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attendants of the Assembly had destroyed the summons to the meeting
addressed to Deputies of doubtful views. But still Bonaparte was in peril from
insignificant individuals who had escaped Siéyès notice. In fact Deputy Garat
arose to speak. None of these soldiers, he declared, has taken the oath to the
Constitution. Bonaparte turned pale beneath the reproof. But the President
intervened in time and the meeting was suspended amid shouts of Long live
the Republic.
Bonaparte revealed himself yet more fully in the course of reviewing his
troops in the Park of Tuileries. In a high-pitched voice he had spoken frankly to
Bottot as he left the Assembly of the Ancients, and now his speech to his troops
was defiant and menacing. He felt sure of himself. When however Fouché
insisted that the most turbulent Deputies must be arrested, Bonaparte refused to
give the order, saying it needless now that everything was going so well. A few
more formalities, and the capture of the State would be completed. Believing
this, Bonaparte was obviously out of his depth amid the dangerous currents of
the moment. On the next day the nineteenth Brumaire at St. Cloud Siéyès himself
began to be aware of all the mistakes that had been made, and to show alarm for
the future, but Bonaparte continued to show such confidence in his prestige and
in the prospects of the plan and such contempt for the lawyers of the Assembly,
as he called them, that Talleyrand wondered whether to call him simple or
stupid.
Siéyès had conceived the whole plan in terms of legal forms and the rules
of parliamentary procedure; yet he had left out of account certain practical
details. Why was the Assembly convoked at St. Cloud on the nineteenth
Brumaire and not on the eighteenth? Why were these twenty-four hours left to
the opponents to study the situation and to organize resistance? And why if the
St. Cloud meeting was to be delayed to the nineteenth were the two houses
convoked for so late an hour as two o clock instead of midday? The Deputies had
two hours in which to exchange their impressions, their views and their projects
and to agree upon joint action against attempted fraud or violence. The Five
Hundred determined to put up a fight. They were exasperated at the sight of the
soldiers massed all round them. They rushed up and down the passages and
courtyards asking one another why they had agreed to leave Paris, and
demanding names and details of the alleged Jacobin conspiracy. Siéyès had
forgotten to forge proofs of the plot. He perceived some of the Deputies smiling,
some of them pale with excitement. He saw that the situation was far from clear,
that all might turn upon a single word or gesture. If he had only listened to
Fouché but now it was too late, they must trust to chance, for there was nothing
else to trust. These were novel tactics for bringing off a revolution.
At two o clock the Council of the Ancients assembled. Siéyès plans were
checked at the very outset. The respectable citizens were in a frenzy; fortunately
the tumult was such that there could be no speeches. At the Orangery the Five
Hundred received their President, Lucien Bonaparte, with a storm of oaths,
accusations and menaces. All was lost, thought Siéyès, and with a pale face made
for the door to escape the tumult. He had arranged for a carriage to await him at
the edge of the Park in case he should need to escape. A carriage was more
comfortable and safer than a horse. The prudent Siéyès was not likely to neglect
such a detail in drawing up his plans for capturing the State. Nor was he the only
uncomfortable person during those minutes while Bonaparte and his friends, in
the apartment on the first floor, impatiently awaited the votes of the Assemblies.
If the Ancients rejected the decree of dissolution, if they nominated three
temporary Consuls and determined to reform the Constitution, what was to
become of the revolutionary plan so minutely designed by Siéyès in all its
details? Siéyès for that eventuality had planned nothing more than escape in a
carriage.
Up to that moment Bonaparte concerned above all to keep to the form of
legality and to act within the limits of parliamentary procedure had behaved like
a modern Liberal. And in this he has been the originator of a tradition. All the
soldiers who subsequently have sought to capture civil power have been faithful
to this rule up to the last moment, that is to say, up to the moment when violence
becomes necessary. The Liberalism of military men is always dangerous, today
more than ever.
As soon as he saw that Siéyès plans were checked beyond hope by the
opposition of the Ancients and the Five Hundred, Bonaparte determined to put
Parliament to the test by appearing in person. This was still, in a manner, a
Liberal method of procedure, though reinforced by violence-Liberalism as
interpreted by a soldier. At the sight of Bonaparte the Ancients calmed down.
But the disciple of Caesar and Cromwell was once more betrayed by his
eloquence. His speech, listened to at first in respectful silence, was punctuated
later by murmurs of disapproval. When he pronounced the words, If I am a
traitor you may each of you play the part of Brutus, there was laughter in the
recesses of the Hall. The orator was put out, hesitated, muttered and then
resumed in a loud voice, Remember that I am backed by the God War, the God
of Fortune. The Deputies arose and surrounded the platform: they were
laughing. General, you don t know what you re saying, murmured the faithful
Bourienni and seized him by the arm. Bonaparte allowed himself to be led away
from the Hall.
A few moments later he crossed the threshold of the Orangery escorted by
four grenadiers and several officers. The Five Hundred received him with yells:
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