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VII. With the same view, of avoiding discussions during the unsettled state of opinion, a majority of the members of the conservative senate are for the present appointed by the consuls, Sieyes and Ducos, going out of office, and the consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrun, about to come into office; they shall be held to be duly elected, if the public acquiesce; and proceed to fill up their own number, and to nominate the members of the tribunate and legislative senate.
But this letter fell into Bonaparte's hands; and the directors, when they saw that their request was unheeded, resigned, as Barras had done. The republic now had but two legitimate rulers, Sieyes and Ducos; and at their side stood Bonaparte, soon to exalt himself above them. The following day, the 19th Brumaire, was actually the decisive day.
"Dussaulx," said he, "is an old twaddler, incapable of leading a party; Lathenas is a poor creature, unworthy of a thought; Ducos is merely chargeable with a few absurd notions, and is not at all a man to become a counter-revolutionary leader. I require that these be struck out of the list, and their names replaced by that of Valaze."
He and his two colleagues, who were Sieyes and Roger Ducos, signed, on the 5th Nivose, a decree, setting forth that in future the only festivals to be celebrated by the Republic were the 1st Vendemiaire and the 14th of July, intending by this means to consecrate provisionally the recollection of the foundation of the Republic and of liberty. All was calculation with Bonaparte.
Then follow the names of sixty-one members expelled. By other articles of the same decree the Council instituted a provisional commission, similar to that which the Ancients had proposed to appoint, resolved that the said commission should consist of three members, who should assume the title of Consuls; and nominated as Consuls Sieyes, Roger Ducos, and Bonaparte.
To Napoleon the crisis was an epoch of fate. The first thing was to be the resignation of Sieyes, Barras and Ducos, which coming suddenly on the appointed morning broke up the Directory. Bonaparte then put out his hand as commander of the troops. Too late the Republicans of the Council of Five Hundred felt the earthquake swelling under their feet.
Whilst the king, isolated at the summit of the constitution, sought support, sometimes by hazardous negotiations with foreigners, sometimes by rash attempts at corruption in the capital, a body, some Girondists and other Jacobins, but as yet confounded under the common denomination of patriots, began to unite and form the nucleus of a great republican idea: they were Pétion, Robespierre, Brissot, Buzot, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Carra, Louvet, Ducos, Fonfrède, Duperret, Sillery-Genlis, and many others, whose names have scarcely emerged from obscurity.
I believe Josephine communicated directly with the President of the Directory through a friend of Madame Gohier's. Gohier and Moulins, no longer depending on Sieyes and Roger Ducos, waited for their colleague, Barras, in the hall of the Directory, to adopt some measure on the decree for removing the Councils to St. Cloud.
Sieyes and Ducos were the only directors who made their appearance; Gohier, that morning, had sent to Bonaparte an invitation to dinner, so as to deceive the more securely him whom he knew was his enemy; Barras and Moulins, suspecting Bonaparte's schemes, remained in the background, silently awaiting the result.
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.
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