over the Directory. I know well that, in case of the Clichy party gaining the ascendency, he was determined to cross the Alps with his army, and to assemble all the friends of the Republic at Lyons, thence to march upon Paris.
In the Memorial of St. Helena it is stated, in reference to the 18th Fructidor, "that the triumph of the majority of the councils was his desire and hope, we are inclined to believe from the following fact, viz., that at the crisis of the contest between the two factions a secret resolution was drawn up by three of the members of the Directory, asking him for three millions to support the attack on the councils, and that Napoleon, under various pretences, did not send the money, though he might easily have done so."
This is not very comprehensible. There was no secret resolution of the members who applied for the three millions. It was Bonaparte who offered the money, which, however, he did not send; it was he who despatched Augereau; and he who wished for the triumph of the Directorial majority. His memory served him badly at St. Helena, as will be seen from some correspondence which I shall presently submit to the reader. It is very certain that he did offer the money to the Directory; that is to say, to three of its members.
—[Barras, La Revelliere-Lepaux, and Rewbell, the three Directors who carried out the 'coup d'etat' of the 18th Fructidor against their colleagues Carnot and Bartholemy. (See Thiers' "French Revolution", vol. v. pp. 114,139, and 163.)]—
Bonaparte had so decidedly formed his resolution that on the 17th of July, wishing to make Augereau his confidant, he sent to Vicenza for him by an extraordinary courier.
Bonaparte adds that when Bottot, the confidential agent of Barras, came to Passeriano, after the 18th Fructidor, he declared to him that as soon as La Vallette should make him acquainted with the real state of things the money should be transmitted. The inaccuracy of these statements will be seen in the correspondence relative to the event. In thus distorting the truth Napoleon's only object could have been to proclaim his inclination for the principles he adopted and energetically supported from the year 1800, but which, previously to that period, he had with no less energy opposed.
He decidedly resolved to support the majority of the Directory, and to oppose the royalist faction; the latter, which was beginning to be important, would have been listened to had it offered power to him. About the end of July he sent his 'aide de camp' La Vallette to Paris. La Vallette was a man of good sense and education, pleasing manners, pliant temper, and moderate opinions. He was decidedly devoted to Bonaparte. With his instructions he received a private cipher to enable him to correspond with the General-in-Chief.
Augereau went, after La Vallette, on the 27th of July. Bonaparte officially wrote to the Directory that Augereau "had solicited leave to go to Paris on his own private business."
But the truth is, Augereau was sent expressly to second the revolution which was preparing against the Clichy party and the minority of the Directory.
Bonaparte made choice of Augereau because he knew his staunch republican principles, his boldness, and his deficiency in political talent. He thought him well calculated to aid a commotion, which his own presence with the army of Italy prevented him from directing in person; and besides, Augereau was not an ambitious rival who might turn events to his own advantage. Napoleon said, at St. Helena, that he sent the