Napoleon Bonaparte

by Alan Schom

  Although this initial meeting was to have been simply a brief courtesy call, Napoleon was nonetheless taken aback by the “glacial reception” he received. In fact, a deputation of republican deputies was already requesting his arrest for the desertion of his army and for having violated the forty-day quarantine period[308] on debarkation. They also demanded the appointment of Bernadotte as military commander of the Seventeenth Military District (in which Paris was situated) in order to prevent a possible coup d’état by the desperate Bonaparte. Despite the ignorance of the masses and their vociferous welcome, no one of importance had any illusions about why Bonaparte had returned. But Barras, fearful of Bernadotte and his Jacobin associates, and of the growing chaos and disintegration of the country described in daily police reports, delayed these delegations and their demands, ultimately refusing to act against the general.[309]

  Nevertheless, after leaving the Luxembourg, Bonaparte could not concentrate on politics with Josephine’s outrageous deceit obscuring all else. Thus it was later that same evening that he paid an unofficial visit to another part of the Luxembourg Palace, this time to the posh apartments of his earlier protector, Barras, immediately bursting into a long, uncontrolled denunciation of his wife, threatening to divorce her forthwith.[310] “But I told him that he had to look at the matter from a truly philosophical point of view,” Barras related.[311] Napoleon was seething with resentment and anger, and it was only after a long talk that Barras was able to cool him down enough to make him realize that, if nothing else, divorce would hurt his career. Nevertheless, he continued to harangue Barras, listing the history of her scandalous behavior, first as Alexandre de Beauharnais’s wife, then living openly with General Hoche, not to mention subsequent affairs with Hoche’s aides-de-camp and even more junior officers. She was worse than a whore or courtesan, she was a nymphomaniac. Naturally Bonaparte did not mention what he and all Paris also knew: her other notorious affairs with numerous influential figures, including even Barras, though before Bonaparte had come into her life.

  But now that she was married to General Bonaparte, “a new code” was imposed on her — and him — Barras pointed out, and with it a new discipline: “Everyone must submit to it, for there is in it an obligatory restraint without which society cannot function, which is even more indispensable than even military discipline, for just look at the consequences if it is ignored: the veritable upsetting, annihilation of, all social order.”

  Although the law of divorce had been introduced by the Revolution, Barras continued, he could not think of a single self-respecting person of quality who had taken advantage of it, for fear of the political and social consequences. “Take my own case, for instance, I am hardly an angel...I could never afford to agree to a divorce...because of the permanent stain to one’s name in the eyes of all the leading people of society.” After a couple of badly needed cognacs and much more talk, a sullen if somewhat more resigned Bonaparte left Barras’s apartments.

  If Barras was on surprisingly friendly terms with Bonaparte, given the unplcasantries of their last meeting before the departure for Egypt, it was because — despite his forebodings — he thought he could still use him. And as he admitted in private, “Immediately upon his return from Egypt, I thought Bonaparte was still with me, sharing the same special confidence that had existed from the earlier days of his military promotion and subsequent marriage.” But of course that was not at all the case, and Barras was quickly disabused of this view, though he continued to think that Bonaparte was still very much dependent on his political clout, favors, and protection, if for no other reason than the charge of desertion now hanging over him.

  The next morning Bonaparte was back at the Luxembourg — no courtesy call this time — in front of the full board of five directors to deliver his report on the situation in Egypt and to face the menacing accusation of desertion, for which he had indeed jeopardized his entire career — and perhaps his neck. Two and a half hours later, an understanding was reached, however. No charges were to be pressed, and a much more relaxed if heavily perspiring Bonaparte escaped the Luxembourg and its snares, at least for the moment.[312] Once again Barras had intervened to save his career.

  Returning home late that night, Josephine (accompanied by Hortense and Eugène) arrived in her traveling coach, only to find her husband locked in their bedroom. Terrible scenes ensued as Josephine pleaded and pounded on the door, crying, imploring, beseeching, joined by Hortense, Eugène, and even Bourrienne, who pointed out the dangers to his career from such deplorable publicity, reinforcing Barras’s earlier argument.[313] “After three days of marital pouting,” as Bourrienne put it, and more tears and melodrama, Napoleon’s bedroom door was finally unlocked and “their union...was not again troubled,” though Josephine’s other chronic problems, namely her spending sprees and debts, continued to plague her husband.[314] Despite the apparent reconciliation, however, the doting Napoleon she had known before the Egyptian expedition was gone. Josephine discovered a husband more demanding, more insistent on getting his own way, less open to her wiles, and less good humored, adamant for instance that she now break with “the Directory crowd,” as he put it, particularly the courtesans attached to it.

  The next day General Bonaparte set to work on his political career ordering his faithful aide-de-camp, Regnault de Saint Jean d’Angély, to invite Pierre Louis Roederer over to talk with him. The conversation proved most profitable for Bonaparte, Roederer agreeing to serve in the general’s ranks in his attempt to seize power.[315] This was a particularly important coup for Bonaparte himself, as Roederer had a long and solid list of republican credentials and an equally solid reputation in the capital.

  His father having served as a counselor to the king, and himself a celebrated jurist from Metz, Roederer had established a reputation as an economist and parliamentarian, first supporting the king and later the republic, when he held office as prefect of the Seine. But like Mirabeau, he strongly favored the moderate English system of constitutional monarchy, ideas that he later espoused in the influential Journal de Paris, which he edited for several years. In 1796 he, like Bonaparte a year later, was elected to the institute. It was not until March 1798, however, that he was finally introduced to General Bonaparte (by none other than Talleyrand).[316] They kept in touch thereafter, Roederer supporting Bonaparte and his ambitions because he genuinely wanted to see an end to the corruption and incompetence riddling the government at every level, and a return to law, order, and national stability not to mention to genuine republican democracy, which Bonaparte now assured him was his fervent wish as well. Roederer’s open support was not merely a feather in the general’s cap but a sign of the times, for as Bourrienne acknowledged, “one so easily believes what one desires,” adding, “in all social classes, in every sector of public opinion, an 18 Brumaire was desired and expected”[317] — though of course not necessarily one led by Napoleon.

  Meanwhile, Bonaparte was meeting almost daily with his “secret committee,” as he called it, including Talleyrand, Roederer, Boulay de la Meurtre, Berthier, Joseph Bonaparte, and another influential politician, Volney, quite apart from a special committee of military experts.

  Bonaparte’s initial days in Paris were hectic but measured, as he assessed the political situation and decided what ultimate objective to set for himself — a place in the existing Directory, or preferably in an entirely new government. Next he had to decide how best to achieve that goal, as he continued to make those humiliating official visits to the Luxembourg and eat humble pie, while behind the scenes the Bonaparte brothers were hard at work, even Josephine visiting Barras and more frequently her old friends, President and Madame Gohier, trying to show her husband in a more favorable light.

  The day after Napoleon’s unexpected return to the capital, the cool, calculating Talleyrand (until that summer foreign minister under the Directory), along with Admiral Bruix and Roederer, called on Bonaparte in the Rue de la Victoire.[318] Prior to the general’s departure
for Egypt, Foreign Minister Talleyrand had promised to smooth the way for his conquest there by going personally to Constantinople to arrange affairs with the Sublime Porte. His failure to do so, however, resulted in the Ottoman sultan’s declaration of war on France and his subsequent naval and land attack on Bonaparte’s army.

  What Bonaparte did not know, of course, was that — like both Barras and Sieyès — Talleyrand too had been planning on working for a change of government with the much more congenial and obliging General Joubert, whose untimely death that August on the battlefield had left them all with but one remaining feasible, if disagreeable, alternate choice. Hence Talleyrand’s visit on October 17 to mend relations between them, bringing Bruix and Roederer as human buffers in the event Bonaparte became violent. Yet Bonaparte, still without a specific plan in mind, needed all the help he could muster, including the wily talents of the extraordinary if unscrupulous Talleyrand. It was at this time that Bonaparte revealed that he was interested in holding more than just the military portion of a political partnership.[319] Talleyrand, ever confident of his own superior faculties of managing men — any men — and situations, was not averse to working with the potentially powerful young Corsican general. Over the next couple of days all existing differences between them were cleared away, allowing for closer relations, while at the same time permitting Talleyrand to bring Bonaparte up-to-date on the intricacies and significance of the current political situation. If Gohier, with General Moulin, wanted to maintain the present Directory and follow its current destructive course, not so the irritable Sieyès and more amenable Roger-Ducos. As for Barras, always his own man, he remained strictly aloof, joining no party. To be sure, before Talleyrand’s new relationship with Bonaparte, the general, goaded by his wife, had first hoped to exclude the execrable Sieyès from their plans, preferring to win over the more malleable Gohier, and perhaps even General Moulin.

  Despite the acute political tension of the capital, in particular at the Luxembourg Palace, President Gohier gave a dinner party to which Bonaparte and Josephine were invited. The four-foot eleven-inch Josephine arrived in a ravishing gown, and the general, shorn of his long revolutionary hair, appeared in a stylish frock coat, his boots actually shining for once. Sieyès, who made no attempt to conceal his disdain for the hero of the Pyramids and conqueror of Egypt, found his feelings fully reciprocated: Napoleon pointedly ignored him, which turned out to be a colossal political miscalculation. Bonaparte soon came to realize that there could be no political success without Sieyès’s full support. Meanwhile the abbé, much peeved by the arrogant soldier, snapped that he “should have had that insolent little fellow shot long ago!”[320] It was under these arctic conditions that the reception was held amid the neoclassical splendor of the Luxembourg, combined with the past elegance of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Here Bonaparte was able to converse with a more friendly group, including Talleyrand, Boulay de la Meurthe, Berthollet, Monge, the scientist Laplace, Volney, and, for the first time, General Moreau. More important, by inviting General Bonaparte tonight, the Directory announced to one and all that he had been exonerated and was again persona grata.

  The climate changed dramatically over the following two days when a more confident Bonaparte returned to the Luxembourg to see first Gohier privately, and then General Moulin, to sound them out about his replacing one of the current members of that exalted board, probably Sieyès. He encountered utter shock, disbelief, and fear.[321] Thus it was that Bonaparte, at Talleyrand’s urging, changed his tack. It was Sieyès who was the key to his success. “You want power,” Talleyrand pointed out to Bonaparte with unusual bluntness, “and Sieyès wants a new constitution. Therefore join forces.”[322] Though it meant swallowing his pride, it was the only sort of language Bonaparte understood.

  “I was given the task of negotiating the political arrangements” with his old friend Sieyès, Roederer later recalled. “I transmitted their respective views on the proposed new constitution, first to one, and then the other,”[323] while Talleyrand with his impeccable credentials handled the day-to-day political tactics, gradually closing the remaining gulf separating Sieyès and Bonaparte. Following a series of stealthy late-night meetings, Roederer at last won over the reluctant abbé, as Sieyès and Bonaparte finally exchanged visits. The seemingly unbridgeable gulf of hostility between them overcome, the way for the eventual coup moved one step closer. Talleyrand’s overall strategy was working.

  Meanwhile brother Joseph was inviting influential politicians and soldiers to his posh Paris mansion in the Rue des Errancis or as weekend guests to his new 248,000-franc estate of Mortefontaine north of the city,[324] while Lucien worked closely in Parisian political circles, particularly among the Five Hundred, though occasionally seeing Sieyès as well. And then on October 25 Lucien pulled off his own little coup, arranging for his own election as president of the Council of Five Hundred. (He lied about his age — he was only twenty-four instead of the requisite thirty. Had any sort of credentials commitee been in place, Lucien would have been thrown out on his ear, or worse.) As for the Council of Ancients, there Sieyès still maintained sufficient influence, if not control, which Bonaparte badly needed to enlist if he was to succeed in that quarter.

  But matters got completely out of hand and nearly came to a disastrous head on October 28, when Bonaparte was called to appear before a formal session of the Directory that had feted him so gloriously less than a fortnight earlier. Now he found himself charged not with desertion but with having enriched himself and his family while commander of the Army of Italy, back in 1797-98. In other words he was accused of having swindled the French government. Bonaparte was furious. Never before had anyone dared to call him a thief to his face — nor would they ever do so again. To be sure, newly acquired Bonaparte wealth was on glittering display for all to see. Lucien had bought an ostentatious mansion in the Grande Rue Verte. Napoleon himself had poured tens of thousands of francs into refurbishing Josephine’s house in the Rue de la Victoire, and her several jewel boxes were literally overflowing with looted Italian gems. And then there was the matter of that bauble La Malmaison, which she had purchased in the spring of 1799. Not to mention Joseph’s luxurious estate and splendid Paris residence.[325] Nor did Bonaparte deny it. A fortune had been spent by the clan, but, he protested angrily, not a penny had come from army funds. It was in fact all bona fide Italian war loot. Every senior officer, indeed every lieutenant, had availed himself of the circumstances, as was the tradition of the day. If Bonaparte had come back with more, it was quite simply because as commander in chief it was his natural right to do so. But steal from the French government? Never! The stormy meeting ended satisfactorily, exonerating the outraged general. But a fresh wedge had been driven between him and the directors, who now secretly agreed on the necessity of again ridding themselves of the hot-tempered, ambitious Bonaparte, offering him a fresh army command, which he declined.[326]

  On the surface this latest attempt by the Directory to discredit him did not appear to bode well. Privately Bonaparte managed to keep open the lines of communication with Barras — whose political influence he could not yet do without — reinforced by Barras’s contact with Roederer and Talleyrand. Meanwhile Police Minister Fouché, now openly beginning to favor the Bonaparte-Sieyès coup, was a more frequent visitor to the Rue de la Victoire, where he also came across Berthier, Bruix, Paris Police Commissioner Réal, Volney, and Roederer.

  And then on November 1 (10 Brumaire), Lucien gave a special dinner for Sieyès and Napoleon, marking the cementing of relations. Following dinner they retired to the study, and by the time they broke up in the early hours of the morning, they had elaborated their general plan. There would be a coup d’état. The revolutionary Constitution of the Year III (1795) would be replaced by a new one, eliminating the Directory, the Council of Ancients, and the Council of Five Hundred, thereby sweeping away all vestiges of the corruption undermining the integrity and functioning of the first French Republic. Having arrived at Lu
cien’s still somewhat wary of each other, they parted fellow conspirators, Sieyès promising to gain as much parliamentary support as he could, seconded in this effort by Lucien. Bonaparte would continue his efforts to gain the backing of as many of the senior army commanders as possible. As for the details of the day of the coup, they would cope with those later.[327]

  As Bonaparte and Sieyès were now under close scrutiny, they could not afford to meet alone again — in private, anyway — and Roederer, under Talleyrand’s guidance, was to continue as their middleman while Eugène de Beauharnais kept tabs on Barras (on the pretext of visiting some of his aides-de-camp, whom he had known in the army). Nor was the opposition uninformed of events, Police Minister Fouché, as usual playing both sides at once, working with Bonaparte through Real, while secretly enlightening Barras about the developing plot to overthrow him and the Directory. But neither Barras nor Fouché decided to act, apparently feeling that they could not muster enough force to foil Bonaparte and that under the circumstances it behooved them to go along with the planned coup given the general upheaval reported throughout the country, with nothing or no one powerful enough to counter it or the conspirators. Given Gohier’s and Moulin’s antipathy, however, naturally Barras and Fouché deemed it equally inadvisable to apprise them of Bonaparte’s secret plans.