He is president for the month, having been elected in honour of his
brother’s return. The president of the Council of Ancients is also a
party to the conspiracy. The bedells will be told to overlook certain
names when notices of the sitting are sent out. As soon as Bonaparte
has been appointed commander of the Paris garrison, he will hand over
the Tuileries to Lannes and the Palais Bourbon to Murat. Gohier and his
wife will be invited to breakfast by Josephine—eight o’clock. Bonaparte
will offer himself to Barras for luncheon, in order to put Barras off
his guard. Joseph will persuade his brother-in-law Bernadotte to keep
quiet, if Bernadotte will not actively participate. Roederer writes the
proclamation. His son knows a friendly printer who will set it up and
machine it—on the quiet.
“Was Brutus’ mood so paltry?” thinks Bonaparte. “But, in truth, we too
wish to slay some one—Anarchy! A new era, a new century, to be ushered in
by such petty and distasteful means! Camp life is cleaner!”
XIX
November 9th, a foggy autumn morning; the Eighteenth Brumaire is dawning.
A bustle in the street opposite Bonaparte’s house; officers arriving on
horseback and in carriages. Is the blow to be struck at last? Most of
those present were with him in Italy. The house is too small for such
a concourse. They stroll up and down in the garden, discussing their
chances; lively and cheerful as if they were on the Rhine. Appearances
must be kept up. No one must be able to say that uniformed officers were
about so early. All goes well. Messengers come to confirm the carrying
out of the programme; both Councils were summoned at seven o’clock, but
undesirable members have not received notice. The initiates were the
first comers, and, as soon as there was a quorum, Lucien in the Council
of Five Hundred and his colleague in the Council of Ancients had proposed
Bonaparte’s appointment to the command of the Paris garrison.
Here is the messenger with the commission, duly sealed! The formalities
are being strictly observed. The general joins his faithful followers.
Everything goes on as if they were in camp. With a great suite, he rides
through the town, to the amazement of a huge crowd, which does not,
however, show any political interest. A dragoon regiment which had been
through the Italian campaign with Napoleon turns up on the Boulevard
Madeleine without awaiting the orders of its colonel. Other officers
follow with Ducos and Marmont. The latter summoned them at an early hour.
When they said they could not come for lack of horses, he borrowed some
from a riding-school.
The Tuileries garden is crowded. Many remain on horseback; but Bonaparte
dismounts and enters the Council of Ancients. Is he going to make a
speech to people whom he despises, in this dark and unfamiliar hall?
Why does he not take the oath to the constitution, the constitution he
is about to destroy? The law directs that a general appointed to a new
command should take this oath. Evading the formality, he speaks from the
rostrum:
“The republic is in danger.... Recognising this, you have passed a law
that will save it. Do not search history for examples that may give
reason for restraining your activities. No epoch in history is like the
end of the eighteenth century, and in that end there is nothing like this
moment.... We want a republic based on liberty and equality. We shall
have it. With the aid of all the friends of liberty, I shall save the
republic. In my own name and in that of my companions-in-arms, I swear it
to you!”
“We swear it!” comes like an echo through the open doors of the hall.
The Ancients move uneasily in their seats. “Companions-in-arms?”
But Bonaparte has left the hall, drawing a breath of relief. These
lawyers’-eyes; bespectacled eyes! Effete pygmies! Has he noticed that he
spoke to them as if he were on the parade ground, and that they did not
like his tone?
His words and his voice have a very different ring outside, when, having
remounted his charger, he summons his troops to save the republic. Then
comes a report from Lucien, who has meanwhile adjourned to the following
day the sitting of the Council of Five Hundred. What is that you say? The
Directors’ guard is on the way hither? Do they come as friends or foes?
“Is Sieyès sending them?” Their colonel says no. The two men laugh.
In fact, Sieyès, pale of countenance, is still at the gate of the
Luxembourg. For the last fortnight, our clever abbé has been taking
riding lessons. It had been his design to ride at the head of his guard
to join his new comrades. Before all the world, he would show his
equality with these comrades by leaning from his saddle and embracing
them. But the guard has started without his orders; their colonel has
brought them to the Tuileries, riding hell-for-leather, too hot a pace
for the abbé. Almost unnoticed, and much crestfallen, Sieyès drives
after them in a carriage, with Ducos, who is pliable, by his side. Every
one in the know is aware by this time what will happen to the other three
Directors.
Moulin looks at the matter from a soldier’s standpoint. He estimates the
opposing force at the Tuileries to be eight thousand strong, and his
adjutants report to him that all the important points of the town are in
Bonaparte’s hands. He writes, therefore, saying: “At your service.”
Honest Gohier is at home, blustering ineffectually. He had not thought
it advisable to accept the strange invitation to an eight o’clock
breakfast, and had been content to send his wife. Now, a sort of hostage,
she is drinking tea with Josephine, while Bonaparte is betraying her
husband—not, indeed, stealing his mistress, but stealing France. When the
first news comes, Gohier sends to his colleagues, summoning them to a
meeting of the Directory. No one turns up. Moulin has joined Sieyès and
Ducos. Barras says he is in his bath.
When Talleyrand, the messenger of fate, visits Barras, the Director is
shaving; he seems to be devoting the day to the arts of the toilet! But,
at a glance or two from the other augur, he throws up the game, being
content to ask for a safe-conduct. When his secretary brings this demand
to Bonaparte, the general harangues the man publicly in the Tuileries
garden: “What have you done with France, that I should let you off so
easily? I gave you peace, and I find war.... What have you done with the
hundred thousand Frenchmen who were the companions of my glory? They
are dead! We can go no farther along that road, for in three years it
leads to despotism! We want a republic based on equality and liberty,
toleration and morality!”
Thus berated, the little secretary shakes in his shoes. In reality,
Bonaparte is perfectly calm, but it suits him to simulate wrath in the
presence of so many witnesses. In a couple of hours, all Paris will hear
of it.
Here comes Gohier. He does not lack courage, anyhow. Bearding the man
of power surrounded by his troops, Gohier reminds him of his duty to the
Directory.
“The Directory no longer exists!” storms Bonaparte. “The republic is
in danger, and I intend to save it. Sieyès, Ducos, and Barras have
resigned.” As he speaks, a letter from Moulin is brought to him. “Are not
you in league with Moulin? No? Well, here is his resignation too. You are
the last. Do you intend to hold out all by yourself?”
Gohier is a stickler for the law, and refuses to give way. He goes back
to the Luxembourg, and there he and his friends are kept under guard by
five hundred men until all is over. Barras is waiting at home, uneasy
till he has the answer to his message. What if Bonaparte were now to
take vengeance? Who can depend on Josephine’s moods? Here is Talleyrand
back again, with the safe-conduct and a bag of gold. As to this last,
no one knows whether Barras had the fingering of the money, or whether
Talleyrand kept it as messenger’s fee.
Thus the five heads of the republic were rendered powerless by General
Bonaparte. But this was only the first day. To-morrow, at Saint-Cloud,
greater difficulties may have to be faced. Lucien, who has been all over
the place, and is fully informed, exclaims with well-grounded anger: “The
whole job ought to have been finished in one day! You have left them too
much time! The Five Hundred are already crying out that they have been
tricked! To-morrow all will be in the melting-pot once more! The only
thing to do is to send soldiers to clear out the Chambers, and to put the
most dangerous members of the Councils under arrest.”
Certainly there may be complications to-morrow. Bernadotte had wanted
the Jacobin Club to appoint him general of the opposing forces. “But the
fellows were in too great a funk!” The generals unsympathetic to the coup
d’état must be put under lock and key. Bonaparte’s associates urge this
again and again, but in vain. He is resolute to maintain the semblance of
legality.
“People would say I was afraid of the generals. No one shall have a right
to accuse us of illegality. No parties; no force! The whole people must
be associated with the decision through the votes of its deputies! No
civil war! What begins with the shedding of civilian blood, will come to
a shameful end!”
But at night, prepared for all eventualities, he has loaded pistols handy
to his bedside.
XX
Next morning, an endless string of carriages and carts, an endless
succession of riders and pedestrians, makes its way to Saint-Cloud, as
if to see a great military review. Bonaparte, too, drives instead of
going on horseback attended by a bevy of mounted officers. That might
be provocative. He has made up his mind to observe constitutional
formalities to the very last moment. Could any one say that there had
been a breach of law the day before? Are not the Councils entitled to
remove their sittings to a spot beyond the precincts of the town, if
they think that this would be safer? Is it not within their competence
to appoint a new commander for the Paris garrison? Had not the Directors
the right to resign? Will any one pretend that the Jacobin peril, which
is the occasion for these happenings, is imaginary? To-day, at public
sittings, the Councils will alter the constitution. Three rulers will be
provisionally appointed. Borrowing a title from ancient Rome, they can be
called Triumvirs, or, perhaps better, Consuls. Then the Councils will be
prorogued, everything being done in due form of law.
But the deputies hold other views. Like cloud-drifts hanging low,
they flit through the valleys of this forsaken palace, discussing the
situation, and giving vent to their protests. Since the hall that is
being furbished up for the sitting will not be ready before one o’clock,
they have plenty of time to foment their wrath.
In a small room fronting on the park, sit the three men who will be
Consuls to-morrow. At least Sieyès and Ducos remain seated most of the
time, but the third walks up and down impatiently, as his adherents come
and go to report. He thinks: “How infernally slow civilians are! They
have needed a whole morning to arrange a few benches. Then they must take
an oath one by one, a thing which our recruits do in chorus, and get
through it all in a couple of minutes! Why should I have to wait in a
back room while these lawyers are deliberating in the council chamber?”
The Ancients meet upstairs in the Salle Apollo; the Five Hundred,
downstairs in the Orangerie. Spectators, safe people, throng the hall of
the Five Hundred. When, after the swearing-in, the discussions at length
begin (Lucien is in the chair), the protests of the opposition gain
weight from the circumstances. Speakers point to the threatening force
of soldiery outside. When some of the orators exclaim: “No dictatorship!
This Cromwell wants to bind us in chains!” almost all the delegates
applaud. The reports that come to the back room are more and more
unfavourable. The officers grow restive: “Chase the beggars out! What
else have we got our men here for?”
Bonaparte’s only answer is a cold glance. Buckling on his sword, he
silently mounts the stairs to the hall of the Ancients. Two or three
of the stalwarts follow him, shaking their heads. Is he going to talk
once more, as he did yesterday, instead of shooting? Amazed but curious,
the president allows him to speak. Will he put up a better case than
yesterday, speaking to the point, and not simply haranguing them about
himself?
“Yesterday, I was sitting quietly at home when you summoned me....
To-day, I am overwhelmed with calumnies.... Since my return, all parties
have been busied with my name.... The Council of Ancients must decide
quickly. I am no intriguer. You know me. Have I not given proof and to
spare of my devotion to the country?... Am I, a man whom even the great
coalition could not conquer, to tremble before a few rioters? If I am a
crafty schemer, you may well be all Brutuses!”
Uneasy stirrings; smiles. Why does he speak, instead of acting? He is
not sure of his ground, for he goes on to say: “All France shall know
what we have lived through.—Every one of the parties wishes to turn this
crisis to its own account, and every one of them would like me to side
with it. But I have come to the Councils. If you hesitate, and if liberty
is overthrown, you will be answerable to the world and to posterity!”
His periods grow ever more confused. The Ancients surround the rostrum,
interrupting him, demanding names. Suddenly he turns, and waves his
hand towards the doors, as if pointing to the soldiers, who are out of
sight. He seems to be looking for an exit. He apostrophises the invisible
soldiers:
“You, comrades, whom I see united in this circle, raise your bayonets
with which we fought our way to victory together, raise them against my
breast! But if an orator in foreign pay dares to call your general an
outlaw, smite the wretch with the thunderbolts of battle! The god of
battles and the goddess of good fortune are on my side....”
Will not a burst of laughter sweep the speaker away, and his coup d’état
along with him? At length Bourrienne comes up to him from behind, takes
him by the arm, and whispers in his ear: “Do stop, General. You really
don’t know what you’re saying!” He turns, and follows Bourrienne from the
hall. A deputy devoted to his interest takes the floor promptly, and does
his best to put a good face upon the matter.
[Illustration: General Bonaparte in 1798, during the voyage to Egypt.
Sketch by André Dutertre.]
Outside, he draws a breath of relief. What could have been the matter
with him? Why had his brain been clouded? Amid all the turmoil of battle,
he is calm, fully master of himself; his decisions are well-rounded,
brilliant, and cool, like polished marble spheres. Why is he unequal to
the occasion on this day of days, when his whole future is at stake?
Because he is a man who knows how to command, but does not know how to
beg. He can cajole, threaten, feign hesitation, lie; outdoing in these
arts all the diplomatists with whom he negotiates treaties. He meets them
as equals, but is always sustained by the feeling that, if he does not
get his way by diplomacy, he can enforce his wishes by artillery fire. He
can endure everything, except having to ask favours, and except having
to submit to a law which is not of his own making. He wants order and
legality, but not such as existed before he established them!
With titanic energy, as he already foresees, he will lead this country
towards order, will found an orderly State after a decade of chaos. No
one will be the worse for humble birth or for poverty, since all will
have equal opportunities. But in these halls to-day sit lawyers, ridden
by the spirit of faction, corrupt, outworn, besoiled by the grime of
party politics. He is to implore them to be good enough to give him (and
others) a power which has long been his, and which stands outside there,
impatient to get to work!
He, who in the Institute could sit quietly among the savants, learning
and questioning, is so little able to understand the mood of these
legislative assemblies that he actually fancies the day already won. He
sends a message to Josephine to tell her that all is going well; says a
few encouraging words to his followers, and goes quickly downstairs to
play a similar part before the Council of Five Hundred. It is just as
well that his friends take the precaution to send into the hall with him
four stalwart grenadiers, whose strength and loyalty can be thoroughly
depended on.
No matter that this escort is quite out of keeping with his determination
to be strict in the observance of parliamentary forms! Followed by his
grenadiers, carrying hat and riding whip in his hand, he enters the
hall of the Five Hundred. “Bonaparte!” All turn towards the door. The
Jacobins shout: “Down with the tyrant! Down with the dictator! Outlaw
him!” A few of the more hefty among the Five Hundred hurl themselves
upon him; the grenadiers rally to his protection, encircling him, and
sheltering him with their big bodies from the angry Jacobins’ blows. The
combat sways to and fro for a while, a knot of struggling and shouting
people. Then, step by step, the five force their way backwards towards
the door. Outside, surrounded by his own supporters, he is for a moment
too much discomposed to speak; but, rallying quickly, he makes for the
back room.
During the Italian campaign, Bonaparte was under fire in the front
ranks on several occasions. At Lodi, and again at Arcola, he had been
in imminent peril. But here, he was for the first time involved in a
rough-and-tumble affray where fire-arms and cold steel are against
the rules. Towards the close of his career, he was to have a similar
experience. In such a chance medley, he could not draw his sword. He
must assume his antagonists to be unarmed, though some of them were in
truth armed. To use his sword seemed to be in hopeless conflict with the
fundamental principles of the coup d’état—as he envisaged it.
But at length he has to abandon these principles of his. In person, he
has been rescued from the blows of his adversaries, but their fists have
shattered his doctrine. Force has been used against him. He strides
furiously up and down the room; his pride is touched to the quick; in his
anger, he scratches his cheek till his finger-nails are bloody. Blood?
In an instant he has recovered his composure. This blood will be most
useful! Attempted assassination in the council chamber! He will show his
soldiers how these villains have manhandled the commander of Paris! The
pretence that the other side had been the first to break the law, frees
him from the tyranny of his principles.
In the assembly hall, meanwhile, Lucien is fighting for him. “Hors la
loi! Outlaw him!” cry most of the deputies. Lucien tries to still the
clamour with voice and bell. The attempt is vain. A formal demand is
made for a vote on Bonaparte’s outlawry, and every one knows what that
means in revolutionary Paris. Since there is no other way out of the
difficulty, Lucien, whose pose to-day is that of the defender of law and
order, with an imposing gesture throws off his toga and storms out of the
hall. None too soon!
He finds his brother with the troops. Napoleon had turned pale when
the news had been brought of the vote of outlawry. Then, running to
the window, he called to the troops: “To arms!” Going out, he mounted,
and was quick to notice that the soldiers were not sufficiently moved,
were not yet ripe for action. Night was falling, and all were waiting
on events. Lucien came out, leapt into the saddle, and the two brothers
rode up and down the front. Outside the railings were Sieyès and Ducos in
a carriage, ready for flight to-day, or to become rulers to-morrow, as
events might decide. The movement seemed to be without a head.
Then Lucien grasped the opportunity. He could make a better job of
speaking to the soldiers than Napoleon had made of speaking to the
deputies:
“Soldiers, as president of the Five Hundred I tell you that in the hall
there the majority is being terrorised by a handful of armed Jacobins.
These rascals are in English pay. They have dared to outlaw your general,
who was appointed by the Councils. They actually tried to assassinate
him. Look at the wounds! Use your bayonets to guard him against their
daggers, so that the deliberations concerning the welfare of the country
can be conducted in peace! Recognise as deputies none but those who come
with me into the midst of your ranks. Drive out the rest, all who would
stay in the hall!”
Napoleon listens with pinched lips. When Lucien has finished, he speaks
in his turn, shouting: “Kill any one who resists. Follow me! I am the god
of battles!” Lucien, who is afraid of another speech, hisses: “For God’s
sake, hold your tongue!”
“Long live Bonaparte!” shout the soldiers, who regard the brothers as
military and civil authority conjoined. But not a man moves. All is lost,
if they will not march now. Lucien grasps at the last expedient. With
a theatrical flourish, he snatches an officer’s sword and points it at
Napoleon’s breast: “I swear that I will run my brother through, should he
ever dare to threaten the liberties of France!”
The phrase has the desired effect. Murat orders the sounding of a general
advance, summons a troop of soldiers to follow him, and shouts: “Lads,
chuck the whole rabble of them out of the hall!” At length he has raised
a laugh. With bayonets at the charge, but good-humouredly and without
hurting any one, they thrust from the hall any of the deputies that
are valiant enough to offer resistance. In the failing light, there
is a confused scene in which red togas, birettas, and the caps of the
guardsmen are intermingled. The last of the fleeing deputies escape
through the windows.
The priceless Lucien now hastened upstairs to the Council of Ancients.
Grossly exaggerating the injuries sustained by his brother at the hands
of the Jacobin deputies, he induced the Ancients, in a panic, to appoint
the three Consuls, and to adjourn their sitting until a late hour that
night. Then the leaders foregathered in a small café for a meal, being
all much in need of food.
That night, the most trustworthy among the deputies reassembled in the
deserted hall at Saint-Cloud. By the light of a pair of candles, the
thirty who were left to represent the people of France voted whatever
they were told. While a hundred or so people of fashion, pretty women and
their gallants, mockingly watched the midnight ceremony—while all went
smoothly, society-at-large being quite undisturbed and the proletariat
unruffled—the indefatigable Lucien insisted that the political mass
should be worthily celebrated. At two in the morning, to the sound of
drums, the three Consuls took the oath. “Long live the republic!” called
a few weary voices.
At three o’clock, Consul Bonaparte drives back to Paris with Bourrienne.
He looks straight in front of them, saying never a word. Not until he is
at home, and Josephine is present, does he open his mouth:
“I say, Bourrienne, did I talk a frightful lot of nonsense to-day?”
“A fair amount, General.”
“Those idiots drove me crazy. I’m no good at speaking in public
assemblies.”
Then, instead of going on to talk about the coup d’état, or to
congratulate himself upon its amazing success (for from to-morrow onwards
he will rule France) he alludes to personal enmities. Bernadotte’s
conduct is what rankles!
“That fellow Bernadotte! He wanted to betray me! His wife—his wife has a
great deal of influence over him. I should have thought I had done enough
to placate him! You were there, and you know. I regret having gone so far
to please him. He will have to clear out of Paris. There is no other way
in which I can pay my score.... Good-night, Bourrienne. To-morrow night
we shall sleep in the Luxembourg.”
BOOK THREE
THE RIVER
One who thoughtfully ponders the centuries,
Surveys the whole in the clear light of the spirit;
All that is petty has vanished from sight;
Oceans and continents alone are of account.—GOETHE.
I
About twenty men are seated round a large oval table. Some are quite
young, some middle-aged, some elderly. They are plainly dressed, in
accordance with the fashion of 1800, when wigs were no longer worn,
and lace was out of date; those of them that are in uniform are not
resplendent with gold braid, and they wear no orders. Some have the
bold, self-confident look of the man of action; others, the thoughtful
mien of the savant. From town and from countryside, from office and from
laboratory, they come, but are unified by a common experience and a
common aim. For ten years, they have been living through a revolutionary
epoch; they meet to bring that epoch to a close. Around them is the chill
splendour of the Tuileries, the palace of the last Bourbon kings. The
golds and the reds of the rich carpets and the silken hangings are out
of keeping with their bourgeois circumstantiality; the silvery sheen of
the candles, reflected in rainbow tints from the myriad facets of the
candelabras, recalls an era that scintillated with light and glowed with
colour.