the citizen-directors
it was time for the citizen-general bonaparte to turn his eyes toward the citizen-directors. there had been an open rupture, as we have said, among the five elect of the luxembourg. carnot and barthélemy had drawn completely apart from their colleagues, barras, rewbell, and la reveillière-lepaux.
the result was that the ministry could not continue as it was, some of the ministers being creatures of barras, rewbell, and la reveillière-lepaux, while others followed carnot and barthélemy.
there were seven ministers: cochon, minister of police; bénézech, minister of the interior; truguet, minister of marine; charles delacroix, minister of foreign affairs; ramel, minister of finance; merlin, minister of justice, and pétiet, minister of war.
[pg 459]
cochon, pétiet, and bénézech were tainted with royalism. truguet was haughty and violent and determined to have his own way. delacroix was not equal to his post. in the opinion of the majority of the directors—barras, rewbell, and la reveillière-lepaux—merlin and ramel alone should be retained.
the opposition, on the other hand, demanded the removal of four ministers—merlin, ramel, truguet, and delacroix.
barras yielded up truguet and delacroix; but he cut off three others who were members of the five hundred, and whose loss would greatly trouble the two chambers. these were, as we have said, cochon, pétiet, and bénézech.
we hope that madame de sta?l's salon has not been forgotten. it was there, it will be remembered, that the future author of "corinne" formed a coterie of opinion, almost as influential as that of the luxembourg or the clichy club.
now, madame de sta?l, who had made one minister under the monarchy, was haunted with the desire to make another under the directory.
the life of her candidate had been an eventful one, interesting because of its many changes. he was forty-three years old, a member of one of the foremost families of france, born lame like mephistopheles, whom he resembled somewhat in face and mind—a resemblance which increased when he found his faust. destined for the church because of his infirmity, although the eldest of his family, he had been created bishop of autun at the early age of twenty-five. then came the revolution. our bishop adopted all its principles, was elected a member of the constituent assembly, suggested the abolition of ecclesiastical tithes, celebrated mass on the champ de mars on the day of the federation, blessed the flags, admitted the new constitution of the clergy, and consecrated bishops who took the oath, which led to his excommunication by pope pius vi.
[pg 460]
sent to london by louis xvi., to assist the french ambassador, monsieur de chauvelin, he received an order to withdraw from the cabinet of saint james in 1794; and at the same time he learned from paris that he had been accused by robespierre.
this double proscription proved fortunate for him; he was ruined, and went to america, where he accumulated another fortune in commerce. he returned to paris some three months before the time of which we are writing.
his name was charles-maurice de talleyrand-périgord.
madame de sta?l, a woman of great intellect, had been attracted by the man's charming wit; she knew the depths that lay beneath her new friend's assumed frivolity. she introduced him to benjamin constant, who was her cicisbeo at the time, and benjamin put him in communication with barras.
barras was enchanted with our prelate. after being presented by madame de sta?l to benjamin constant, and by benjamin constant in turn to barras, he induced barras to present him to rewbell and la reveillière-lepaux. he won them as he won everybody else, and it was agreed that he should be made minister of foreign affairs in bénezéch's stead.
the members of the directory held a meeting to elect by secret ballot the members of the various ministries who should succeed those who were retiring. carnot and barthélemy, not ignorant of the agreement between their three colleagues, imagined that they could successfully oppose them. but they realized their mistake when they perceived that the three were unanimous in their choice of those who were to go, those who were to remain, and those who were to come in.
cochon, pétiet, and bénézech were dismissed; ramel and merlin were retained. monsieur de talleyrand was appointed minister of foreign affairs; pléville-lepel, minister of marine; fran?ois de neufchateau went to the department of the interior, and lenoir-laroche to the police department.
[pg 461]
they also nominated hoche, minister of war; but he was only twenty-eight, and the requisite age was thirty.
it was this selection that had disturbed bonaparte in his headquarters at milan. the secret session had terminated with a violent altercation between barras and carnot. carnot reproached barras for his luxurious mode of life and his dissolute habits. barras accused carnot of defection to the royalist factions. from accusations they passed to the vilest insults.
"you are only a vile rascal!" barras said to carnot. "you have sold the republic, and now you wish to cut the throats of those who defend it. wretch, brigand!" he continued, rising and shaking his fist in the other's face; "there is not a citizen who would not be justified in spitting in your face."
"very good," replied carnot; "i will answer your insults between now and to-morrow."
the next day passed, but barras was not visited by carnot's seconds. the affair had no further consequence.
the appointment of this ministry, in which the two councils had not been consulted, caused a great sensation among the representatives. they resolved at once to organize for a struggle. one of the advantages of counter-revolutions is that they furnish historians with documents which they would not otherwise be able to obtain.
and indeed, when the bourbons returned in 1814, each one tried to outdo the rest in proving that he had conspired against the republic or the empire—that is to say, that he had helped to betray his country.
their object was to claim the reward of treason; and thus it was that we became acquainted with all the conspiracies which precipitated louis xvi. from his throne; conspiracies of which the people had but a vague notion under the republic and the empire, because proofs were lacking.
but in 1814 these proofs were no longer lacking. each man presented the proofs of his treason with his right hand and held out the left for reward.
[pg 462]
it is therefore to that epoch of moral degradation and self-accusation that we must turn for the official details of those struggles in which the guilty were sometimes looked upon as victims, and the administrators of justice as oppressors. for the rest, the reader must have perceived that in the work we are now offering to the public gaze, we appear rather as a romantic historian than as a historical novelist. we believe that we have sufficiently proven our imagination, to be permitted on this occasion to prove our exactitude, while preserving at the same time the element of poetical fancy which will make the perusal of this work easier and more attractive than that of history despoiled of its embellishments.
we have, therefore, had recourse to one of those counter-revolutionary revelations to determine how far the directory was threatened, and how urgent was the coup d'état which was decided upon.
we have seen how, passing bonaparte, the three directors had turned to hoche, and how this movement in favor of the man who had pacified the vendée had alarmed the commander of the army of italy. it was barras who had turned to hoche.
hoche was preparing an expedition to ireland, and he had resolved to detach twenty-five thousand men from the army of the sambre-et-meuse, and to take them to brest. these twenty-five thousand men could pause as they crossed france, in the neighborhood of paris, and in a day's march could be at the disposal of the directory.
their approach drove the denizens of the rue de clichy to the last extremity. the principle of a national guard had been established by the constitution. they, knowing that this national guard would contain the same elements as the sections, hastened to join the organization.
pichegru was chosen president and selected to draw up a plan. he presented a plan inspired by all the cleverness of which his genius, combined with his hatred, rendered him capable.
[pg 463]
pichegru was equally bitter against the royalists, because they had not chosen to profit by his devotion to the royalist cause, and against the republicans, because they had punished him for his causeless devotion. he had gone so far as to desire a revolution of which he would be the prime organizer and which would benefit him alone. at that time his reputation very justly equalled that of his illustrious rivals, bonaparte, moreau, and hoche.
if he had succeeded, pichegru would have created himself dictator, and, once dictator, he would have opened the way for the return of the bourbons, from whom he would perhaps have asked nothing but a pension for his father and brother, and a house with a vast library for himself and rose. the reader will remember who rose was. it was she to whom he had sent, out of his savings in the army of the rhine, an umbrella which little charles had carried to her.
the same little charles, who knew him so well, has since said of him: "an empire would have been too small for his genius; a farm would have been too large for his indolence!"
it would take too long to describe pichegru's scheme for the organization of the national guard; but, once organized, it would have been entirely in his hands. led by him, and bonaparte absent, it might have occasioned the downfall of the directors.
a book published by the chevalier delarue, in 1821, takes us with him into the club in the rue de clichy. the house where the club met belonged to gilbert des molières.
all the counter-revolutionary projects, which prove that the 18th fructidor was not a simple abuse of power and a brutal caprice, emanated from this house.
the clichians found themselves at a disadvantage by the passage of hoche's troops and his alliance with barras. they immediately assembled at their usual meeting-place, formed groups around pichegru and inquired as to his means of resistance.
surprised like pompey, he had no real means at hand.[pg 464] his sole resource lay in the passions of the various sections. they discussed the projects of the directory, and concluded, from the change in the ministry and the advance of the troops, that the directors were planning a coup d'état against the corps legislatif.
they proposed the most violent measures. they wanted to suspend the directory. they wished to bring charges against its individual members. they even went so far as to suggest that they be outlawed.
but they lacked the strength necessary to achieve this result. they had only the twelve hundred grenadiers who composed the guard of the corps legislatif—a part of the regiment of dragoons commanded by colonel malo. they finally proposed, in their desperation, to send a squad of grenadiers into each district of the capital to rally round them the citizens who had taken up arms on the 13th vendémiaire.
this time it was the corps legislatif, which, unlike the convention, roused paris against the government. they talked much without reaching any decision—as is always the case with those who lack strength.
pichegru, when consulted, declared that he would be unable to maintain any resistance with the slender force at his disposal. the confusion was at its height when a message came from the directory with information concerning the march of the troops. it said that hoche's troops, on their way from namur to brest to embark for ireland, would stop at paris.
then arose cries and shouts to the effect that the constitution of the year iii. forbade troops to approach within a radius of thirty-six miles of paris. the messenger from the directory intimated that he had a reply to that objection.
"the commissioner in charge was ignorant of this article of the constitution. his ignorance was the real cause of this infraction of the laws. the directory furthermore affirmed that the troops had received orders to retrace their steps at once."
[pg 465]
they were obliged to content themselves with this explanation in default of others; but it satisfied no one, and the excitement that it had caused spread from the two councils and the clichy club throughout paris, where each citizen prepared himself for events no less exciting than those which had occurred on the 13th vendémiaire.
