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And more, they decreed the nomination of a provisional commission, and decided that it should consist of three members, who should bear the title of Consuls of the Republic, and they appointed as consuls Sieyes, Ducos, and Bonaparte. At three o'clock in the morning every thing was ready, and Napoleon, accompanied by Bourrienne, went to Paris.
For them were substituted Gohier, who was colourless; Moulin, who was stupid, and Ducos, who was pliable.
I was told that Sieyes had for a moment thought of calling the Duke of Brunswick to the head of the Government; that Barras would not have been very averse to favouring the return of the Bourbons; and that Moulins, Roger Ducos, and Gohier alone believed or affected to believe, in the possibility of preserving the existing form of government.
At the first sitting of the provisional Consuls, Ducos had said to him: "It is useless to vote about the presidence; it belongs to you of right"; and, despite the wry face pulled by Sieyès, the general at once took the chair. Scarcely less remarkable than the lack of energy in statesmen was the confusion of thought in the populace. Mme.
In the Council of the Five Hundred agitation was at its height. The most serious alarm marked its deliberations. It had been determined to announce to the Directory the installation of the Councils, and to inquire of the Council of the Ancients their reasons for resolving upon an extraordinary convocation. But the Directory no longer existed. Sieyes and Roger Ducos had joined Bonaparte's party.
An aid was immediately sent to the palace of the Luxembourg, to inform the five Directors, there in session, of the decree. Two of the Directors, Sieyes and Ducos, were pledged to Napoleon, and immediately resigned their offices, and hastened to the Tuileries. Barras, bewildered and indignant, sent his secretary with a remonstrance.
"No sooner did Bonaparte see Josephine approach, than he left Roger Ducos and hurried to meet her. Both then walked into a path near by. I could see them well. Josephine spoke with animation; the general walked on; now and then she held him back. At last they took the path leading to the castle. I went down to meet them on the steps near the door.
Let us leave to despotism to prepare its slaves for its commands by ignorance." Ducos, a young and generous-hearted Girondist, with whom enthusiasm for the honest carried him beyond the policy of his party, moved for the printing of this speech. His voice was drowned amidst the applause and murmurs which followed a testimony of the indecision and impartiality of men's minds.
This young man, whose impassioned speeches had marked him out as an irreproachable patriot, was now President of that Council. No event could have been more auspicious for the conspirators. With Sieyès, Barras, and Ducos, as traitors in the Directory, with the Ancients favourable, and the junior deputies under the presidency of Lucien, the plot seemed sure of success.
The measures were found to be the deposition of the Directory, the expulsion of sixty-one members from the Councils, the nomination of Sieyès, Roger Ducos, and Bonaparte as provisional Consuls and the adjournment of the Councils for four months.
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