Chapter IX: Book TWO: The Torrent (5)

Will not a burst of laughter sweep the speaker away, and his coup d’état along with him? At length Bourrienne comes up to him from behind, takes him by the arm, and whispers in his ear: “Do stop, General. You really don’t know what you’re saying!” He turns, and follows Bourrienne from the hall. A deputy devoted to his interest takes the floor promptly, and does his best to put a good face upon the matter.

Outside, he draws a breath of relief. What could have been the matter with him? Why had his brain been clouded? Amid all the turmoil of battle, he is calm, fully master of himself; his decisions are well-rounded, brilliant, and cool, like polished marble spheres. Why is he unequal to the occasion on this day of days, when his whole future is at stake?

Because he is a man who knows how to command, but does not know how to beg. He can cajole, threaten, feign hesitation, lie; outdoing in these arts all the diplomatists with whom he negotiates treaties. He meets them as equals, but is always sustained by the feeling that, if he does not get his way by diplomacy, he can enforce his wishes by artillery fire. He can endure everything, except having to ask favours, and except having to submit to a law which is not of his own making. He wants order and legality, but not such as existed before he established them!

With titanic energy, as he already foresees, he will lead this country towards order, will found an orderly State after a decade of chaos. No one will be the worse for humble birth or for poverty, since all will have equal opportunities. But in these halls to-day sit lawyers, ridden by the spirit of faction, corrupt, outworn, besoiled by the grime of party politics. He is to implore them to be good enough to give him (and others) a power which has long been his, and which stands outside there, impatient to get to work!

He, who in the Institute could sit quietly among the savants, learning and questioning, is so little able to understand the mood of these legislative assemblies that he actually fancies the day already won. He sends a message to Josephine to tell her that all is going well; says a few encouraging words to his followers, and goes quickly downstairs to play a similar part before the Council of Five Hundred. It is just as well that his friends take the precaution to send into the hall with him four stalwart grenadiers, whose strength and loyalty can be thoroughly depended on.

No matter that this escort is quite out of keeping with his determination to be strict in the observance of parliamentary forms! Followed by his grenadiers, carrying hat and riding whip in his hand, he enters the hall of the Five Hundred. “Bonaparte!” All turn towards the door. The Jacobins shout: “Down with the tyrant! Down with the dictator! Outlaw him!” A few of the more hefty among the Five Hundred hurl themselves upon him; the grenadiers rally to his protection, encircling him, and sheltering him with their big bodies from the angry Jacobins’ blows. The combat sways to and fro for a while, a knot of struggling and shouting people. Then, step by step, the five force their way backwards towards the door. Outside, surrounded by his own supporters, he is for a moment too much discomposed to speak; but, rallying quickly, he makes for the back room.

During the Italian campaign, Bonaparte was under fire in the front ranks on several occasions. At Lodi, and again at Arcola, he had been in imminent peril. But here, he was for the first time involved in a rough-and-tumble affray where fire-arms and cold steel are against the rules. Towards the close of his career, he was to have a similar experience. In such a chance medley, he could not draw his sword. He must assume his antagonists to be unarmed, though some of them were in truth armed. To use his sword seemed to be in hopeless conflict with the fundamental principles of the coup d’état—as he envisaged it.

But at length he has to abandon these principles of his. In person, he has been rescued from the blows of his adversaries, but their fists have shattered his doctrine. Force has been used against him. He strides furiously up and down the room; his pride is touched to the quick; in his anger, he scratches his cheek till his finger-nails are bloody. Blood? In an instant he has recovered his composure. This blood will be most useful! Attempted assassination in the council chamber! He will show his soldiers how these villains have manhandled the commander of Paris! The pretence that the other side had been the first to break the law, frees him from the tyranny of his principles.

In the assembly hall, meanwhile, Lucien is fighting for him. “Hors la loi! Outlaw him!” cry most of the deputies. Lucien tries to still the clamour with voice and bell. The attempt is vain. A formal demand is made for a vote on Bonaparte’s outlawry, and every one knows what that means in revolutionary Paris. Since there is no other way out of the difficulty, Lucien, whose pose to-day is that of the defender of law and order, with an imposing gesture throws off his toga and storms out of the hall. None too soon!

He finds his brother with the troops. Napoleon had turned pale when the news had been brought of the vote of outlawry. Then, running to the window, he called to the troops: “To arms!” Going out, he mounted, and was quick to notice that the soldiers were not sufficiently moved, were not yet ripe for action. Night was falling, and all were waiting on events. Lucien came out, leapt into the saddle, and the two brothers rode up and down the front. Outside the railings were Sieyès and Ducos in a carriage, ready for flight to-day, or to become rulers to-morrow, as events might decide. The movement seemed to be without a head.

Then Lucien grasped the opportunity. He could make a better job of speaking to the soldiers than Napoleon had made of speaking to the deputies:

“Soldiers, as president of the Five Hundred I tell you that in the hall there the majority is being terrorised by a handful of armed Jacobins. These rascals are in English pay. They have dared to outlaw your general, who was appointed by the Councils. They actually tried to assassinate him. Look at the wounds! Use your bayonets to guard him against their daggers, so that the deliberations concerning the welfare of the country can be conducted in peace! Recognise as deputies none but those who come with me into the midst of your ranks. Drive out the rest, all who would stay in the hall!”

Napoleon listens with pinched lips. When Lucien has finished, he speaks in his turn, shouting: “Kill any one who resists. Follow me! I am the god of battles!” Lucien, who is afraid of another speech, hisses: “For God’s sake, hold your tongue!”

“Long live Bonaparte!” shout the soldiers, who regard the brothers as military and civil authority conjoined. But not a man moves. All is lost, if they will not march now. Lucien grasps at the last expedient. With a theatrical flourish, he snatches an officer’s sword and points it at Napoleon’s breast: “I swear that I will run my brother through, should he ever dare to threaten the liberties of France!”

The phrase has the desired effect. Murat orders the sounding of a general advance, summons a troop of soldiers to follow him, and shouts: “Lads, chuck the whole rabble of them out of the hall!” At length he has raised a laugh. With bayonets at the charge, but good-humouredly and without hurting any one, they thrust from the hall any of the deputies that are valiant enough to offer resistance. In the failing light, there is a confused scene in which red togas, birettas, and the caps of the guardsmen are intermingled. The last of the fleeing deputies escape through the windows.

The priceless Lucien now hastened upstairs to the Council of Ancients. Grossly exaggerating the injuries sustained by his brother at the hands of the Jacobin deputies, he induced the Ancients, in a panic, to appoint the three Consuls, and to adjourn their sitting until a late hour that night. Then the leaders foregathered in a small café for a meal, being all much in need of food.

That night, the most trustworthy among the deputies reassembled in the deserted hall at Saint-Cloud. By the light of a pair of candles, the thirty who were left to represent the people of France voted whatever they were told. While a hundred or so people of fashion, pretty women and their gallants, mockingly watched the midnight ceremony—while all went smoothly, society-at-large being quite undisturbed and the proletariat unruffled—the indefatigable Lucien insisted that the political mass should be worthily celebrated. At two in the morning, to the sound of drums, the three Consuls took the oath. “Long live the republic!” called a few weary voices.

At three o’clock, Consul Bonaparte drives back to Paris with Bourrienne. He looks straight in front of them, saying never a word. Not until he is at home, and Josephine is present, does he open his mouth:

“I say, Bourrienne, did I talk a frightful lot of nonsense to-day?”

“A fair amount, General.”

“Those idiots drove me crazy. I’m no good at speaking in public assemblies.”

Then, instead of going on to talk about the coup d’état, or to congratulate himself upon its amazing success (for from to-morrow onwards he will rule France) he alludes to personal enmities. Bernadotte’s conduct is what rankles!

“That fellow Bernadotte! He wanted to betray me! His wife—his wife has a great deal of influence over him. I should have thought I had done enough to placate him! You were there, and you know. I regret having gone so far to please him. He will have to clear out of Paris. There is no other way in which I can pay my score.... Good-night, Bourrienne. To-morrow night we shall sleep in the Luxembourg.”