Collected works of eugen.., p.539
Collected Works of Eugène Sue, page 539
Then to Hubert he added:
“Adieu, citizen. I shall return before my departure, to get your messages for Vannes.”
“Adieu, dear nephew,” answered the latter. “Although a Jacobin, you have my esteem.”
CHAPTER IV.
LAYING THE TRAIN.
LATE THAT AFTERNOON conspiracy held high carnival in the parlor of Lahary, an influential member of the Council of Ancients. The conspirators present were scattered in groups about the apartment, engaged in lively conversation, when Hubert the banker and advocate Desmarais made their entrance upon the scene.
“Messieurs,” Lahary was saying, “there are a number of us present. Let us begin our deliberations. I shall preside. Our colleague Regnier has the floor.”
Regnier at once began: “Gentlemen, yesterday, in a long conference held at the home of our friend the president of the Council of Ancients, various opinions were advanced and discussed, but we separated without having reached any conclusion, setting to-day for the final deliberation. We should no longer temporize. Time presses; public opinion, very uneasy, very restless, is watching; it apprehends a coup d’etat, they say, from moment to moment. This state of mind is particularly favorable to our projects, only we must make speed to profit by circumstances, and hasten events. Else the Council of Five Hundred will steal a march on us and appeal to an insurrection, in the name of the Constitution in danger. We should thus lose much of our vantage ground.”
“Aye, let us haste,” agreed Fouché. “Trust to my long experience. In revolutions, he who attacks has three chances to one.”
“The experience and authority of our friend Fouché in matters of conspiracy can not be too highly estimated,” Regnier hastened to put in. “I am for attacking, and that to-morrow, the 18th Brumaire. Here is my project. The Council of Five Hundred is the only real obstacle to the overthrow of the Constitution, which, it is decided, shall give way to another form of government, to be determined on later. The Council of Five Hundred, composed in its immense majority of republicans, is, then, the stumbling block to our projects. It must be either suppressed or annihilated.”
“It is more than probable that the canaille of the suburbs will not budge an inch. Nevertheless, let us proceed prudently, as if an insurrection were really to be feared. Let us get all the police, horse and foot, upon the field to repress all suggestion of revolt,” advised Fouché.
“To conjure away the peril of an insurrection, this is what I would propose,” Regnier continued. “The Constitution of the year III vests exclusively in us, the Council of Ancients, the right to appoint or change the meeting-place of the Assemblies. Let us, in virtue of our constitutional right, transfer our seat and that of the Five Hundred to St. Cloud, which we can invest with five or six thousand troops, of which we will give the command to General Bonaparte. Things thus prepared, if the Council of Five Hundred refuses to adhere to our most drastic measures — a refusal who can doubt? — we shall pronounce the dissolution of their Council, and commission General Bonaparte to carry out the decree. Triumph is assured—”
“I am authorized by my brother,” spoke up a new party to the debate, Lucien Bonaparte, “to declare to you that if he is placed in supreme command of the troops he will answer for everything, even to the burning of Paris.”
“Those are extreme measures, but we must not recoil before them. We may have to burn Paris,” chimed in the plotters in chorus.
“Yes, I share the opinion of my colleagues,” declared Desmarais the lawyer. “The Council of Five Hundred, transferred to St. Cloud, becomes no longer an object of fear. But how can we justify that relegation in the eyes of the public?”
Fouché smiled sardonically. “Citizen Brutus Desmarais,” said he, “you have forgotten the fifty thousand Septembrists who are in the catacombs! My spies and my horse police will spread themselves all over Paris to-morrow trumpeting to the good bourgeois that a tremendous plot has been unearthed to-night by Monsieur Fouché, Minister of Police. He, wishing to frustrate the abominable projects of the scoundrels of Terrorists, who are in league with the Five Hundred, all Jacobins, warned the Council of Ancients of what was on foot; and the noble conscript fathers, who would be the first to perish under the daggers of the bloodthirsty Terrorists, thereupon decided to remove the sessions of the national representation to St. Cloud.”
“Hurrah for the great complot!” shouted Lemercier, opening his mouth for the first time. “And this reason can well be supported by another, by insisting above all that the lives of the Council of Ancients are menaced by their sitting any longer in Paris.”
“Yes, yes — on with the ‘great conspiracy’!” cried all.
“It is agreed, then,” summed up Regnier, “that the discovery of this plot — excellent invention of the police! — is to justify the removal to St. Cloud. Now we must see that our project does not miss fire.”
“For that purpose we must call a special session of our colleagues of the Council of Ancients, without informing them of the reason therefor,” suggested Lemercier.
“I would observe to my honorable colleague, that, to my mind, it would be a very prudent move not to notify the republican minority which sits with us in the Council. These fellows would ask the most indiscreet questions, the most absurd, ridiculous questions. They wouldn’t content themselves with the simple affirmation that there was a plot discovered; they would ask for proofs of the plot! And the details of its discovery! It would be most difficult to answer them!” put in Desmarais.
“Desmarais is right,” assented Cornet, another of the conspirators. “My belief is that all of us here present should charge ourselves to go this evening to see our colleagues of the majority personally, let them know the reason for to-morrow morning’s extraordinary session, and address letters of notification to them alone. Treason all along the line — our success depends upon it. Is my advice taken?”
“If the republican minority complains about not being notified, we can blame the inspectors of the hall,” ventured Lemercier.
“It will be necessary, as a matter of precaution, to double the troops about the Council of Ancients,” Lucien Bonaparte advised. “Everything must be foreseen. Squads of police agents should even be mixed with them.”
“General Bonaparte, more than anyone else, will serve our ends,” answered Regnier. “We shall count on General Bonaparte; say to him that he may count on us.”
“Ah, there, Lucien,” said Fouché with his withered leer, “if your brother orders the troops to march, how will you, as president of the Fire Hundred, whom you betray with such neatness and despatch, keep those prattlers from screeching like jays when they are dissolved?”
“I shall head off the storm, never fear,” laughed Lucien.
“And now, dear colleagues,” interrupted Regnier, “let us make haste. The day is nearly gone, and we have not a moment to lose. Let us go on. Who will undertake to prepare the letters of notification?”
“I,” volunteered Lahary, their host. “I shall see the inspectors of the hall, who are ours. They are all ready to sell themselves.”
“My dear Lucien, you will make it your duty to signify to the General the result of our deliberations?” asked Regnier.
“I am going at once to my brother’s, on Victory Street,” answered the young man.
“Who,” Regnier continued, “will post the inspectors of the hall to have the guards doubled to-morrow?”
“I; and I shall reinforce the posts with spies,” replied Cornet.
“My other colleagues and I,” Regnier went on, “shall partition among us the task of visiting our friends at once, at their homes, and informing them of the motive of to-morrow’s special session.”
“We ought above all to caution them to keep the strictest secrecy about the affair,” counseled Boulay, from the Meurthe district. “Otherwise it will get noised about, and to-morrow we will see the republican minority march into the Council with their bothersome questions.”
“It must be an absolute secret, and I particularly recommend this to our friends,” assented Regnier.
“And I,” Fouché added, “I shall go teach their lesson to my spies and agents of police, all blackguards and off-scourings, willing to do anything, if they are well paid.”
Meanwhile Desmarais, aside, was saying in Lucien’s ear: “And so, to-morrow evening the greatest captain of modern times, your illustrious brother, that grand man clad in the dictatorship which he alone can wield, will decide the form of government it pleases him to bestow upon France. We shall behold once more the glorious days of the monarchy.”
“How! the dictatorship is to fall on Bonaparte!” cried Councillor Herwin, in surprise.
“We certainly shall not allow General Bonaparte to decide alone on the form of the government!” declared Cornet.
“What a stupid ass this Desmarais is!” said young Bonaparte to himself. “Messieurs,” he added aloud, “I give you my word of honor as a man, my brother has no other ambition than to place his genius and his sword at the service of the Council of Ancients. He is outspokenly republican, and has no thoughts of a dictatorship.”
Despite the reassuring effect of Lucien Bonaparte’s words, his fellow conspirator Regnier thought it wisest also to jump into the breach. “We won’t occupy ourselves, dear colleagues,” he said, “with a premature question. Let us first turn down the Constitution of the year III, and pronounce the dissolution of the Council of Five Hundred which sustains it. That done, we shall take further counsel; but first let us triumph over the common enemy. And now, gentlemen — till to-morrow!”
To cries of “Till to-morrow!” “Till to-morrow, the day of great events!” the conspirators dispersed.
CHAPTER V.
THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE.
BY EIGHT O’CLOCK on the morning of the 18th Brumaire, year VIII (November 9, 1799), the Council of Ancients were assembled in their hall. Several members of the republican minority, which had not been notified of the session, had nevertheless come to the Assembly, warned by public rumor of something unusual in the wind. These latter gathered in a group about the tribunal, engaged in animated conversation.
Lemercier, presiding officer of the Council, sounded his bell; silence fell upon the assembly, and the members took their seats.
“Messieurs, our colleague Cornet, chairman of the Committee of Inspectors, has the floor,” he said.
Cornet mounted the tribunal and began: “Representatives of the people: — The confidence you have reposed in your Committee of Inspectors has laid it under the obligation of watching over your individual safety, with which the public safety is so closely bound up. For, when the representatives of a nation are menaced in their persons, so that they do not enjoy in their deliberations the most absolute independence, it is no longer a Republic. Your Committee of Inspectors knows that conspirators are pouring into Paris in swarms; that those who are already here do but await the signal to bare their poniards against the representatives of the nation, against the highest authorities and members of the Republic. In presence of the danger which encompasses you, Representatives of the people, your committee felt it incumbent upon it to call you together in special session to inform you thereon; it felt it to be its duty to spur the deliberations of the Council on in deciding what part it was to play in these circumstances. The Council of Ancients holds in its hands the means of saving the country and liberty; it would be doubting its prudence, it would be doubting its wisdom, to think that it will not grapple the problem with its accustomed courage and energy.”
“It is inconceivable that neither I nor several of my colleagues received notice of this convocation of the Assembly. This omission — voluntary or involuntary — must be explained,” interposed Montmayon, a member of the minority.
“You have not been given the floor!” yelled President Lemercier. “Your motion is out of order. I give the floor to Monsieur Regnier.”
“Representatives of the people,” declared the latter when he in turn had climbed up to the tribunal, “where is the man so stupid as still to doubt the dangers which encompass us? The proofs have been only too well multiplied. But this is not the time to unroll their lamentable length. Time presses! The least delay may prove so fatal that it would then no longer lie in your power to deliberate on remedies. God forbid that I should so insult the citizens of Paris as to believe them capable of assaulting the national representation! On the contrary, I doubt not but they would protect it with their own bodies, if need were; but this immense city is nursing within its bosom a horde of brigands, of bold and desperate scoundrels. They only await, with ferocious impatience, our first unguarded moment to strike us, and, consequently, to strike at the heart of the Republic itself.”
Great cries of feigned indignation burst from the conspirators. Tumult rose in the hall. Aside to himself Hubert muttered— “Forward, with Fouché’s Septembrists!”
“If there exists a conspiracy against the Republic — unmask it!” cried a member of the minority. “Your assertions are without bottom. Let’s have the proofs!”
“You have not got the floor!” again declared President Lemercier.
Regnier continued: “I propose, gentlemen, according to the precise terms of the Constitution, the following motion and irrevocable decree; and I propose it to you with all the more confidence that a large number of our colleagues, honored by our confidence, share my views:
“The Council of Ancients, in virtue of Articles 102, 103, and 104 of the Constitution, decrees the following:
“Article 1. — The legislative body is transferred to the Commune of St. Cloud. The two Councils, the Five Hundred and the Ancients, shall there sit in the two wings of the palace.
“Article 2. — They shall have moved by to-morrow, the 19th Brumaire, at noon. All continuation of functions and deliberations elsewhere before that time is forbidden.
“Article 3. — General Bonaparte is commissioned to execute the present decree. He will take all measures necessary for the safety of the national representation. All the troops are placed under the command of General Bonaparte; he will be called into the Council to receive the announcement of the present decree and to take the oath. He shall act in concert with the Committee of Inspectors of the two Councils.
“Article 5. — The present decree shall at once be transmitted by messenger to the Council of Five Hundred and to the executive Directorate.”
The reading of the decree, acclaimed though it was by the intriguing majority, elicited the most energetic disapproval from the members present of the republican minority.
Cornudet followed Regnier on the tribunal: “Representatives of the people, I move the adoption of this address to the French:
“Frenchmen — The Council of Ancients uses its right, delegated to it by Article 102 of the Constitution, to change the seat of the legislative body.
“The common safety, the common prosperity, are alone the object of this constitutional measure. They shall be attained.
“And you, inhabitants of Paris, be calm. In a few days the presence of the legislative body will be restored to you.
“Frenchmen, the results of this day will soon make it evident whether the legislative body is worthy of establishing your happiness, and if worthy, whether it can.
“Long live the people, by whom, and of whom, the Republic has its existence.”
The intriguers rose in mass to adopt this address to the French. In vain the minority struggled to make their protests heard. They were drowned out by the clamor raised by the conspirators.
“Ushers, lead General Bonaparte to the bar,” ordered President Lemercier.
Bonaparte was introduced by the ushers. He was clad in the severe uniform of the generals of the Republic, a blue coat with large lapels, a scarf tricolored, like the plume in his hat, tight trousers of white cloth, and high yellow boots coming up to the middle of his calf. The sickly and bilious complexion of the Corsican general brought out remarkably the leanness of his countenance, which was furthermore strongly accentuated by its frame of straight black hair. His look was inscrutable; it disclosed at once pride and dissimulation, astuteness and energy. A smile, which varied between insidiousness, mockery and haughtiness, completed his physiognomy. Generals Berthier, Lefebvre, Moreau, Macdonald, Murat, Moncey, Beurnonville, Marmont, and several aides-de-camp, among whom strode Colonel Oliver, escorted Bonaparte. Their air was one of jauntiness and triumph, and the clatter of their trailing sabers and their spurred boots on the flagstones of the hall rang out harshly. Then a profound silence fell upon the Assembly.
“General,” quoth President Lemercier, “the Council of Ancients has summoned you to its bar to impart to you its instructions.”
In a voice that was clear and shrill, and marked by a curt and haughty accent, General Bonaparte answered: “Representatives of the people, the Republic was perishing. You perceived its plight; your decree has saved it. Unhappy they who would trouble or disturb it! I shall arrest them, with the aid of General Lefebvre, General Berthier, and all my companions in arms. Woe to the seditious!”
Immoderate applause, echoing “Bravos!” on the part of the majority, greeted this speech. Cries of “Long live General Bonaparte!” were heard.
President Lemercier interrupted the tumult. “General,” he said, “the Council of Ancients receives your oaths. It entertains no doubt of their sincerity and your zeal to fulfil them. He who never promised the Republic victories in vain can not but execute with devotion his new engagement to serve her in all faith and loyalty.”
Followed by his staff, General Bonaparte strode from the hall. The traitor majority rose to its feet with the foresworn cry upon its lips:
“Long live the Republic!”
