XXIX. 1799. had bequeathed to the last democrats of the Revolution, CHAP. was universally extolled as the perfection of society. Felix Lepelletier, Arena, Drouet, and all the furious revolutionists of the age, were there assembled, and the whole atrocities of 1793 were soon held up for applause and imitation. They celebrated the manes of the victims shot on the plain of Grenelle; demanded in loud terms. the instant punishment of all "the leeches who lived on the blood of the people," the general disarming of the royalists, a levy en masse, the establishment of manufactures of arms in the public places, and the restoration of their cannon and pikes to the inhabitants of the faubourgs. These ardent feelings were roused into a perfect fury when the news arrived of the battle of Novi, and the retreat of the army of Italy to the Alps. Talleyrand became in an especial manner the object of attack. He was accused of having projected the expedition to Egypt, the cause of all the public disasters; Moreau was 1 Th. x. 360, overwhelmed with invectives, and Sièyes, the president of 361., Lac. the Council of Ancients, stigmatised as a perfidious priest, 30. Jum. who was about to belie in power all the patriotic resolu- i. 364. tions of his earlier years.1 xiv. 359, Vie de Nap. appointed character, vative de In these perilous circumstances, the Directory named 17. FOUCHÉ minister of police. This celebrated man, who Fouché is under Napoleon came to play so important a part in the Minister of government of the empire, early gave indication of the Police. His great abilities and versatile character which enabled him and conserso long to maintain his influence, not only with many signs. different administrations, but under so many different governments. An old member of the Jacobin Club, and thoroughly acquainted with all their designs; steeped in the atrocities of Lyons; a regicide and atheist; bound neither by affection nor principle to their cause, and seeking only in the shipwreck of parties to make his own fortune, he was eminently qualified to act as a spy upon his former friends, and to secure the Directory against their efforts. He perceived at this critical period that the 1799. CHAP. ascendant of the revolutionists was on the wane; and XXIX. having raised himself to eminence by their passions, he now resolved to attach himself to that conservative party who were striving to reconstruct the elements of society, and establish regular authority by their subversion. The people beheld with dismay the associate of Collot d'Herbois, and a regicide member of the Convention, raised to the important station of head of the police: but they soon found that the massacres of Lyons were not to be renewed; and that the Jacobin enthusiast, intrusted with the direction of affairs, was to exhibit, in combating the forces of anarchy, the spirit he had imbibed in gaining its victories, and a vigour and resolution on the side of order, unknown in the former stages of the Revolution. His accession to the administration at this juncture was of great importance; for he soon succeeded in confirming the wavering Th. x. 364. ideas of Barras, and inducing him to exert all his strength in combating those principles of democracy which were again beginning to dissolve the social body.1 1 Goh. i.110. Lac. xiv. 362. 18. Under the auspices of so vigorous a leader, the power He closes of the Jacobins was speedily put to the test. He at once the Jacobin closed the Riding-school hall, where their meetings were Club. held; and, supported by the Council of the Ancients, within whose precincts it was placed, prohibited any further assemblies in that situation. The democrats, expelled from their old den, reassembled in a new place of meeting in the Rue du Bac, where their declamations were renewed with as much vehemence as ever. But public opinion had changed; the people were no longer disposed to rise in insurrection to support their ambitious projects. Fouché resolved to follow up his first blow by closing their meetings altogether. The Directory were legally invested with the power of taking this decisive step, as the organisation of the society was contrary to law; but there was a division of opinion among its members as to the expediency of adopting it-Moulins and Gohier insisting that it was only by favouring the clubs, and XXIX. 1799. reviving the revolutionary spirit of 1793, that the Re- CHAP. public could make head against its enemies. However, the majority, consisting of Sièyes, Barras, and Roger Ducos, persuaded by the arguments of Fouché, resolved upon the decisive step. The execution of the measure Aug. 12, 1.366, was postponed till after the anniversary of the 10th 367. Lac. August; but it was then carried into effect without opposi- Mign. ii. tion, and the Jacobin Club, which had spread such havoc 125, 130. through the world, at last and for ever closed.1 xiv. 363. 447. Goh.i. 19. the daily press, and attack on Directory. Deprived of their point of rendezvous, the democrats had recourse to their usual engine-the press and the Violence of journals were immediately filled with the most furious invectives against Sièyes, who was stigmatised as the them by the author of the measure. This able but speculative man, the author of the celebrated pamphlet, "What is the Tiers Etat?" which had so powerful an effect in promoting the Revolution in 1789, was now held up to public execration as a perfidious priest who had sold the Republic to Prussia. In truth, he had long ago seen the pernicious tendency of the democratic dogmas with which he commenced political life, and never hesitated to declare openly that a strong government was indispensable to France, and that liberty was utterly incompatible with the successive tyranny of different parties, which had so long desolated the Republic. These opinions were sufficient to point him out as the object of republican fury; and, aware of his danger, he was already beginning to look round for some military leader who might execute the coup d'état, which he foresaw was the only remaining chance of salvation to the country. In the meanwhile, the state of the press required immediate attention; its license and excesses were utterly inconsistent with any stable or regular government. The only law by which it could be restrained, was one which declared that all attempts to subvert the Republic should be punished with death: a sanguinary regulation, the offspring of democratic apprehensions, the severity of which prevented it, in the present CHAP. 1799. state of public feeling, from being carried into execution. XXIX. In this extremity, the three Directors declared that they could no longer carry on the government; and France was on the point of being delivered over to utter anarchy, when the Directory thought of the expedient of applying to the press the article of the constitution which gave the executive power the right to arrest all persons suspected of carrying on plots against the Republic. Nothing could be more 1 Art. 144. forced than such an interpretation of this clause,1 which was obviously intended for a totally different purpose; but the necessity and the well-known principle, salus populi suprema lex, seemed to justify, on the ground afterwards taken by Charles X., a stretch indispensable for the 2 Th. x. 360, existence of regular government, and an arrêt was at length resolved on, which authorised the apprehension of the editors of eleven journals, and the immediate suppression of their publications.2 Sept. 3. 368. Lac. xiv. 363. Mign. ii. 448. 20. Their con This bold step produced an immediate ebullition among the democrats; but it was confined to declamations and tinued vigo- threats, without any hostile measures. The tribune resures against sounded with "dictators," "the fall of liberty,” and all the rous mea the Jaco bins. Sept. 11. other overflowings of revolutionary zeal; but not a sword was drawn. The three resolute Directors, continuing their advantage, succeeded in throwing out, by a majority of 245 to 171, a proposal of Jourdan to declare the country in danger, which was supported by the whole force of the Jacobin party; and they soon after successfully ventured on the bold step of dismissing Bernadotte, the minister at war, whose attachment to democratical principles was well Sept. 17. known. All thoughts were already turned towards a military chief capable of putting an end to the distractions of the Republic, and extricating it from the perilous situation in which it was placed, from the continued successes of the Allies. "We must have done with declaimers," said Sièyes; "what we want is a head and a sword." But where to find that sword was the difficulty. Joubert had recently been killed at Novi; Moreau, not XXIX. 1799. withstanding his consummate military talents, was known not to possess the energy and moral resolution requisite for the task; Massena was famed only as a skilful soldier; while Augereau and Bernadotte, both violent democrats, had openly thrown themselves into the arms of the opposite party. In this emergency, all eyes were already turned towards that youthful hero who had hitherto chained victory to his standards, and whose early campaigns, splendid as they were, had been almost thrown into the shade by the romantic marvels of his Egyptian expedition. The Directory had, in the preceding spring, assembled an immense fleet in the Mediterranean, to bring back the army from the shores of the Nile; but it had been broken up without achieving anything. But Lucien and Joseph Buonaparte had conveyed to Napoleon full intelligence of the disastrous state of the Republic, and it was by their advice that he resolved to brave the English cruisers and return to France. The public mind was already in that uncertain 1 Th. x. 375, and agitated state which is the general precursor of some 377. Mign. great political event; and the journals, a faithful mirror xiv. 362, of its fleeting changes, were filled with conjectures as to 140, 155. the future revolutions he was to achieve in the world.1 ii. 448. Lac. 363. Goh.i. 21. state of this period. In truth, it was high time that some military leader of commanding talents should seize the helm, to save the Deplorable sinking fortunes of the Republic. Never since the com- France at mencement of the war had its prospects been so gloomy, both from external disaster and internal oppression. A contemporary republican writer, of no common talent, has drawn the following graphic picture of the internal state of France at this period:-" Merit was generally persecuted; all men of honour were chased from public situations; robbers were everywhere assembled in their infernal caverns; the wicked were in power; the apologists of the system of terror thundering in the tribune; spoliation re-established under the name of forced loans; assassinations prepared; thousands of victims already marked out, under the name of hostages; the signal for pillage, mur VOL. V. N |