Page:EB1911 - Volume 11.djvu/180

Rh the Directory was bankrupt of reputation, and he intended to be far more than a mere member of a board. He hoped to concentrate power in his own hands, to bridle the Jacobins, and to remodel the constitution. With the help of Barras he proceeded to rid himself of the other directors. An irregularity having been discovered in Treilhard’s election, he retired, and his place was taken by Gohier. Merlin of Douai and La Révellière Lépeaux were driven to resign in June. They were succeeded by Moulin and Ducos. The three new directors were so insignificant that they could give no trouble, but for the same reason they were of little service. Such a government was ill fitted to cope with the dangers then gathering round France. The directors having resolved on the offensive in Germany, the French crossed the Rhine early in March, but were defeated by the archduke Charles at Stockach on the 25th. The congress at Rastadt,

which had sat for fifteen months without doing anything, broke up in April and the French envoys were murdered by Austrian hussars. In Italy the allies took the offensive with an army partly Austrian, partly Russian under the command of Suvarov. After defeating Moreau at Cassano on the 27th of April, he occupied Milan and Turin. The republics established by the French in Italy were overthrown, and the French army retreating from Naples was defeated by Suvarov on the Trebbia. Thus threatened with invasion on her German and Italian frontiers, France was disabled by anarchy within. The finances were in the last distress; the anti-religious policy of the government kept many departments on the verge of revolt; and commerce was almost suspended by the decay of roads and the increase of bandits. There was no real political freedom, yet none of the ease or security which enlightened despotism can bestow. The Terrorists lifted their heads in the Council of Five Hundred. A Law of Hostages, which was really a new Law of Suspects, and a progressive income tax showed the temper of the majority. The Jacobin Club was reopened and became once more the focus of disorder. The Jacobin press renewed the licence of Hébert and Marat. Never since the outbreak of the Revolution had the public temper been so gloomy and desponding. In this extremity Sieyès chose as minister of police the old Terrorist Fouché, who best understood how to deal with his brethren. Fouché closed the Jacobin Club and deported a number of journalists. But like his predecessors Sieyès felt that for the revolution which he meditated he must have the help of a soldier. As his man of action he chose General Joubert, one of the most distinguished among French officers. Joubert was sent to restore the fortune of the war in Italy. At Novi on the 15th of August he encountered Suvárov. He was killed at the outset of the battle and his men were defeated. After this disaster the French held scarcely anything south of the Alps save Genoa. The Russian and Austrian governments then agreed to drive the enemy out of Switzerland and to invade France from the east. At the same time Holland was assailed by the joint forces of Great Britain and Russia. But the second coalition, like the first, was doomed to failure by the narrow views and conflicting interests of its members. The invasion of Switzerland was baffled by want of concert between Austrians and Russians and by Masséna’s victory at Zürich on the 25th and 26th of September. In October the British and the Russians were forced to evacuate Holland. All immediate danger to France was ended, but the issue of the war was still in suspense. The directors had been forced to recall Bonaparte from Egypt. He anticipated their order and on the 9th of October landed at Fréjus. Dazzled by his victories in the East the public forgot that the Egyptian expedition was ending in calamity. It received him with an ardour which convinced Sieyès that he was the indispensable soldier. Bonaparte was ready to act, but at his own time and for his own ends. Since the

close of the Convention affairs at home and abroad had been tending more and more surely to the establishment of a military dictatorship. Feeling his powers equal to such an office he only hesitated about the means of attainment. At first he thought of becoming a director; finally he decided upon a partnership with Sieyès. They resolved to end the actual government by a fresh coup d’état. Means were to be taken for removing the councils from Paris to St Cloud, where pressure could more easily be applied. Then the councils would be induced to decree a provisional government by three consuls and the appointment of a commission to revise the constitution. The pretext for this irregular proceeding was to be a vast Jacobin conspiracy. Perhaps the gravest obstacles were to be expected from the army. Of the generals, some, like Jourdan, were honest republicans; others, like Bernadotte, believed themselves capable of governing France. With perfect subtlety Bonaparte worked on the feelings of all and kept his own intentions secret. On the morning of the 18th Brumaire (November 9) the Ancients, to whom that power belonged, decreed the transference of the councils to St Cloud. Of the directors, Sieyès and his friend Ducos had arranged to resign; Barras was cajoled and bribed into resigning; Gohier and Moulins, who were intractable, found themselves imprisoned in the Luxemburg palace and helpless. So far all had gone well. But when the councils met at St Cloud on the following day, the majority of the Five Hundred showed themselves bent on resistance, and even the Ancients gave signs of wavering. When Bonaparte addressed the Ancients, he lost his self-possession and made a deplorable figure. When he appeared among the Five Hundred, they fell upon him with such fury that he was hardly rescued by his officers. A motion to outlaw him was only baffled by the audacity of the president, his brother Lucien. At length driven to undisguised violence, he sent in his grenadiers, who turned out the deputies. Then the Ancients passed a decree which adjourned the Councils for three months, appointed Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls, and named the Legislative Commission. Some tractable members of the Five Hundred were afterwards swept up and served to give these measures the confirmation of their House. Thus the Directory and the Councils came to their unlamented end. A shabby compound of brute force and imposture, the 18th Brumaire was nevertheless condoned, nay applauded, by the French nation. Weary of revolution, men sought no more than to be wisely and firmly governed. Although the French Revolution seemed to contemporaries a total break in the history of France, it was really far otherwise. Its results were momentous and durable in proportion as they were the outcome of causes which had been working long. In France there had been no historic

preparation for political freedom. The desire for such freedom was in the main confined to the upper classes. During the Revolution it was constantly baffled. No Assembly after the states-general was freely elected and none deliberated in freedom. After the Revolution Bonaparte established a monarchy even more absolute than the monarchy of Louis XIV. But the desire for uniformity, for equality and for what may be termed civil liberty was the growth of ages, had been in many respects nurtured by the action of the crown and its ministers, and had become intense and general. Accordingly it determined the principal results of the Revolution. Uniformity of laws and institutions was enforced throughout France. The legal privileges formerly distinguishing different classes were suppressed. An obsolete and burthensome agrarian system was abolished. A number of large estates belonging to the crown, the clergy and the nobles were broken up and sold at nominal prices to men of the middle or lower class. The new jurisprudence encouraged the multiplication of small properties. The new fiscal system taxed men according to their means and raised no obstacle to commerce within the national boundaries. Every calling and profession was made free to all French citizens, and in the public service the principle of an open career for talent was adopted. Religious disabilities vanished, and there was well-nigh complete liberty of thought. It was because Napoleon gave a practical form to these achievements of the Revolution and ensured the public order necessary to their continuance that