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Updated: May 31, 2025
Moreau had given rise to suspicion by his equivocal conduct to the directory before the 18th Fructidor, and by the sudden denunciation of his old friend Pichegru, whose treason he had kept secret for a whole year; Massena was not a political general; Bernadotte and Jourdan were devoted to the party of the Manege; Sieyes was compelled to postpone his scheme for want of a suitable agent.
The little Montmorency therefore devoted himself to the esteem of the moment, and combated aristocracy under the ferrule of the Abbe Sieyes." Mathieu de Montmorency did not adhere to his revolutionary ideas. After the 10th of August, 1792, he withdrew to Switzerland, at Coppet, near his friend Madame de Stael. Under the Empire he held himself apart.
Siéyès, the mystic oracle of the Revolution, who seemed to carry it on his pensive front, and brood over it in silence; the Duc de Lauzun, passing from the confidence of Trianon to the consultations of the Palais Royal; Laclos, a young officer of artillery, author of an obscene romance, capable at need of elevating romantic intrigue to a political conspiracy; Sillery, soured against his order, at enmity with the court, an ambitious malcontent, awaiting nothing but what the future might bring forth; and others more obscure, but not less active, and serving as unknown guides for descending from the salons of a prince into the depths of the people: some the head, others the arms, of the duke's ambition, attended these meetings.
The latter, starting out as a "society of the friends of the constitution," counted among its early members such men as Mirabeau, Sieyes, and Lafayette, but subsequently under the leadership of Robespierre, transformed itself into an organization quite as radical as the Cordeliers.
One day, when he was conversing with the Second Consul concerning Sieyes, Cambaceres said to him. "Sieyes, however, is a very profound man." "Profound?" said Talleyrand. "Yes, he is, a cavity, a perfect cavity, as you would say." He reposed a blind confidence in a multitude of agents, whom he sent into all parts of France.
We should have compromised the public welfare, and that of its faithful representatives, had we suffered them to remain confounded with the foes of the country in the den of conspiracy." The younger council appointed a commission, composed of Sieyes, Poulain- Granpre, Villers, Chazal, and Boulay de la Meurthe, deputed to present a law of public safety.
This was effected by electing Sieyès to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Rewbell from the Directoire, Sieyès, who was known for his hostility to the existing system, whose reputation for solidity and political integrity was wide, whose capacity as a constitutionalist and reformer was extraordinarily overrated.
The complexity of much of the mechanism, especially that relating to popular election and the legislature, entirely suited Bonaparte. But, while approving the triple winnowing, to which Sieyès subjected the results of manhood suffrage, and the subordination of the legislative to the executive authority, the general expressed his entire disapproval of the limitations of the Grand Elector's powers.
For Sieyès, who possessed the good gift of putting a keen edge to his thoughts, who had begun his career in Parliament ten days before by saying, "It is time to cut the cables," now spoke, and with superb simplicity thus defined the position: "What you were yesterday you are now. Let us pass to the order of the day."
The question at that time was not which of the two should prevail, but how they should be reconciled, and whether rational thought and national life could be made to harmonise. The introductory volume covers the Revolution, and traces the progress and variation of views of government in France, from the appearance of Sieyès to the elevation of Napoleon.
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