781 



BONAPARTE. NAPOLEON I. 



BONAPARTE. NAPOLEON I. 



782 



out of the pale of the law, let him beware ! I shall appeal to my brave 

 companions, whose caps I perceive at the entrance of this hall" 

 Bourienne and Berthier advised him now to withdraw, and they came 

 out together, when Bonaparte was received with acclamations by the 

 military assembled before the palace. 



The Council of Five Hundred had also assembled. Ita president, 

 Lucien Bonaparte, read aloud the resignation of Barras, which had been 

 forwarded by the Council of Elders. Some of the leaders then proposed 

 to repeat the oath of fidelity to the Constitution, which was carried by 

 acclamation. " No dictator, no new Cromwell ! " resounded through 

 the hall. Augereau, who was present, went out and told Bonaparte 

 what was passing in the council. " You have placed yourself in a 

 pretty situation." "Augereau," replied Bonaparte, "remember Arcole; 

 things appeared still worse there at one time. Keep quiet, and in half 

 an hour you will see." He then entered the Council of the Five 

 Hundred, accompanied by four grenadiers. The soldiers remained at 

 the entrance, he advanced towards the middle of the hall, uncovered. 

 He was received with loud and indignant vociferations. "We will 

 have no dictator, no soldiers in the sanctuary of the laws. Let him 

 be outlawed! he is a traitor!" Bonaparte attempted to speak, but 

 his voice was drowned in the general clamour. He was confused, and 

 seemed uncertain what to do. Several members crowded around 

 him ; a cry of " Let us save our General !" was heard coming from the 

 door of the hall, and a party of grenadiers rushed in, placed Bonaparte 

 in the midst of them, and brought him out of the hall. One of the 

 grenadiers had his coat torn in struggling with a deputy ; but the 

 story of the daggers drawn against Bonaparte appears to be unfounded. 

 Lucien, after the departure of his brother, attempted to pacify the 

 council, but the exasperation of the members was too great. A motion 

 was put to outlaw General Bonaparte. Lucien refused to put it to 

 the vote, saying, " I cannot outlaw my own brother," and he deposited 

 the insignia of president, and left the chair. He then asked to be 

 heard in his brother's defence, but he was not listened to. At this 

 moment, a party of grenadiers sent by Napoleon entered the hall. 

 Lucien put himself in the midst of them, and they marched out. He 

 found the military outside already exasperated at the treatment their 

 general had received. Lucien mounted on horseback, and in a loud 

 voice cried out to them, that factious men, armed with daggers, and 

 in the pay of England, had interrupted by violence the deliberations 

 of the Council of Five Hundred, and that he, in his quality of president 

 of that assembly, requested them to employ force against the disturbers. 

 "I proclaim that the assembly of the Five Hundred is dissolved." 

 This address of Lucien decided the business. The soldiers felt no 

 more scruples in obeying the orders of tho president. Murat entered 

 the hall of the Council, at the head of a detachment of grenadiers with 

 fixed bayonets. He summoned the deputies to disperse, but was 

 answered by loud vociferations, execrations, and shouts of " The 

 I'emiblic for ever ! " The drums were then ordered to beat, and the 

 soldiers to clear the hall. They levelled their muskets, and advanced 

 to the charge. The deputies now fled, many jumped out of the 

 windows, others went out quietly by the door. In a few minutes the 

 hall was entirely cleared. In this affair the military were the instru- 

 ments, and Lucien the chief director. 



On the night of the same day (19th Brumaire) the elders assembled 

 again, and agreed that a provisional executive of three consuls should 

 l>e appointed. The initiative however belonging to the other council, 

 Lucien assembled a small minority, some say only thirty members, out 

 of Five Hundred, who on that night passed several resolutions, by one 

 of which it was stated that there was no longer a directory. By 

 another, a list of the more anlent republican members was drawn up, 

 who were declared to have forfeited their seats in consequence of their 

 violence and their crimes. By another, three provisional consuls were 

 appointed, Sieyes, Dueos, and Bonaparte. At one o'clock in the 

 morning, Bonaparte took the oath before the council. At three o'clock 

 tho two councils adjourned for three months, after appointing a 

 commission to revise the constitution. 



Everything was now quiet at St. Cloud, and Bonaparte returned to 

 Paris with Bourienne. After quieting the anxiety of his wife, he told 

 Bourienne that he thought he had spoken some nonsense while before 

 the councils. " I had rather speak to soldiers than to lawyers. These 

 fellows really put me out of countenance, I have not the habit of 

 speaking before large assemblies. But the habit will come by and 

 by." On the evening of the following day, Bonaparte took up his 

 residence in the Luxembourg, the palace of the ex-directors. 



The fall of the Directorial Government, however irregularly brought 

 about, was certainly not a subject of regret for the great majority of 

 tho French people, who had neither respect for it nor any confidence 

 iu it. The profligacy and dishonesty of that government were 

 notorious. 



At the first sitting of tho three consuls Sieyes having said something 

 about a president, Ducos immediately replied, " The General takes the 

 chair of course." Bonaparte then began to state his views on the 

 various branches of the administration and on the policy to be pursued 

 by the government, and supported them in a firm authoritative tone. 

 Ducos of course assented, and from that moment Sieyes perceived 

 that his own influence was at an end : he told his friends that they 

 had given themselves a master, and that Bonaparte could and would 

 manage everything himself and in his own way. Tho three consuls, 



in conjunction with the commission appointed by the councils, framed 

 anew constitution, which was called the constitution of the year VIII. 

 The outline, with regard to the legislative power, was taken from a 

 plan of Sieyes. It consisted of three consuls, of a senate called con- 

 servative, and composed of eighty members appointed for life and 

 enjoying a considerable salary, of a legislative body of 300 members, 

 one-fifth of whom was to be renewed every year, and of a tribunate 

 of 100 members, one-fifth to be renewed every year. The consuls, or 

 rather the first or chief consul (for the other two were appointed by 

 him and acted only as his advisers and assistants, but could not oppose 

 his decisions), proposed the laws, the tribunate discussed them in 

 public, and either approved of or rejected them ; if it approved, it 

 made a report accordingly to the legislative body, which voted by 

 ballot on the project of law without discussing it. If the proposed 

 law obtained a majority of votes, the senate registered it, and the 

 consuls, in their quality of executive, promulgated it. The sittings of 

 the senate were secret ; those of the legislative body were dumb ; the 

 tribunate was therefore the only deliberative assembly in the state, 

 but it had not the power of originating laws j it could however 

 denounce the measures of the government by an address to the senate. 

 The members of the tribunate were appointed by the senate out of 

 lists of candidates made out by tlie electoral colleges. The senate 

 filled its own vacancies from a triple list of candidates, one proposed 

 by the chief consul, one by the tribunate, and one by the legislative 

 body. As for the legislative body, the members were selected by the 

 senate out of lists of candidates furnished by the electoral colleges of 

 the departments. The people therefore had no direct election of their 

 representatives. This was the essential anomaly of Sieyes' plan of a 

 constitution styled republican. Tho three consuls were appointed for 

 ten years and re-eligible, the first or chief one having the power of 

 appointing to all public offices, and of proposing all public measures, 

 such as war or peace : he commanded the forces of every description, 

 superintended both the internal and foreign departments of the state, 

 &c. The granting of these vast powers met with some opposition in 

 the commission, but Bonaparte sternly overcame them by declaring 

 that if they attempted to weaken the power of the executive, he 

 would have nothing more to do in the business, that he was already 

 first consul, and hinted that a civil war might be the result of further 

 opposition. The commission accordingly yielded to his views. In 

 fact, most men were tired of revolutions, and they felt the necessity of 

 a strong executive in order to re-establish order and internal security. 



Bonaparte beiug thus appointed, or rather confirmed, iu his office 

 of first consul or chief magistrate, had the right of naming the other 

 two : he offered Sieyes oue of the places, but Sieyes declined the offer. 

 He accepted the place of senator, with the yearly salary of 25,000 

 francs, and the domain of Crosne, in the park of Versailles, belonging 

 to the state. Bonaparte appointed Cambaceres and Lebrun second 

 and third consuls. They, together with Sieyes and Ducos, late 

 consuls, appointed the majority of the members of the senate, who 

 themselves appointed the remainder. The senate next named the 

 100 tribunes and the 300 members of the legislative body, and thus 

 the whole legislature was filled up at once under the plea of urgency, 

 as there was no time to wait for the lists of candidates to be named 

 by the departments. (' Constitution of the Year VIII.,' in Appendix 

 to Gourgaud's ' Memoirs of Napoleon.') The constitution was sub- 

 mitted to the acceptation of the people in every commune, and 

 registers were opened for the purpose at the offices of the various 

 local authorities ; 3,012,569 votes were registered, out of which num- 

 ber 1562 rejected and 3,011,007 accepted the new constitution, which 

 was then solemnly proclaimed on the 24th of December 1799. Bona- 

 parte did not altogether approve of Sieyes' constitution, although ho 

 had greatly modified it by strengthening the executive to a vast 

 extent. " Napoleon," thus he spoke afterwards of himself at St. 

 Helena, " was convinced that France could only exist as a monarchy ; 

 but the French people being more desirous of equality than of liberty, 

 and the very principle of the revolution being established in the 

 equalisation of all classes, there was of necessity a complete abolition 



of the aristocracy The ideas of Napoleon were fixed, but 



the aM of time and events were necessary for their realisation. The 

 organisation of the consulate presented nothing in contradiction to 

 them ; it taught unanimity, and that was the first step. This point 

 gained, Napoleon was quite indifferent as to the forms and denomi- . 

 nations of the several constituted bodies ; he was a stranger to the 

 revolution ; it was natural that the will of those men who had 

 followed it through all its phases should prevail in questions as diffi- 

 cult as they were abstract. The wisest plan was to go on from day 

 to day without deviating from one fixed point, the polar star by which 

 Napoleon meant to guide the revolution to the haven he desired." 

 ('Memoirs of Napoleon,' dictated to Gourgaud, vol. i.) The above 

 sentences furnish a clue to Bonaparte's subsequent policy with regard 

 to the internal administration of France. Towards the end of January 

 1800, Bonaparte moved from the palace of the Luxembourg to the 

 Tuileries. Of his public entrance into that royal residence amidst 

 the acclamations of the multitude Madame de Stael has given a 

 striking account. 



The finances were left by tho Directory in a wretched state : the 

 treasury was empty: forced loans arbitrarily assessed had been till 

 then the chief resource of tho government. Gaudiu, the now minister 



