Tallyrand's door. They put out the light in some concern, and crept on to the balcony to observe. It was the carriage of the manager of one of the gaming houses, returning home with the profits and an escort of gens d'armes, and it had met with an accident just before Talleyrand's door.

On the morning of November 9th (18th Brumaire) Paris awoke once more to find a revolution afoot. Great masses of troops were distributed about the streets, and a crowd of officers was gathered, by invitation, before Napoleon's house-Napoleon telling them from the balcony he was going to save the Republic. The Ancients were to meet at seven o'clock, the Five Hundred at eleven, and in fact a number of the notices to patriotic members of the latter Council had prudently gone astray in the post. Under the plea of some vague conspiracy being abroad the complaisant Ancients decreed that the legislative bodies be transferred to Saint Cloud (which was in form constitutional), that Napoleon be given command of all the troops at Paris, and that three Consuls be appointed. Napoleon and his generals (who were going to "pitch the lawyers in the river," as some of them said) at one proceeded to the Chamber and took the oath. The alarmed patriots of the Five Hundred now met, but were immediately closured by Lucien on the ground that they had been constitutionally removed to Saint Cloud. Meantime Barras was in the hands of Talleyrand, who very soon extorted his resignation. Sieyes and Ducos resigned. Gohier and Moulin

were shut up in the Luxembourg. Fouché suspended the municipalities—it being a time of trouble. Napoleon established himself at the Tuileries. His careful and elaborate plan had so far succeeded.

On the morrow the Councils were to appoint the Consuls at Saint Cloud, and meantime a strong opposition was forming. Three of the generals were not in the plot, and one of them, Bernadotte, was an active member of the Jacobin Société du Manège, which at once attempted to organise a counter-revolution. The 19th Brumaire opened with not a little anxiety. Sieyès and Ducos had a coach and six at one of the gates of Saint-Cloud. Talleyrand and a few other "amateurs (as he says) had taken a house at Saint Cloud-with two alternatives: a dinner was ordered for the evening, but a coach waited at the door. Napoleon did in fact make a terrible muddle when it came to his turn to speak. In the hall where the Ancients met he made a violent, disjointed, most imprudent speech, answering questions with the most clumsy fabrications, until Bourrienne had to drag him away with the remark: "You don't know what you are saying." The Ancients, however, gave the required vote. But no sooner did Napoleon enter the hall of the Five Hundred than the deputies raged about him in crowds. He nearly fainted and had to be carried out. But his military instinct at once revived. Mounting his horse he complained to the troops that his life had been attempted; and when Lucien came out with the news that they were outlawing him, and Sieyes

had drily answered: "Well, as they are putting you out of the law, put them out of the room," he cast off all hesitation. On the previous day when he had attempted to explain matters to Sebastiani's dragoons, who formed his escort, they curtly replied: "We don't want any explanations: black or white, we're with you." And every musket was loaded with ball. Napoleon now turned to the captain of the grenadiers and told him to "go and disperse this assembly of busy-bodies." The drums beat the charge, the grenadiers swept up the grand staircase at the double, turned into the orangery on the left with bayonets levelled, and the patriotic Five Hundred fled by the other doors, or dropped from the windows into the garden. Talleyrand and his fellow amateurs went to dinner.

That night Lucien gathered together a score or so of the more reliable elements of the Council, and passed the new Constitution. Lucien harangued his little group on the great theme of liberty and the splendid example of Rome. They declared the Directorate extinct, and borrowing again from "the free peoples of antiquity," appointed a provisional Consulate, consisting of Napoleon Bonaparte (the Italian "u" had disappeared by this time), Sieyès, and the faithful Roger-Ducos. They also proscribed 57 obnoxious deputies, and voted the thanks of the country to Napoleon for his action. So ended the French Revolution. An act of despotism, rendered possible by widespread intrigue and corruption, rang down the curtain on the ten-year drama of blind, bloody, Titanic struggles. Yet it was the best thing for France.