In 1797, Bonaparte was a Republican, not, however, on account of the Republic but for his own advantage. What he condemned in the Royalists was not that they threatened the Republicans, but that they desired to bar his way to the throne. His indignation with the Royalist reaction was above all things the result of personal ambition. Apparently he was defending the Republic; in fact, he was laying the foundation of the Empire.

"I have been blamed," he said one day to Madame de Remusat, "with having favored the 18th Fructidor; it is like blaming me for supporting the Revolution. It was necessary to get some profit from the Revolution, and not let all the blood be shed in vain. What! Consent to surrender unconditionally to the House of Bourbon, who would have reproached us with all our misfortunes after their departure, and have silenced us by the desire we had shown for their return! Change our victorious flag for the white flag, which had not feared to mingle with the enemy's standard! And as for me, I was to be pacified with a few millions and some duchy or other! There is one thing certain: I should have thoroughly known how to dethrone the Bourbons a second time if it had been necessary, and perhaps the best counsel that could have been given them would have been to get rid of me."

Bonaparte's double game never manifested itself more clearly than in the preparations for the 18th Fructidor. His official envoy to Paris, the man whom he sent to the Directory as the official representative of the Republican feeling of his army, and as the leader of the approaching coup d'etat, was the Jacobin general, the child of the Paris suburbs, Augereau. But at the same time he had sent on a recent mission to the capital a man in whom he had perfect confidence, his aide-de-camp, Lavalette, whose manners and social relations were those of a man of the old regime.

Through Augereau, Bonaparte determined to act on the Republicans; through Lavalette, on the Royalists. Already, in fact, he was plotting the system of fusion, which was to the basis of his domestic policy, and later to enable him to give the titles of prince and duke to former members of the Convention, and to endow regicides with the broad ribbons of Austrian orders.

Through Augereau, he won the confidence of the most ardent democrats; through Lavalette, he protected the families of the emigres and Josephine's old friends. His plan was to secure for himself the benefits of the coup d'etat, and to appear to quell its excesses. By sending Augereau to Paris he also derived this advantage, that he got rid of a general whose noisy Jacobin ways displeased him; for he so dreaded his influence as a demagogue that he wrote to Lavalette: "Augereau is going to Paris; don't confide in him; he has sown disorder in the army. He is a factious man."

The Directory soon detected this double play, but it regarded Bonaparte as essential for its purposes, because his army would serve as a counterpoise to the ever-growing reactionary spirit, and it felt too weak to break with the conqueror of Italy. Lavalette was equally an object of suspicion, and his goings and comings, his visits, his letters, and words, were all closely watched. The antagonism between Bonaparte and Barras, although latent, was already visible to those who could look beneath the surface. The Directory was about to win a victory which contained the seeds of defeat. The 18th Fructidor was to produce the 18th Brumaire.

Madame de Stael, whose drawing-room was a centre of influence, was most eager in defence of the Republic and bitterly hostile to the reaction: she saw both Augereau and Lavalette. "Although Bonaparte," she said, "was always talking about the Republic in his proclamations, careful observers discerned that it was in his eyes a means, not an end. It was in this light that he regarded everybody and everything. The rumor ran that he wanted to make himself King of Lombardy. One day I met General Augereau, who had just come from Italy, and was everywhere looked upon, and I think rightly, as an ardent Republican. I asked him if it was true that Bonaparte was thinking of making himself king. 'No, certainly not,' he answered; 'he's too well trained for such a thing.' This singular answer fitted well with the ideas of the moment. Earnest Republicans would have considered it a degrading thing that a man, however distinguished, should wish to use the Revolution for selfish purposes. Why was this view so shortlived among the French?" (--Madame de Stael Considerations upon the French Revolution.

At this period Madame de Stael affected genuine adoration of Bonaparte. Lavalette met her at dinner at the house of M. de Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. "During the whole dinner," he says, "her praise of the conqueror of Italy had all the fire and exaggeration of inspiration. When we rose from table, we all went into a side room to see the hero's portrait, and as I drew back to let the others pass, she stopped, and said, 'What! should I think of going before an aide-de-camp of Bonaparte?' My confusion was so manifest that even she was a little embarrassed, and the master of the house laughed at her. I went to see her the next day; she received me so kindly that I often called on her afterwards."

Madame de Stael at that time nourished two passions: for Bonaparte and for the Republic. She, more than anyone, urged on the coup d'etat of Fructidor. "I am convinced," Lavalette says further, "that she had not foreseen the cruelties that would be inflicted on the defeated party, but I never saw such zeal in urging them."

She herself was alarmed by the deed which her words had helped to bring about. She records that in the evening of the 17th Fructidor, the alarm was so great that most well-known persons left their houses for fear of arrest. In spite of her Republican zeal, she felt alarmed on account of relations with Royalists. One of her friends found a hiding-place for her in a little room overlooking the bridge Louis XVI; there she passed the night, looking out on the preparations for the terrible events which were to take place a few hours later. Only soldiers were to be seen in the streets as all the citizens were indoors. The cannon which were massed about the building in which sat the Corps Legislatif (the Palais Bourbon) rolled over the pavement; but, with that exception, absolute stillness prevailed. In the morning it was learned that General Augereau had led his troops into the Council of the Five Hundred, and there arrested the reactionary deputies. Two of the Directors were proscribed, and fifty-one representatives were driven in wagons through the agitated country, and sent, in iron cages, to deadly exile in Cayenne; the owners, editors, and writers of forty-one newspapers were likewise all transported; the elections of forty-eight deputies were cancelled; the press was gagged and silenced; the priests and emigres were again driven out of the country: such were the consequences of the 18th Fructidor; the triumph of the military spirit.

As Edgar Quinet says: "All respect for law was lost; nothing was seen or admired but the drawn sword...After the victory of the soldiers, there was nothing left to do but to crown a soldier."

It was Bonaparte who was to get all the profit from the 18th Fructidor; but before the Royalists of Paris, whom he was treating gently, with an eye to the future, he wished to appear as disapproving of the excesses of a day which was to be of so great service to him. Lavalette wrote to him that he would tarnish his glory if he appeared to give his support to unjustifiable assaults upon the national representatives and upon worthy citizens. These views made so deep an impression upon Bonaparte that, during the days that preceded the coup d'etat, Bonaparte, in his letters to the Directory, abstained from expressing himself on the domestic affairs of France.

Lavalette had passed the evening of the 17th Fructidor at the Luxembourg with Barras. From the ill-concealed excitement of the Director's courtiers, he conjectured what was in the wind, and went away early, determined not to make his appearance there the next day, because he did not wish, by his presence, to make it seem that Bonaparte approved of such violent measures.

Nevertheless, Lavalette went to see Barras the next day but one. The Director said to him in a very threatening way: "You have betrayed the Republic and your general. For more than six weeks the government has received no private letters from him: your opinion on recent events is well known, and we do not doubt that you have painted our conduct in the blackest colors; I want to tell you that last evening the Directory seriously discussed the question whether you should not share the fate of the conspirators who are on their way to Guiana. Out of regard for General Bonaparte, you remain at large; but I have this moment sent my secretary to enlighten him on what has taken place and on your conduct."

Lavalette replied with perfect coolness: "You are quite mistaken; I have betrayed no one. The 18th is a calamity; I can never be convinced that the government has the right to punish blindly the representatives of the people, to break every law. For six weeks I have written nothing else; and if you wish to convince yourself of this fact, here is the key of my desk; you may seize my papers."

Lavalette lingered a few days in Paris, lest his hasty departure should be ascribed to fear. Before starting, he visited General Augereau, to see if he could do anything for him. The general spoke about Bonaparte with great indifference, and about the 18th Fructidor with much more enthusiasm than he would have shown about the battle of Arcole. "Do you know," he said, "that you ought to have been shot for your conduct? But don't be alarmed; you may count on me." Lavalette smiled, and thanked him; but he saw that it was useless to put this kindness to the test, and the next day he left for Italy. He left Paris the 1st Vendemiaire, when the Directory, the ministers, and all the constituted authorities were proceeding to the Champ de Mars to celebrate the first day of the Year VI of the Republic.

For his part, Bonaparte, who posed before his army, which was entirely made up of Republicans, as an ardent supporter of the 18th Fructidor, had addressed the following proclamation to his troops: "Soldiers, we are about to celebrate the 1st Vendemiaire, a date most dear to the French; it will be a day of renown in the world's annals. This is the day from which dates the foundation of the great nation; and the great nation is called by fate to astonish and console the world. Soldiers, far from your country, and triumphant over Europe, chains had been prepared for you; you knew it, you spoke of it; the people awoke and seized the traitors; they are already in irons. You will learn, from the proclamation of the Executive Directory, the plots of the special enemies of the soldiers, and particularly of the divisions of the Army of Italy. This preference does us honor; hatred of traitors, tyrants, and slaves will be in history our proudest title to glory and immortality."

It was not Bonaparte alone who thus played the part of the fanatical Republican: there was Talleyrand, too, the former bishop, Talleyrand who, some years later, at the Vienna Congress, was to speak of legitimacy with so much fervor.

He wrote to Bonaparte four days after the 18th Fructidor: "A real conspiracy, and wholly to the profit of Royalty, had long been plotting against the Constitution. Already it had cast off its mask, and had become visible to the most indifferent eyes. The name of patriot had become an insult; every Republican institution was insulted; the bitterest foes of France had returned to it, and had been welcomed and honored. A hypocritical fanaticism had suddenly carried us back to the sixteenth century... The first day speedy death was decreed for any one who should recall Royalty, the Constitution of '93, or the d'Orleans."

When Lavalette got back from Paris, he found Bonaparte installed at Passeriano, and he gave the fullest details of everything that had happened. The general asked, "Why, with such scornful processes, so much weakness? Then why such rashness, when boldness was enough? It was a piece of cowardice not to try Pichegru; his treason was flagrant, and the evidence was more than enough to condemn him... Force is very well when one can use nothing else; but when one is master, justice is better."

Then he continued his walk in the garden in silence. Finally, he added, as he took leave of Lavalette, "On the whole, this revolution will prove a good spur to the nation." In fact, the real conqueror of the 18th Fructidor was not the Directory; it was Bonaparte.