At five in the morning, Sebastiani, the colonel of the 9th Dragoons, had occupied the garden of the Tuileries and the Place de la Revolution with eight hundred men. He himself had taken a place with two hundred mounted dragoons before Bonaparte's house in the rue de la Victoire. At six, arrived Lefebvre, the commander of the military division. Orders had been sent to different regiments without saying anything to him, and he was surprised to see Sebastiani's dragoons, but Bonaparte was in no way disconcerted.

"Here," he said, "is the Turkish sabre which I carried at the battle of the Pyramids. Do you, who are one of the most valiant defenders of the country, accept it? Will you let our country perish in the hands of the pettifoggers who are ruining it?"

Lefebvre, wild with joy, exclaimed, "If that's what's up, I am ready. We must throw those pettifoggers into the river at once."

The house and garden were speedily filled with officers in full uniform. Only one was in citizen's dress; it was Bernadotte. Resisting Bonaparte's offers, he said, "No! no! You will fail. I am going away where perhaps I shall be able to save you."

Eight o'clock struck; a woman entered; it was Madame Gohier, wife of the President of the Directory. The evening before, her husband had received this note, brought by Eugene de Beauharnais:

17th Brumaire, Year VIII

My Dear Gohier: Won't you and your wife breakfast with us to-morrow at eight. Do not fail us; there are a good many interesting things I should like to talk to you about. Good by, my dear Gohier. Believe me always

Sincerely yours,
LA PAGERIE-BONAPARTE."

The early hour aroused Gohier's suspicions. He told his wife: "You will go; but you must tell Madame Bonaparte that I can't accept her invitation, but that I shall have the honor of seeing her in the course of the morning."

When Bonaparte saw Madame Gohier arrive alone, he frowned.

"What!" he exclaimed, "isn't the President coming?"

"No, General, he couldn't possibly come."

"But he must come. Write him a line, Madame, and I will see that the note is sent."

"I will write to him, General, but I have servants here who will take charge of the letter."

Madame Gohier took a pen and wrote to her husband as follows:

"You did well not to come, my dear: everything convinces me that the invitation was a snare. I shall come to you as soon as possible."

When Madame Gobier had sent this note, Madame Bonaparte came to her, and said: "Everything you see must indicate to you, Madame, what has got to happen. I can't tell you how sorry I am that Gohier did not accept the invitation which I had planned with Bonaparte, who wants the President of the Directory to be one of the members of the government which he proposes to establish. By sending my son with the note, I thought that I indicated the importance I attached to it."

"I am going to join him, Madame; my presence is superfluous here."

"I shall not detain you. When you see your husband, bid him reflect, and do you yourself reflect on the wish I have been authorized to express to you.... Use all your influence, I beg of you, to induce him to come."

Madame Gohier returned to the Luxembourg, leaving Bonaparte amid the officers of all grades who were to help him in the coup d'etat.

What was going on at the Tuileries meanwhile? The Council of Ancients met at eight o'clock. Cornet took the floor, and began to speak about conspiracy, daggers, Terrorists. "If the Council of Ancients does not protect the country and liberty off this dreadful conflagration, or the Republic will cease to exist, and its skeleton will be in the talons of vultures who will dispute its fleshless limbs!"

This declamatory outburst produced a distinct effect. The Council of Ancients, in accordance with articles of the Constitution authorizing, in case of public peril, a change in the place of meeting of the Legislative Body, passed the following votes:

"Article 1. The Legislative Body is transferred to the Commune of Saint Cloud; the two Councils will sit there in the two wings of the palace.

"Article 2. They will meet there at noon tomorrow, the 19th Brumaire. All official acts and deliberations are forbidden at any place, before that hour.

"Article 3. General Bonaparte is charged with the execution of this decree. . . . The general commanding the 17th military division, the Guard of the Legislative Body, the stationary National Guard, the troops of the line now in the Commune of Paris, are hereby placed under his orders.

"Article 4. General Bonaparte is summoned to the Council to receive a copy of this decree and to take oath accordingly."

Scarcely had the vote been taken when Cornet hastened off to tell Bonaparte in the rue de la Victoire.

It was about nine o'clock. The general was addressing his officers from the steps of his house. "The Republic is in danger; we must come to its aid."

After he had read the vote of the Ancients, he shouted, "Can I depend on you to save the Republic?" Cheers were their answer. Then he got on his horse, and, followed by a brilliant escort, among whom were noticed Moreau, Macdonald, Lefebvre, Berthier, Lannes, Beurnonville, Marmont, Murat, be rode to the Tuileries. Sebastiani's dragoons opened and closed the way.

There were but few people about the Tuileries, for most had no idea of what was going to happen. The gates of the garden, which was full of troops, were closed. The weather was very fine; the sun lit up the helmets and bayonets. Bonaparte rode through the garden, and, alighting in front of the Pavilion of the Clock, appeared before the Council of Ancients, the door being opened to him.

"Citizen Representatives," he said, "the Republic was about to perish; your vote has saved it! Woe to those who dare to oppose its execution! Aided by my comrades, I shall know how to resist their efforts. It is vain that precedents are sought in the past to disturb your minds. There is in all history nothing like the eighteenth century, and nothing in the century ia like its end. We desire the Republic; we desire it founded on true liberty, on the representative system. We shall have it; I swear this in my own name and in that of my fellow-soldiers."

Only one deputy observed that in this oath no mention was made of the Constitution. The President, wishing to spare Bonaparte too open perjury, silenced him and closed the meeting.

Bonaparte went down into the garden again and reviewed the troops, who cheered him warmly.

It was eleven o'clock, the hour set for the meeting of the Council of Five Hundred. The Deputies heard with indignation the vote of the Ancients, but their President, Lucien Bonaparte, silenced them. The Constitution was imperative; all discussion was forbidden. They had nothing to do but to agree to meet at Saint Cloud the next day.

Of the five Directors, two, Sieyes and Roger-Ducos, had already handed in their resignations; the third, Barras, at the request of Bruix and Talleyrand, had just followed their example, and had started for his estate, Grosbois; the other two, Gohier and Moulins, made one final effort. They went to the Tuileries, and found Bonaparte in the hall of the Inspectors of the Council of Ancients. After a lively altercation, they returned to the Luxembourg, having accomplished nothing.

A few moments before, Bonaparte had spoken thus to Bottot, Barras's secretary: "What have you done with this France that I left so full of glory? I left peace; I find war! I left you victorious; I find you in defeat! I left you the millions of Italy; I find everywhere ruinous laws and misery! . . . What have you done with the hundred thousand Frenchmen whom I knew, the companions of my glory? They are dead! This state of things cannot last. In three years it would lead to despotism."

In her Considerations on the French Revolution, Madame de Stael says: "Bonaparte worked to make his predictions true. Would it not be a great lesson for the human race, if these Directors were to rise from their graves and demand of Napoleon an account for the boundary of the Rhine and the Alps which the Republic had conquered, an account for the foreigner who twice entered Paris, and for the Frenchmen who perished from Cadiz to Moscow?"

But who on the 18th Brumaire could predict these future disasters? Bonaparte's soldiers imagined themselves forever invincible. The military spirit was triumphant. No more red caps, but the grenadiers' hats; no more pikes, but bayonets. The Jacobins had lived their day. The furious diatribes of the Club du Manege called forth no echo. The terrible Santerre was a mere harmless brewer. The Faubourgs had grown calm. The roll of the drum had silenced the voice of the tribunes. Even the men of the old regime were fascinated by the career of arms. This is what a young aristocrat said, who was one day to be General de Segur, the historian of the exploits of the grand army:

"It was the very moment when Napoleon, summoned by the Council of Ancients, began in the Tuileries the revolution of the 18th Brumaire and was haranguing the garrison of Paris to secure it against the other Council. The garden gate stopped me. I leaned against it, and gazed on the memorable scene. Then I ran around the enclosure, trying every entrance; at last I reached the gate near the drawbridge, and saw it open. A regiment of dragoons came out, the 9th; they started for Saint Cloud, with their overcoats rolled up, helmets on their heads, sabres in hand, and with the warlike excitement, the fierce and determined air of soldiers advancing on the enemy to conquer or die. At this sight, all the soldier's blood I had inherited from all my ancestors boiled in my veins. My career was determined. From that moment I was a soldier; I thought of nothing but battles, and despised every other career."

Madame de Stael records that on the 18th Brumaire she happened to arrive in Paris from Switzerland. When changing horses at some leagues from the city, she heard that the Director Barras had just passed by, escorted by gens d'armes.

"The postilions," she goes on, "gave us the news of the day, and this way of bearing it made it only more vivid. It was the first time since the Revolution that one man's name was in every mouth. Previously they had said: The Constituent Assembly has done this, or the people, or the Convention; now nothing was spoken of but this man who was going to take the place of all. That evening the city was excited with expectation of the morrow, and doubtless the majority of peaceful citizens, fearing the return of the Jacobins, then desired that General Bonaparte should succeed.

My feelings, I must say, were mixed. When the fight had once begun, a momentary victory of the Jacobins might be the signal for bloodshed; but nevertheless the thought of Bonaparte's triumph filled me with a pain that might be called prophetic."

He himself, well contented with his day, returned to his house in the rue de la Victoire, where he found Josephine happy and confident. All the military preparations were complete: Moreau occupied the Luxembourg. Lannes, the Tuileries; Serurier, the Point du Jour; Murat, the palace of Saint Cloud. Bonaparte fell asleep as calmly as on the eve of a great battle.