(1) The Convention announced that the new Constitution had been approved on September 27, 1795 (5 Vendemaire, Year IV). The whole city of Paris reflected a sullen hostility, which the Convention pretended to ignore.
(2) From that date forward, Paris, led by Lepeletier section, declared its intention to destroy the Convention.
(3) The Convention charged Barras with the defense of the Tuileries where it was holding its meeting.
(4) On October 4, 1795, (12 Vendemaire, Year IV) Barras, called Bonaparte to command the army. He imediately collected, with Murat's help, some 40 guns.
(5) On October 5, 1795, the Parisian partisans against the Convention are in open revolt and began to gather on the Rue St. Antoine, including some 10,000 National Guardmen which had sided with the revolts. They had no artillery.
(6) But Bonaparte did. He ordered them loaded with canister. His infantry stood firm behind the guns. At about 4 P.M., the mass around the Church of Saint Roch suddenly surged forward the Tuileries Garden. The gunners waited, torches lit, as the people closed in. Finally, with the crowd almost upon them, the order came. FIRE! The crowd fled. The scene was repeated in several other places. The revolt was broken.
Hence, by Bonaparte's "whiff of Grapeshot" [1], and by the Grace of Bonaparte, the Convention was saved. The government of the Directory was free to establish itself. By grace of the same general, the Directory would disappear four years later.
Now was the time for reward. By the grace of Barras, who had become one of the Director, Bonaparte was promoted to general de Division (Major general) and shortly after to commander of the Army of the interior.
Bonaparte was regarded with terror by the Parisians but not by the ladies-in-fashion. He suddenly found himself a social lion. At the salon of Madame Tallien, he met Josephine de Beauharnais, with whom he fell in love at first sight. (see EE&L#5, "On the End of the Terror and the Renaissance of Libertinage" pp.25-26.)
[1] The term was coined by Thomas Carlyle in his French Revolution (1837) and is technically inaccurate since Boanparte was using canister and not grapeshot, which is a naval load.
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The Reward
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