.*."■' 
 
 
 
 
 
 . s , 
 
 
 ■i.-'ii^T'i* ' « .l^•■ 
 
 
,£.»£ 
 
 -^t:.^ ■>.'/■■:>' -v:-'-- ■■■..,•.'■■ -v/i^r^^ 
 
 lEii FuiJ[TLffl[rifDfiifil[?uil[r^ 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 [U 
 
 iJ 
 
 fi 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 General Library 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 li 
 
 i 
 
 fi 
 
 fi 
 
 p 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 lEJi [irUfiiiTIITinlfriiT' f fiJilf^ 
 
[^ 
 
i 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 -XMJoGu «=*>;-) /i^^^-'-' jif ^ ' ^ 
 
 LUCIE N BONAPARTE, 
 
 (PRINCE OF CANINO.) 
 
 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT, UNDER THB 
 IMMEDIATE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 PART THE FIRST, 
 (From the year 1792 to the year 8 of the Republic.) 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & 
 NO. 82 CLIFF- STR 
 
 1836. 
 
S 
 
 A 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Since the consular republic, under all governnnents, the 
 pamphleteers have too often made me the subject of their 
 leisure. Revelations, secret memoirs, collections of anec- 
 dotes, the fruits of imaginations ^^nt shame or decency, 
 have not spared me. I have reao'dlf of ih'^m in my retire- 
 ment, and I was at first surprised how I could have d'-awn 
 upon myself so many calumnies, never having offended a.iy 
 person. But my astonishment ceased when I had better 
 appreciated my position : removed from public affairs, with- 
 out influence, and almost always in silent or open opposition 
 to the powers, though suflficiently near to keep them con- 
 stantly in fear of my return to favour, how was it possible 
 for the malice of the courtiers to leave me in repose? And 
 since the downfall of my family, they have thought, without 
 doubt, that it would not be displeasing to the ruling powers 
 to continue their noble ivork of calumny. I resigned myself, 
 therefore, to what appeared to be ihe natural effect of a posi- 
 tion (hat I had chosen for myself, or had been imposed upon 
 me ; and I have left the field open to those brave gentry 
 who delight in oppret.sing the proscribed. I have found in 
 my conscience, with which Providence has blessed me, suf- 
 ficient to console me for every injustice. It is not, there- 
 fore, for a personal end that I have resolved to publish these 
 memoirs ; I do it because they appear to offer materials of 
 some value to a history so fruitful in great events, of which 
 tho serious study may be useful in future to my country. 
 Public opinion will inform me if I have deceived myself; 
 and in that case, this first part of my memoirs will be all 
 that I shall allow myself to publish. 
 
 A 2 
 
 58978 
 

 ,V ~.'*-- 
 
MEMOIRS, ETC. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CORSICA. 
 
 *' There is still a country in Europe capable of legislation. It is the 
 island of Corsica. The valour and constancy with which those brave 
 people recovered and defended tVieir libeity, merits that some wise man 
 should teach them to preserve it. I have a presentiment that one of these 
 days that little island will astonish Europe." — Contrat Social de J. J. 
 Rousseau, chap. X. 
 
 The Bonaparte Family — The French Fleet in the Bay of Ajaccio — Popu- 
 lar Society of the Admiral's Vessel — The Marseillese Conscripts — Fate 
 of the Agents of the Ancient Regime Return of Paoli — His reception 
 at Ajdccio — His sentiments with regard to England and France — His 
 residence at Rostino — His wonderful memory — Our separation — My de- 
 parture for the Continent — Dangers and Flight. 
 
 When the revolution opened in 1789, the g^rand era of po- 
 litical reform, I entered my fifteenth year. After having- 
 been alternately for some lime at the college of Autun, and 
 at the military school of Brienne, lastly at the seminary of 
 Aix in Provence, I returned to Corsica. My mother, a 
 widow in the prime of her life, devoted herself to the care of 
 her numerous family. Joseph, the eldest of her children, 
 was twenty-two years of age, and seconded her attentions to 
 us with ardour and with a paternal affection. Napoleon, 
 two years younger than Joseph, was just returned from 
 France with our sister Marianne — Eliza from the Ecole 
 Royale of St. Cyr. Louis, Jerome, Pauline, and Caroline 
 were still children. A brother of my father, the Archidiacre 
 Lucien, was become the chief of our family, and though 
 gouty and bedridden for some time past, he watched over 
 our interests without ceasing. If Providence had struck us 
 with a cruel blow in depriving us so early of our father, it 
 compensated for that loss, as far as possible, in leaving us 
 
8 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 yet for some time that excellent uncle, and in endoAving the 
 best of mothers with that spirit of constancy and strength of 
 soul, which the future that opened before us furnished the 
 opportunity of giving abundant proofs in a course of wonder- 
 ful prosperity, as also in that long exile which still holds us 
 beneath its inexorable influence, and of which she had not 
 the consolation to look forward to the termination in her dy- 
 ing hour. A brother, worthy of our mother, the Abbe Fesch, 
 completed our family. 
 
 Although holding one of the first ranks in the island, in 
 every respect our fortune was not very brilliant. Several 
 voyages of my father to France, where he was deputy of the 
 noblesse to Louis XVI. , and the expenses of our education, 
 superior to his means, notwithstanding the benefits he derived 
 from government, had much impoverished our fortune. 
 
 The education of my two elder brothers upon the Conti- 
 nent, mine, and the deputation of our father to Paris, had 
 rendered us entirely French. Corsica had been declared, 
 since the 30lh of November, 1789, an integral part of the 
 monarchy ; and that declaration, which had satisfied the 
 wishes of the islanders, had completely effaced from their 
 minds the bitter remembrance of the conquest. The philo- 
 sophical ideas and revolutionary agitations which prevailed 
 upon the Continent, fermented also in our heads ; and no one 
 hailed with more ardour than we did the dawn of 1789. 
 Joseph entered into the administration of the department. 
 Napoleon prepared by serious studies to march with giant 
 steps in his career of prodigies. And the third brother, a 
 mere boy, ran to throw himself into the popular societies, 
 with the lively enthusiasm of a youthful and ardent mind, 
 filled with the remembrances of college, and the great names 
 of Rome and Greece. 
 
 1 think it right to suppress all details that are foreign to 
 public affairs: of what avail would they be? Amid the 
 numerous recollections of my early years, I notice those only 
 which appear to me to be useful. It was, I believe, in 1792, 
 that a numerous fleet, commanded by the brave Admiral 
 Truguet, left Toulon filled with troops, intended for an expe- 
 dition against Sardinia. This fleet cast anclior in our bt-au- 
 tiful bay. On the first news of their arrival the whole popu- 
 lation of AJHCcio covered the shore. The sails pointed to 
 the horizon shining in the brilliant rays of a cloudless sun. 
 I flew with the swiftness of an arrow, and joining some 
 members of a club, who, in the absence of my elder brothers, 
 were delighted to follow me. 1 placed myself at their head, 
 crying " These are our brothers ! — these are the tricoloured 
 flags !" We ran like mad creatures along the shore, as if we 
 could have joined the fleet the sooner by going farther from 
 the port. The music, the flags, and the reports of the guns, 
 fired in sign of joy, contributed to increase the effect. But 
 
LrcIEN BONAPARTE. 9 
 
 while we were losing our breath, the vessels, driven by a 
 good wind, entered the bay ; perceiving too late that they 
 had the advantage of us, we retraced our steps. In conse- 
 quence of too much eagerness, we were the last to reach 
 the fleet; but at the name of tiie popular society, a power at 
 that time new and magical, all ranks gave way before us, 
 and followed by a deputation which proclaimed me their 
 chief, 1 went on board the admiral's vessel. 
 
 The troops of the expedition were composed of young 
 Marseillese conscripts, ill disciplined, and carrying with them 
 into the service the agitation of the clubs. Those young 
 men had communicated to the whole of the crew the desire 
 of political discussion, and in every ship of war they had 
 established a popular society. Thus, notwithstanding their 
 courage, these troops tried the patience of the admiral, and 
 their msubordinaiion c;iused the failure of the expedition to 
 Sardinia. No sooner were we announced, than the popular 
 society of the admiral's vessel assembled in the grand hall 
 of council for a public sitting. I made a speech, and the 
 president gave me the fraternal embrace, and invited us to 
 the honours of the sitting. This president was steward of 
 the ship, and he harangued us for about half an hour in a 
 manner that it was wulh difficulty we could preserve our 
 gravity. I remember that he began with a voice alternately 
 deep or piercing, and with the gestures of a maniac, " The 
 more I see, the iuore I see that patriotism gains everywhere. 
 The more I see, the more I see that the brave sans culottes 
 are irresistible. The more 1 see, the more I see," &c., 
 &c, !! and he continued thus to repeat his, " The more I see ^ 
 the more I see,''' at least twenty times, to the great amuse- 
 ment of his comrades and the sailors. As for us, he re- 
 called to our nnnds the comedy of les Plaideurs — " When I 
 see the sun, and when 1 see the moon," &c., &c. The offi- 
 cers of the marines, wiio were present at our reception, had 
 like us the merit of not laughing aloud. We announced on 
 our part a public sitting for the next day, destined to frater- 
 nise with the club of the admirars vessel; and we departed 
 amid their patriotic acclamations. Tliis solemnity did not 
 greatly edify our islanders ; accustomed to let our chiefs 
 speak, and those who distinguished themst^lves by their 
 talents, we remarKed the silence of the officers, the confu- 
 sion of that clamorous multitude, and we inquired of each 
 other if all the popular societies upon the continent were 
 conducted in the same manner. We prepared without delay- 
 to show them our superiority the next day, and certainly it 
 was not a very difficult afiair ; if the Marseillese, previous to 
 our sitting, had not been desirous of showing us that their 
 actions surpassed even their eloquence. 
 
 I was occupied at my desk in preparing a speech that I 
 was to pronounce in the course of a few hours, when I 
 
10 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 thought I heard a distant tumult : but soon it became more 
 distinct, and the noise of the shutting of doors every mo- 
 ment was overpowered by tlje cries of " Serra, sen a." 
 (Shut your doors, shut your doors.) The tocsin called 
 everybody to anus. A troop of our friends were running to 
 the house as 1 went out of it. We marched towards the prin- 
 cipal place whence the noise proceeded, 'i'he streets were 
 filled with armed men. Near the gate of the town, a woman, 
 with dishevelled hair, was screaming " The Jacobins are as- 
 sassinating my husband!" She was a Corsican married to 
 a Frenchmnn, who having filled a post in the administra- 
 tion, was known for his aristocratic principles. It happened 
 unfortunately that he was walking on the pier when the Mar- 
 seillese landed, and he was pointed out as an aristocrat. 
 Instantly cries of the " aristocrats to the lantern," resounded 
 throughout the multitude that had landed. But that cry, to 
 which the Marseillese were accustomed, intoxicated by their 
 demagogic fanaticism, that cry of tigers, far from finding an 
 echo amid the good citizens of Ajaccio, excited only their 
 indignation and their horror; and they armed themselves in 
 crowds to defend the victim. When I arrived upon the 
 place it was covered by the whole population, thoroughly 
 determined not to suffer our walls to be dishonoured by so 
 cowardly a crime. The officers of the squadron had recalled 
 all the Marseillese. Secojided by our efforts, they suc- 
 ceeded in hurrying them on board their vessels ; they ap- 
 peared no more on land, and certainly we had lost all desire 
 to fraternise with them. The fleet set sail a few days after. 
 This attempt at political assassination made a profound 
 impression upon my countrymen. In our popular societies 
 they had often denounced the anti-patriotic conversations of 
 the agents of the ancient govennnent; they regretted, with- 
 out doubt, their lost places ; but their yoke had tired us, 
 and we beheld them with an evil eye; their long hvibit of 
 commanding had not taught them to be prudent. But it had 
 never entered into th.e head of any islander to kill a man 
 without a motive of personal vengeance, and only because 
 he had been powerful, or that his sentiments differed from 
 ours. To put an end at once to all the embarrassment which 
 these men from the Continent gave us, and who had so long 
 oppressed us, and who had not learned to be silent, we re- 
 solved to send them out of the island. A vessel was pre- 
 pared, and they made them embark all together. " You were 
 not born among us," they were told ; " and although we are 
 become French, we cannot look upon those as our fellow- 
 citizens who are the agents of a tyranny that has so long 
 weighed us down. We have saved one of you — we have 
 prevented violence against you ; but your presence, and your 
 dangerous discourses annoy us; we will have nothing fur- 
 ther to do with you. Go home to your own country, and 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 11 
 
 leave us in peace." This sentiment was unanimous, the 
 men of the ancient regime departed. But in a short lime we 
 regretted their departure. We learned too soon that upon 
 their arrival on the Cotiiinent they had been all sacrificed by 
 those of iheir countrymen who tried and executed them in 
 the streets upon the revolutionary lanterns. Certainly not 
 one among them was culpable ; and had it not been for the 
 unfortunate attempt of the troops of the expedition of the 
 fleet, those unfortunate beings (to the number, I believe, of 
 eight or ten) would have terminated their days in peace 
 among us. 
 
 The deplorable end of these men, the violence of the rev- 
 olutionary acts and writings upon the Continent, the attacks 
 that were still more violent every day against religion, 
 changed, during the year 1792, the public opinion in Corsica. 
 Our ancient chief, the celebrated Pascal Paoli, was re- 
 turned ; he had only passed through Paris, and although 
 they paid him every mark of respect that was due to so 
 great a man, he judged with severity the chief who directed 
 the revolution. Louis XVT. had inspired him with a pro- 
 found interest. Paoli foresaw the future : he arrived in 
 Corsica uneasy and discontented. Every political phasis 
 increased his discontent. It was at that moment that his ar- 
 rival at Ajaccio was announced to us. We had for a long 
 time offered up prayers for his return. The enthusiasm 
 which his name alone inspired, gave him a superior moral 
 force over the government. He was the friend, the father, 
 the idol of the towns and hamlets. As soon, therefore, as 
 his arrival was promised at Ajaccio, all business ceased, 
 nothing was thought of but his reception. The authorities, 
 the garrison, the popular society, thought only of Paoli ; 
 their impatience to see him increased every hour. 
 
 My age gave me access only to the popular society. I 
 thougVit nigtit and day of nothing but the discourse that I 
 should pronounce before the hero. But being rather diffident 
 as a young man of my phrases, 1 had recourse to our library. 
 After having rummaged over all the books without cere- 
 mony, I appropriated several passages that pleased me ; and 
 it was above all Bodin and Needham that I secretly put under 
 contribution. I made choice of those civilians the least 
 known, that I might deck myself with some of the spoils 
 without fear of detection. I was desirous, also, to treat of 
 some patriotic subject on the history of Corsica, with the 
 view of leading to applications favourable to our illustrious 
 auditor. I did not need, upon this occasion, to have recourse 
 to foreign aid. I chose for my subject the death of the curate 
 o( Guagno, who, surrounded in the hollow of a ravine by the 
 Genoese troops, from whom he could not escape, but upon 
 condition of taking the oath of obedience to the tyrants of 
 his country, preferred to die of hunger. Above twenty years 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 afterward I celebrated that sublime death in one of the can- 
 tos of my poem of the Cirreide, under the name of Rosol. 
 No ancient republic offers in its history a more heroic mar- 
 tyrdom than that of the curate of Guafjno. It exalted my 
 imagination ; 1 composed my speech with a palpitating heart, 
 and i believe it possessed sufficient merit to make me regret 
 its loss. 
 
 Thus prepared, I ran with a crowd of my countrymen to 
 meet Paoli. He had already received my two elder brothers 
 as the sous of a man who was dear to him, who had pos- 
 sessed his eutire confidence, and who h^id served with him 
 in the war of indepei:dence, and he welcomed- me as such; 
 his caresses intoxicated me; and 1 counted the moments 
 that delayed our sitting. It opened at length; Paoli was 
 seated in front of the tribune in an arnichair, ornatnented 
 with laurels and crowns of oak. I conquered my momen- 
 tary agitation, and poured forth my fragments of Needham 
 and Bodin with confidence and warmth. I remember only 
 that they dwelt chiefly upon the .preference that the people 
 should give to a republican government. Weil chosen for 
 the chief of our ancient republic, and adroitly joined together, 
 those fragments of two grave civilians might well cause 
 wonder and astonishment in the mouth of an orator of seven- 
 teen ; their effect, therefore, surpassed my hopes. Paoli in 
 embracing me called me his little Tacitus. The members 
 of our club, who took their part in my triumph, announced 
 then that i had got another harangue ready on the subj'r^ct 
 of the death of the curate of Guagno, and Paoli promised us 
 a second audience. This time my success was without 
 alloy. Our hero was affected with the cries of hatred against 
 the Genoese which sprang forth from my subje^^t and re- 
 sounded in my passionate recital. The hatred of the Gen- 
 oese, that patriotic passion of his whole life moved every 
 fibre of his soul, and when, in my peroration, the martyred 
 curate pronounced, with an expiring and prophetic voice, 
 the name of Paoli, the avemrer of liberty, the tears were 
 seen to flow down the cheek of the venerable father of his 
 country. I enjoyed with delight those tears. Paoli de- 
 clared that he would take me with him, and that I should 
 never leave him. Heroic old man! — how happy was I to 
 follow thee to the simple residence of Rostino ] How little 
 did I then think that my stay with thee would have been of 
 so short a duration, and that the political tempest was soon 
 to separate us for ever 1 
 
 The village of Rostino is situated in- the mountains, and 
 composed only of cottages and some small houses. Paoli 
 inhabited a convent, where he lived with a noble simplicity. 
 He had every day at his frugal but well-served table several 
 guests. Every day a numerous crowd of mountaineers 
 waited for the moment of his going out to see and speak to 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 13 
 
 him ; they surrounded hitn with filial respect. He spoke to 
 all like a g'ood fatlier ; but v/hat at first surprised me ex- 
 tremely, was his recoUectiuir and calling- by their names the 
 chiefs of families whom he had not seen for above a quarter 
 of a century. Those calls, that remembrance, produced upon 
 our islanders a magical effect. The fine head of the noble 
 old man, ornamented with his long while hwir, his majestic 
 figure, his mild but penetrating look, his clear and sonorous 
 voice, all contributed to throw an inexpressible charm upon 
 what he said. To imagine a patriarch legislator in the midst 
 of his numerous race, I do not think that either painting or 
 poetry could borrow more noble features than those which 
 I contemj)lated for several months at Rostino. 
 
 Notwithstanding my enthusiasm, upon reflecting one day 
 on the prodigious memory of Paoli, 1 began to question my- 
 self how it was possible : the same scene repeated several 
 times at each %valk, and almost in the same terms, ended by 
 inspiring me with doubts. I was as much as I could be at 
 the side of my hero — I began by observing all the prepara- 
 tions for these daily walks. A monk went always to the 
 cabinet of Paoli before he walked out; I slyly followed him, 
 and I observed him, for several successive days, descend into 
 the middle of the crowd and talk with the chiefs of those 
 who were waiting for an audience. 1 was upon the road for 
 making a discovery ; it appeared evident to me that the pre- 
 cursor monk supplied by his confidential reports the memory 
 of the patron. I must own that this discovery displeased 
 me ; although I observed how greatly that paternal fraud 
 rendered so many good old men happy, the* shadow of a 
 deception offended my young imagination, and cooled a little 
 my enthusiasm. I had been less scrupulous as to my first 
 speech — we are always more indulgent towards ourselves. 
 
 But the friendship which he evinced towards me appeared 
 to increase every day ; and the little cloud which had arisen 
 over our walks was shortly dissipated. Paoli loved to talk 
 to me of England, of the true liberty which reigned in that 
 happy country, of the good sense of its inhabitants, of the 
 admirable equilibrium of its political powers. " England," 
 said he, " is not a monarchy — it is a wise, powerful republic ; 
 happy would it be for France if she would take England for 
 her model!" All these conversations astonished me ; they 
 were beyond my comprehension ; my wise interlocutor did 
 me more honour than I deserved ; his lessons appeared 
 strange to me, and soon they ceased to please me. I ob- 
 served under the Anglomania, which I understood but very 
 vaguely at that time, a little antipathy towards France. It 
 wounded me deeply. Paoli perceived it, and he adjusted his 
 lessons to what he called my college prejudices. He made 
 the same attempt with my two elder brothers that he had 
 made to win me, but with more circumspection, as he was 
 
 B 
 
14 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 very anxious to gain us entirely. He had frequent confer- 
 ences with Joseph and Napoleon ; but he soon saw the inu- 
 tility of his efforts. Notwithstanding the horror with which 
 the revolutionary excesses inspired us, we felt assured that 
 they w^ould be calmed, and that the benefits of the revolution 
 would survive its atrocities. We were Frenchmen, and we 
 had faith in the future. Besides which, our island had main- 
 tained itself pure from the dreadful excesses which had sul- 
 lied so many communes of the Continent. 
 
 We approached, however, the year of 1793. The senti- 
 ments of Paoli against France manifested themselves more 
 openly every day ; every day he became more discontented 
 with us, and less certain of persuading us to join with him 
 in the defection which he meditated. The catastrophe of 
 the 21st of January gave the finishing blow to his hatred. 
 He shook with rage : he could no longer contain him- 
 self. " Behold I" said he, " your French wallowing in inno- 
 cent blood — behold them ! well, will you still dare to defend 
 them 1 I can no longer bear it. The sons of Charles can 
 never be capable of abandoning me. But the brothers must 
 decide : they must choose between France and me. But 
 there is no longer any France. The monsters have de- 
 stroyed all who merited to live ; they have murdered their 
 king, the best of men — a saint ! a saint ! a saint ! (he repeated 
 with increasing ardour at every word.) Corsica will have 
 no more to do with them. Neither will I. Let them keep 
 for themselves their blood-stained liberty : it was not made 
 for my brave mountaineers. It were better to return to the 
 Genoese. I expect your brothers — and wo to him who 
 shall pronounce in favour of that horde of brigands — I will 
 not own one of them ; no, not one, not even the sons of 
 Charles !" 
 
 I still behold the ardent old man : his countenance spar- 
 kled, his anger appeared to aggrandize him. His error was 
 deplorable, since he saw, in our immortal revolution, only 
 the crimes of the reign of terror. It was in vain that we 
 told him that the execrable regicide of Charles the First had 
 not prevented the establishment of English libeity after a 
 time. He would not hear us. But the motive which misled 
 him was as pure as his soul. He was wrong in despairing 
 of the fortune of France — of seeing the salvation of his 
 country only in the union with England, which he esteemed 
 above all other nations. He deceived himself w^ith regard 
 to the future ; but he never ceased, notwithstanding his 
 error, to be worthy of himself Those who have explained 
 his conduct as arising from motives of vulgar ambition, did 
 not know him. Peace ! honour ! and glory to his ashes ! 
 they are worthy of the pantheon of a great and free nation ; 
 they are worthy to repose beneath the roof of Westminster 
 Abbey. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 15 
 
 The ancient chief of our country, the friend of our father, 
 the man whom we admired and loved the most, was on one 
 side — France was on the other. We separated from Paoh. 
 I quitted Rostino, and I returned to Ajaccio to keep our friends 
 in their duties. Joseph ceased to have any influence in the 
 departmental administration. Napoleon rejoined the rep- 
 resentatives of the people at Bastia. The opinion of Paoli 
 influenced the whole island. On the 26th of April, 1793, 
 Corsica renounced France ; they formed a parliament, or 
 extraordinary assembly of the deputies of all the communes. 
 Paoli was nominated generalissimo and supreme chief. The 
 recall of the emigrants, the reintegration of the clergy, and 
 the proscription of the French emissaries and their partisans 
 was decreed. The tricoloured flag was abolished everywhere, 
 except at Ajaccio, which we succeeded in keeping within 
 bounds. Perceiving that the storm was about to burst over 
 us, the popular society determined upon sending a deputation 
 to the popular society at Marseilles, and to that of the Jaco- 
 bins at Paris, to solicit their prompt aid. T was named chief 
 of that deputation, and we departed a few hours afterward. 
 We well knew him who had raised the standard of war. We 
 were aware we had not a moment to lose. 
 
 Scarcely, indeed, had we departed, when the spirit of insur- 
 rection broke out, and knew no longer any limits. " Vive 
 Paoli ! Long live Paoli ! Let Paoli alone govern us : we will 
 have only what he ordains. Death to his enemies !" Such 
 were the clamours of the immense majority. The horn of the 
 islanders resounded in every valley, and its menacing tones 
 carried defiance even to the ramparts of Ajaccio. My mother 
 had at that time with her only her two youngest sons, three 
 daughters, and her brother, the Cardinal Fesch ; but it was 
 not the first time that she had performed the part of both 
 father and mother to her family ; and she again displayed 
 that firm and courageous spirit which characterized her early 
 years, during the wars of independence. She provided for 
 all, like an expert chieftain. She despatched numerous mes- 
 sages to Joseph and Napoleon, both by sea and land ; and 
 gave notice that they would soon arrive in the port with the 
 representatives of the people, and succeeded in neutralizing 
 the partisans of Paoli in the town. 
 
 But this great chief had not forgotten, either, the art of 
 making the most of time. To regain us or to stop us, he de- 
 termined to have the most precious hostages; and while 
 wailing for the French fleet, my mother was on the point of 
 falling into ihe hands of irritated enemies. 
 
 Awakened suddenly in the middle of the night, she beheld 
 her chamber filled with armed mountaineers. She at first 
 imagined that she was surprised by her enemies; but by the 
 light of a torch of fir which fell upon the countenance of the 
 chief, she felt reassured. It was Costa of Bastelica, the most 
 
16 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 devoted of our partisans. " Quick, make haste, Signora 
 Letizia ; Paoli's men are close upon you — you have not a 
 moment to lose : but here I am with all my men. We will 
 save you, or perish with you !" 
 
 Bastelica is one of the most populous villages in Corsica, 
 situated at the foot of Monte d'Oro, in the middle of a forest 
 of chestnuts, the growth of centuries. It contams inhabitants 
 renowned for their courage and audacity, and for unbounded 
 fidelity in their affections. One of those intrepid hunters, 
 while traversing the chain of mountains which separates the 
 island into two parts, had encountered a numerous troop, 
 who were descending towards Ajaccio. He had learned 
 that this troop was to be introduced during the ni^ht into the 
 town by the party of Paoli, in order to carry off our family 
 prisoners to Rostino. He had even heard it affirmed, that 
 they were to take all the children of Charles alive or dead. 
 To return like an arrow to his village, and inform the chief 
 of our partisans to arm all who had a gun or a poniard, and 
 traverse, with hasty strides, the forest of Bastelica — was 
 but the affair of a moment. After several hours of a forced 
 march, our brave friends entered the town during the night, 
 about ihree hundred in number, and had only preceded our 
 enemies by a few miles. 
 
 My motiier and her children arose in haste, having only 
 time to take their clothes with them ; and placed in the cen- 
 tre of the column, they left the town in silence — the inhab- 
 itants being still plunged in sleep. They entered into the 
 deepest recesses of the mountains, and at breaTc of day they 
 halted in a forest, from whence they could discover a part of 
 the shore. Several times the fugitives heard from their en- 
 campment the troops of the enemy traverse the neighbour- 
 ing valleys ; but Providence deigned to spare them from an 
 encounter that must have been fatal. On the same day the 
 flames, arising in thick columns from the middle of the 
 town, attracted the eyes of our friends. " That is your house 
 which is^iurning-,''^ said one of them to ray mother. " Ah ! 
 never mind !" she replied, " ive will build it up again much better 
 — vive la France V^ After two nights of a march skilfully 
 directed, they at length perceived the sails of the French 
 frigate. My mother took leave of her brave dt^fenders, and 
 rejoined her eldest sons on board the frigate of the repre- 
 sentatives of the people. The rage of our enemies was 
 thus i>3duced to expend itself upon the stones of our house. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE REIGN OF TERROR. 
 
 " Beneath the despotism of one only or of several, 
 We risk becoming the victim. Beneath democratic 
 Despotism, besides the same danger multiplied a 
 Hundred fold, we run another still more horrible — 
 That of becoming executioners !" 
 
 Popular Society of Marseilles — The Cannebriere— Arrival of my Family — 
 Saint Maximin — The Dictatorship of a little Town— The Suspected — 
 The Carts with the Victims — Robespierre and his Brother — It is not yet 
 time ! 
 
 I HAD departed with the deputation from Ajaccio, and a 
 favourable wind wafted us to France in twenty-four hours. 
 I had left it about four j^ears without having finished my 
 studies at the seminary of Aix ; and I was now about to re- 
 appear in it, charged with a political mission. My vanity 
 was exalted to so high a pitch, that I fancied myself a per- 
 sonage of sufficient importance, who could not fail to attract 
 the notice of the crowd which covered the port of Marseilles, 
 where we landed in the evening. We scarcely allowed our- 
 selves a moment of repose, so great was our anxiety to arrive 
 at the popular society. In a vast saloon, which admitted 
 very little light, were seated the members of the society, all 
 of them with red caps on their heads. The galleries were 
 filled with noisy women. As soon as the president had an- 
 nounced that a deputation of patriots from Corsica were the 
 bearers of important news, a hearing was allowed us, and I 
 was called to the tribune before I had thought of what I was 
 to say. I began by declaring that the nation was betrayed 
 in Corsica, and that we were come to invoke the aid of our 
 brothers. As I was ignorant at that moment of the flight of 
 my family, I did not feel any personal hatred against Paoli. 
 I wished to keep fair with him; but the acclamations from 
 the galleries augmented in proportion to the violence of my 
 words, and for the first time I experienced how much the 
 passions of those who listen have power over those who 
 speak. Carried away by the cries and the applauses from 
 the galleries, I soon began to talk in a manner calculated to 
 increase their excitement. It was not only a speedy succour 
 
 B3 
 
18 MExMOIRS OF 
 
 that I demanded, but I painted Paoli as having abused 
 the national confidence, and who had only returned into 
 his island that he might deliver it up to the English. 
 They, above all, were not spared in my figures of rhetoric. 
 It was the chord most likely to touch the feelings of my 
 auditors, and I made it my lavourite theme. I was over- 
 powered with embraces and compliments : they would not 
 let me quit the tribune ; and I chattered away for about two 
 hours at random. Motion upon motion followed one after 
 the other. An order for printing my speech ; a message to 
 the administrators of the departments to send troops to the 
 aid of Ajaccio ; a deputation of three members to accompany 
 us to the Jacobins of Paris, to denounce the treason of Paoli 
 and demand vengeance — all these measures were adopted 
 with urgency and unanimity. My colleagues not having 
 funds sufficient for the journey to Paris, 1 determined upon 
 accompanying the deputies of Marseilles alone, and we left 
 the assembly together at midnight. 
 
 Solitude and repose having cahned my mind, the image of 
 that Paoli, who for so long a time had been the object of my 
 worship, began to trouble my inmost soul in a manner that 
 very much resembled remorse. I recalled to mind our con- 
 versations at Rostino. I had been uttering without premed- 
 itation sentiments in direct opposition to those which, for 
 several months, I had heard proceed from lips which I 
 revered. Furious cries against Paoli had replied to my im- 
 passioned eloquence. They had associated with me, to ac- 
 company me to Paris, a set of men whose repulsive aspect, 
 savage language, the ton of the Holies in their manners, had 
 disagreeably surprised me. After an agitated sleep, I awoke 
 discontented and undecided. The I^Iarseilles deputies came 
 to fetch me to breakfast with them at the cafe : I followed 
 them. They conducted me to tlie Cannebriere, the principal 
 street of Marseilles. I admired that long place surrounded 
 with superb edifices : an immense crowd of men, women, 
 and children were walking, and pushing against each other 
 to get on. I inquired of one of the brothers and friends* if 
 it was a day of festival. " Oh no !" he replied, with great 
 tranquillity, " it is only about twenty aristocrats who are 
 making a tumble : don't you see them V I looked in the 
 direction to which he pointed — and I beheld the guillotine, 
 red with blood, at work. It was the richest merchants 
 whom they had, for above a quarter of an hour, been mur- 
 dering ! and that crowd, whom their bounty had so often 
 fed, were then walking in the street of the Cannebriere to 
 enjoy the spectacle! and the shops were full of customers 
 as usual, and the cafes were open ! and the cakes and gin- 
 gerbread were circulating around as upon the day of a fair ! ! ! 
 
 * Name which the Jacobins gave themselves. — Note of the Translator 
 
. LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 19 
 
 Never shall I forget the first time I walked in the streets of 
 Marseilles. 
 
 I left the coffee house upon I know not what pretext, as 
 soon as possible, and 1 declared the next day that I would 
 not go to Paris ; that the deputies of the Marseilles Club did 
 not want me to accompany them to fulfil their mission, and 
 that I should await the promised succours to return to Cor- 
 sica with my companions. 
 
 A few days afterward my fugitive family arrived in the 
 port of Marseilles, deprived of every resource, but full of 
 courage and in good health. Joseph, Napoleon, and myself, 
 struggled against our ill fortune. Napoleon, an oflicer of 
 artillery, devoted the chief part of his income towards the 
 support of liis family. Joseph was appointed commissary 
 of war, and 1 was placed in the administration of the military 
 subsistences. Under the title of refugee patriots, we ob- 
 tained rations of ammunition, bread, and those moderate suc- 
 cours safficred to maintain us, aided above all by the good 
 management and economy of our excellent mother. The 
 recital of the dangers that she had met, the burning of our 
 property, and the order to take us dead or alive, that had 
 been given by Paoli, would soon have vanquished all further 
 scruples on my part ; and I should have gone to Paris very 
 willingly, if the Marseilles deputation had not already set 
 out. At the same time, my employment required my pres- 
 ence at St. Maximin, a small town a few leagues distant 
 from Marseilles : and I went there to succeed the keeper of 
 the military stores, who was promoted to the rank of in- 
 spector. 
 
 The republic had been but a few months in existence ; and 
 its arms victorious over foreigners, plunged deeper every 
 day into its own vitals. Already the populace were be- 
 come too much accustomed to the scaffold. Wo to those 
 who stop ! had said the savage CoUot d'Herbois. The 
 orators of the Gironde, grown wise too late, and desirous of 
 enjoying their victory, had wished to stop, when the 31st of 
 May arrived to overthrow them. The departments that had 
 embraced their defence had laid down their arms, Danton 
 and Robespierre had pushed the republic beyond all limits. 
 To mark with one word that melancholy epoch, the title of 
 moderate was a sentence of death. The constitution, purely 
 democratic of 1793, was little worthy of its author, the phi- 
 losopher Condorcet. Although accepted by the primary as- 
 semblies, it was about to be suspended as impracticable 
 and the dictatorship of the convention was sustained by the 
 levy 671 masse, by the laws against the suspected, by the 
 forced loan and the maximum, but above all by the irresisti- 
 ble valour of our armies, who had thrown down all obstacles 
 before them. The convention marched victorious up to 
 their knees in blood ! Lyons and La Yendee alone dared to 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 resist that terrible dictature. Every commune in France, 
 from the largest to the smallest, had a club and a revolution- 
 ary committee which absorbed all the power when the com- 
 missaries of the convention were absent. Such was the 
 crisis which agitated all the fibres of society when I found 
 myself launched, at eighteen years of age, in the middle of 
 Provence, separated from my family, far from all my be- 
 loved countrymen, alone — a stranger without acquaintance 
 in a town divided into parties furiously exasperated against 
 each other. 
 
 I arrived at St. Maximin about the end of August in that 
 year, at the moment when the revolutionary army of Gen- 
 eral Carteaux came to Marseilles to repress the spirit of re- 
 bellion excited by the example of Lyons, which obstinately 
 resisted the forces of the convention. Some days after, 
 Toulon surrendered to the combined fleets of England and 
 Spain, thinking to submit to the Bourbons, which it was 
 certainly very pardonable to prefer to the reign of terror: 
 but the hatred of treason, and the horror of a foreign yoke, 
 raised to the highest pitch the universal indignation of the 
 people. As for myself, I beheld in the invaders of Toulon 
 those same English whom Paoli had called, after having 
 separated our island from France, and for whom we had 
 been driven from our home. The tribune of St. Maximin 
 soon, therefore, resounded with the speeches of the young 
 Corsican refugee ; and the popular favour carried me rapid- 
 ly from the armchair of the society, to the presidency of 
 the revolutionary committee. In a few days I had acquired 
 a little dictature, and although this success was quite un- 
 looked for, I was not the less proud of having obtained it. To 
 strengthen my influence, I passed all my evenings at the Pa- 
 triotic Club — where the whole town came to hear me. The 
 few persons who were well educated were shut up as sus- 
 pected : it was not then very susprising that I should have 
 the advantage over all my rivals of the tribune. There was 
 not, therefore, any applause but for me. The women, rich 
 and poor, came regularly to the sittings, bringing with 
 them their work, and all worked that they might not be ac- 
 cused of aristocrac)'-, and joined in chorus with the men in 
 applauding me, and in singing the patriotic hymns. 
 
 So great and easy a success might have turned my head, 
 if I had been ill inclined or weak ; for what evil might I not 
 have done, or have suffered to have been done ? Who would 
 have thought in that little demagogical Babylon, of daring to 
 repress a harebrained youth, whose inflammatory speeches 
 in the evening at the club, and the signature in the day at 
 the committee, could have thrown terror and death into the 
 bosom of a thousand families 1 A convent was filled with 
 the suspected. It depended upon us to make the arbitrary 
 choice in these mournful asylums of innocence, and to ex- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPAR'^E. 21 
 
 pedite them to Orange! The revolutionary tribunal of Or- 
 ange was the worthy tribunal of aid to Fouquier Tinville ! 
 Poor France ! 
 
 How many times I have thanked Providence for not hav- 
 ing abandoned me to the intoxication of so extraordinary a 
 position, so dangerous at my age, and for having surrounded 
 me with plain and simple persons ready to assist me in the 
 good intentions with which I had inspired them, as they 
 would have been equally ready to have aided me, had I been 
 inclined to commit excesses ; for in those moments of demo- 
 cratical despotism, (the worst of all despotisms,) the power 
 of an orator, as long as he commands popular favour, is 
 stronger than public conscience. I have often looked back 
 upon niyself, and I have felt that my good sentiments were 
 powerfully seconded by favourable circumstances. I was a 
 refugee patriot, and a martyr to the revolutionary cause ; 
 these titles placed me beyond the reach of being suspected 
 of aristocracy and of moderation. I could to a certain point 
 brave the most prevailing prejudices, and follow the right 
 road ; but if, like many others, instead of these fortunate 
 antecedent circumstances, I had been placed between my 
 personal security and my conscience — if the terrible, the 
 inexorable {en avantl en av ant I) forward! forward! of the 
 menacing democracy, had resounded without ceasing behind 
 me — if, like so many others, I had been reduced to the in- 
 fernal alternative of kill or diet — can I be quite certain of 
 what might have befallen me "? I flatter myself that 1 should 
 have remained Hiithful to the Sfood side, vmd that my moral 
 courage would not have deserted me. Yet how many 
 Frenchmen, who were as good, or perhaps better than me — 
 have they not slipped upon the edge of the precipice ] How 
 many of those unfortunate beings, born of parents equally 
 virtuous as mv own, and gifted like me with a good educa- 
 tion—have they not fallen ? Yes, it is by far the worst of all 
 social states, where an honest man is exposed to become 
 criminal; where the fate of every one is at the mercy of all ; 
 where we are never certain of what we may say, what we 
 may do, or v^^hat will become of us on the morrow. Young 
 n^en I— read the history of 1793, not in the pleadings of those 
 rhetorif^ians who call themselves historians, but in the pages 
 of the in'^xorable Moniteur ; read with patience, and you, like 
 your fathers, will hold the government of the multitude in 
 detestation. Beneath the despotism of one alone, or of sev- 
 eral, we risk becoming the victims— beneath the democratic 
 despotism, besides the same danger multiplied a hundred 
 fold, we run another still more horrible — that of becoming 
 executioners I 
 
 If we seek justly to appreciate that great tempest of 1793, 
 two sentiments will simultaneously arise from that serious 
 examination : indulgence and pity for the individuals who 
 
S2 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 were influenced by being so cruelly circumstanced — but 
 also hatred, strong, durable, and profound, for the govern- 
 ment of the multitude. 
 
 But we will return to St. Maximin. About twenty, at 
 least, of the inhabitants were confined as suspected persons. 
 I found them commodiously lodged and tolerably well treat- 
 ed. My revolutionary committee was camposed of artisans 
 and work people, and an ancient monk, the only one of 
 them who could write, and who, before my arrival, was at 
 their head. I was fortunate enough to inspire this ex-monk 
 
 "« with a species of enthusiasm for me. He had nothing par- 
 ticularly amiable in his character, but he was not mischiev- 
 ous ; he followed me everywhere, and resigned to me the 
 pre-eminence with all his heart, and was as useful to me as 
 he might have been prejudicial. I placed him, therefore, in 
 my administration, and gained him entirely. The situation 
 of the suspected was ameliorated, and some of them were let 
 out to act in patriotic pieces in a private theatre ; and, above 
 all, the committee came to the resolution not to send any 
 of them to the butchery of Orange. One lady, very amia- 
 ble and of good birth, was more compromised than any of 
 the others ; she was the sister of the author of the " Travels 
 of Antenor." I had a great deal of trouble in pursuadmg 
 her to represent republican pieces ; but I would not give up 
 so good an actress, and 1 almost forced her to perform the 
 part of Junie with us in the Brutus of Voltaire. This little 
 act of dictatorship, however, was the means of giving liber- 
 ty to my victim. We thus passed the least terribly that we 
 could, that most dreadful year. We were small in acts, but 
 in requital we were not sparing of words and addresses to 
 the Jacobins of Paris. As it was the fashion to take an- 
 tique names, our ex-monk took, I believe, the name of Epam- 
 inondas, and I that of Brutus. All the other members of 
 ^_^ the committee followed our example, and in our sittings we 
 
 ,'i\ ■ could have made a vocabulary of Greek and Roman names. 
 
 'Vi^ They have in a pamphlet attributed to Napoleon this bor- 
 rowed name of Brutus, but it belonged only to me. Napo- 
 leon thought to elevate his own name above all those of an- 
 cient history ; and if he had been desirous of figuring in 
 those masquerades, I do not think he would have made 
 choice of the name of Brutus. 
 
 The good inhabitants of St. iMaximin let me do as I pleased ; 
 they were as well satisfied with our theatrical representa- 
 tions, as with the declamations from the tribune. The wo- 
 men were delighted that there had never been a single vic- 
 tim in our little town, and that we performed comedies. I 
 believe, indeed, that at that period there were very few com- 
 munes of whom they could say so much good. 
 
 But a storm from the higher regions was about to burst 
 over our heads. Barras and Freron were at Marseilles 1 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. ^23 
 
 Some months which had elapsed, after my arrival at St. 
 Maximin, had been filled with the successes and crimes of 
 the Jacobins. In September, Lyons had fallen. Collot 
 d'Herbois and Fouche of Nantes had there courageously 
 destroyed with grape shot the vanquished population, and 
 pulled down with French hands the finest edifices of the 
 second town of France, which forty years afterward was 
 doomed to be again delivered up to the horrors of civil war. 
 The army of General Carleaux, with whom was Napoleon, 
 was besieging Toulon. The proscriptions of the suspected, 
 organized more widely by the law of Merlin de Douia, ex- 
 tended over three hundred thousand citizens, and consigned 
 them without mercy to the dictatorship of each of the com- 
 munes. 
 
 In October, Marie Antoinette was dragged to a scaflTold in 
 a tumbril, with her hands tied, in the midst of six hundred 
 thousand Parisians, stupified and trembling before a handful 
 of brigands. 
 
 In November, the assassins deified themselves with their 
 mock worship of Reason ; for that Reason which they en- 
 deavoured to substitute for the Gospel was but an idol bathed 
 in human blood, which presided over their frantic orgies : 
 the heads of the Girondines, of Bailli and Lavoisier, those 
 worthy interpreters of true reason, were the first sacrifices 
 of the new worship. Powerful members of the convention 
 traversed the departments to prevent the rage of the popu- 
 lace from cooling. Barras and Freron were at Marseilles ! 
 Our litle commune vainly hoped to escape from their lynx 
 eyes. Some miserable denunciator had informed them that 
 St. Maximin had not furnished the smallest repast for the 
 guillotine, and that in the house of our suspected, open to 
 the families of the prisoners, they were sufficiently calm to 
 make a practice of amusing themselves with the charms of 
 music. They immediately took the resolution of destroying 
 such a scandal, and two families of the inquisition were charged 
 to put us in the right road. 
 
 I was walking one day with the ex-monk Eparainondas, 
 when an old woman, whose son was among the suspected, 
 ran towards us. "In the name of Heaven," she cried, 
 " citizen president, come and defend us : they are carrying 
 off our children to Orange. Remember what you promised 
 us." " To Orange !" I exclaimed ; " and without an order 
 from the committee ! Let the tocsin be instantly sounded." 
 We returned to the town as fast as possible, and we en- 
 countered on our road numerous persons dispersed in the 
 fields in search of me. The whole town was in an uproar. 
 I renewed the order to sound the tocsin, which was instantly 
 obeyed. I then convoked the popular society and the com- 
 mittee upon the place which was close to the house where 
 the prisoners were confined, and I ran thither accompanied 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 by about a hundred persons. The prison was surrounded 
 by an amazed crowd, who prevented us from seeing the door 
 of entrance. They made way for us. Five or six carts 
 were there ah*eady filled with part of our prisoners chained 
 together. A man, girt with a tricoloured scarf and a hat and 
 feathers, presided over the ceremony, surrounded by some 
 gend'armes and accompanied by a secretary, beplumed like 
 himself, who was writing in his portfolio the names of the 
 victims. The chief of the band was one of the familiars 
 of Barras. 1 sprang before him. " In the name of the 
 law," I cried, " retire from hence. The revolutionary com- 
 mittee have not ordered any delivery of the prisoners. The 
 popular society is about to assemble ; come there and pre- 
 sent your authority, and in the mean time let the suspected 
 be replaced whence they were taken. Gend'armes, release 
 the suspected." The familiar, surprised at my audacity, at- 
 tempted at first to frighten me with the names of those who 
 sent him ; he called me a ci-devant and a moderate, and en- 
 deavoured to continue his work. The gend'armes, who had 
 already in the same way cleared out several prisons, ac- 
 knowledged only the mission of their chief; and the names 
 of the club and committee, so powerful to kill and destro)', 
 were too feeble to save. Fortunately, the tocsin had raised 
 all the population ; the relatives of the victims had regained 
 courage at my words. Several were armed. I profited by 
 my advantage, and ordered the crowds to release the cap- 
 tives, and the delegates to follow me to the committee. In 
 a few moments the suspected were in their chambers, and 
 the doors of the house, well closed, were guarded by a nu- 
 merous troop who acknowledged only my orders. Thirty 
 victims were thus saved ; and, thank God, 1 cared bat little 
 for the danger, to which 1 had exposed myself with all my 
 heart. 
 
 The delegate of the representatives of the people was hut 
 a miscreant, whom 1 afterward heard had been one of the 
 servants of Barras. He sought after these mi:<sions to 
 provide for the guillotine; but he was not in order with his 
 papers, and fortunately for us he was frightened. In the 
 presence of the united committee, I demanded his pnpers ,' 
 he stammered and hesitated. Whether he had not got them, 
 or whether he was afraid of compromising his master, whom 
 we had, in our turn, threatened to denounce at Paris, he 
 became pacified by degrees, and told us he had been de- 
 ceived; that he only actc.i from motives of pure patriotism, 
 and according to the orders of the members of the conven- 
 tion; that he had not got his papers about him, but that he 
 depended upon us, and that he had nothing further to say, 
 since the revolutionary committee was presided over by a 
 Corsican patriot ; and the popular society had all agreed 
 not to expedite any of the suspected to Orange. We received 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 25 
 
 all his compliinents without confiding- too much in them, 
 when all of a sudden he decided upon going away. He 
 would not even do us the honour to sleep at St. Maximin, 
 and he disappeared with his alguazils. Among the suspected 
 whom I had saved, were several members of the Rey 
 family, one of the most respectable in the town — but it will 
 be seen hereafter the recompense I received for my kindness 
 from a young man belonging to that family ; but his conduct 
 towards me did not prevent me from considering that day to 
 be one of the happiest in my life. 
 
 The end of that demagogical year was marked by the 
 taking of Toulon. It was in 1793 that the genius of 
 Napoleon was revealed to the French nation ! ! ! But the 
 tempest was destined to continue a length of time before the 
 transient meteor of the social organization could arise upon 
 the horizon triumphant over every storm. The first months 
 of 1793 beheld, on the contrary, the Jacobins redouble their 
 atrocities, and Robespierre, the most cruel hypocrite and the 
 greatest coward of them all, obtained an unlimited power. 
 Some ardent imaginations have not hesitated to celebrate 
 the praises of that man, and of his accomplices, Couthon 
 and St. Just. They have not even feared to insinuate that 
 Robespierre was a patriotic victim immolated by envious 
 conspirators more guilty than himself. They have main- 
 tained that he fell because he did not wish to proceed in the 
 path of crime. These assertions are contradicted by facts. 
 The revolutionary tribunal was never more active than 
 during the last months of the power of that merciless 
 tribunal. It was then that were struck, with precipitated 
 blows, all those whom birth, fortune, or talents distinguished 
 from the crowd. In the month of April, Malesherbes, the 
 most virtuous of men, was dragged to the scaffold, at seventy- 
 two years of age, in the same cart with his sister, his son- 
 in-law, his daughter, his granddaughter, and the husband of 
 that young- woman ! Even the judges of Fouquier Tinville 
 turned away their eyes at the aspect of the venerable old 
 man. Robespierre, far from stopping, caused Lavoisier to be 
 condemned (in May) a few days after Malesherbes; and that 
 he might have nothing to envy the most savage tyrants, he 
 dared to sacrifice the honour of her sex, the angel who bore 
 upon earth the name of Elizabeth! Robespierre was then at 
 the height of his power. Because he afterward decimated 
 his accomplices, and because he struck at Danton and his 
 partisans, v/as he, for thdt reason, to be considered more 
 excusable 1 Blood cannot wash away blood ; and as for his 
 testival of the Supreme Being, what else was it but cor- 
 tempt for the religion of all Fren^'limen and a denial of the 
 Grospel 1 Blood wao not sufficient for the incorruptible ! 
 He desired even to thrust his sacrilegious hands into the 
 dsepest recesses of our consciences. No ; so many crimes 
 
 C 
 
 \ 
 
26 MEMOIRS 'OF 
 
 can never be comprised in the philosophical sentiment of 
 indulgence. We should strike them, each and every one of 
 us, with an exceptless anathema, especially when these 
 horrible names have lately resounded as a rallying signal in 
 the ears of France and dismayed Europe. 
 
 The brother of Robespierre, after the capture of Toulon, 
 had been sent as commissary to the army of the Alps. 
 Napoleon was considered as the hero of that memorable 
 siege, and was appointed general of brigade ; he was at 
 Nice, were he commanded the artillery. His connection 
 with the army had brought about an intimacy with the 
 young Robespierre, who appreciated him. It appears that 
 the ruler of the convention had been informed of the un- 
 common talents of the conqueror of Toulon, and that he 
 was desirous of replacing the commandant of Paris, Henriot, 
 whose incapacity began to weary him. Here is a fact 
 which 1 witnessed. 
 
 My family owed to the promotion of Napoleon a more 
 prosperous situation. To be nearer to him, they had estab- 
 lished themselves at the Chateau Salle, near Antibes, a few 
 miles distant only from the head quarters of the general. 
 I had left St. Maximin to pass a few days with my family 
 and my brother. We assembled together; and the general 
 gave us every moment that was at his own disposal. He 
 arrived one day more preoccupied than usual, and while 
 walking between Joseph and myself, he announced to us 
 that it depended upon himself to set out for Paris the next 
 day, and to be in a position by which he could establish us 
 all advantageously. For my part, the news enchanted 
 me : to go to the great capital appeared to be the height 
 of felicity that nothing could outweigh. 
 
 " They oifer me," said Napoleon, " the place of Henriot. 
 I am to give my answer this evening. Well, what say you 
 to it?" We hesitated a moment. "Eh! eh!" rejoined 
 the general; "but it is worth the trouble of conoidering. 
 It is not a case to be the eiithusiast upon ; it is not so easy 
 to save one's head at Paris as at St. Maximin. The yourg 
 Robespierre is an honest fellow ; but his brother is not to 
 be trif'ed with. He will be obeyed. Can I support that 
 man? No, never! I know how useful T should be to him 
 in replacing his simpleton of a commandant of Paris ; hut it 
 is what I will not be. It is not yet time ; there is no place 
 honourable for me at present but ihe army : we must havt> 
 patience, I shall command Paris hereafter.^'' Such were the 
 words of Napoleon, He then expressed to us his indigna- 
 tion against the reign of terror, of which he announced the 
 approaching downfall. He finished by repeating several 
 times, half gloomy, half smihng, " What should I do in that 
 galley]" The young Robespierre solicited him in vain. 
 A few weeks after, the 9th Thermidor arrived to deliver 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 27 
 
 France, and justified the foresight of the general. If Napo- 
 leon had taken the command of Henriot, on which side 
 would have been the victory ? Ten days before the 9th 
 Thermidor, the defection of Paoli had been consummated. 
 A general parliament under his presidency offered to the 
 King of England the title of King of Corsica, which was ac- 
 cepted ; but with which the English were not contented. 
 Paoli soon suffered the punishment of his error : those 
 whom he had called desired to reign in the island where his 
 presence rendered every other domination than his impos- 
 sible. There was, therefore, a perpetual struggle between 
 them. What regrets must he not have suffered in his last 
 days ! — for he lived a sufficient time to behold that France, 
 which he had abandoned, arise up from the abyss into 
 which she had fallen. He lived long enough to behold the 
 victories and the accession to the consulate of that son of 
 Charles whose head he had proscribed. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE REACTION. 
 
 *' JliCt those who are without reproach cast the first stone. 
 
 St. Maximin after the 9th Thermidor — Error of Carnot — St. Chaman 
 — Tiie Companions of Jesus — The Prison of Aix — The Song called " Le 
 R^veil du Peuple" — The Thirteenth of Vendemiaire. 
 
 The Jacobin terrorists had so completely oppressed all 
 ranks of society, that the reaction was certain to be violent. 
 Every day, notwithstanding the convention and its commit- 
 tees, opinion advanced with rapidity towards another order 
 of ideas. The young Robespierre had evinced much esteem 
 towards General Bonaparte ; and that was sufficient to cause 
 him to be proscribed. Arrested upon imputations the most 
 frivolous am^ groundless, restored to liberty a few days after, 
 he was definitely deposed, and he went to Paris to solicit an 
 employment. Barras, more powerful than ever, received 
 him favourably enough to give him some hopes. Joseph 
 had retired to Genoa. On my side I began to perceive the 
 inclinations of the well disposed around me, change to cold- 
 ness and disdain. The suspected, restored to their families, 
 forgot very soon that we had prevented their being sent to 
 the guillotine, and remembered only their detention. They 
 
28 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 filled the popular society. The favour of the multitude left 
 us gradually, in order to attach itself to the counter revolu- 
 tionary party. This party, justly irritated at what it had 
 suffered, beheld in the republic the cause of its misfortunes. 
 It confounded the Jacobins and the moderates, the execu- 
 tioners and the liberators, all together in the same anathema. 
 For them, republic and terror were one and the same thing; 
 and how was it possible that it could be otherwise, since, 
 after /or;!y years, the opinion of the majority of the French 
 is still subjugated by the same prejudices ? Although I was 
 in a small town at a distance from Paris, I was well placed 
 to judge the movements of the reaction. I saw that, far 
 from contenting themselves with overthrowing the dema- 
 gogical reign of terror, they were about to create a new 
 terror. I thought, therefore, after the 9th Thermidor, of 
 soliciting a change of residence in my admnii^jtration ; but 
 the solicitations of the patriots of St. Maximin detained me 
 in the midst of them for some months longer. They re- 
 doubled in activity. We disputed the ground wuth the revo- 
 lutionists, and we regained sufficient influence to reassure 
 us. 
 
 Thus, in our little corner of the earth, we performed the 
 parody of that which was passing at the convention, where 
 the tail of the committee of public safety endeavoured to re- 
 tain the direction of the political movement; but the par- 
 ody was better than the piece, for we had never stained 
 with blood our municipal dictatorship, while the companions 
 of Robespierre, having shared in his crimes, found themselves, 
 by their antecedent conduct, obliged to justify the excesses 
 of the reign of terror. Carnot himself, the most esteemed 
 and the most estimable of the members of the committee, 
 had even dared to say, when he announced the triumphs of 
 our armies, 
 
 " These victories are the effects of the measures with 
 which they reproach us as crimes. It is with these suc- 
 cesses that we render' an account of all the blood that we 
 have shed." 
 
 Carnot sought thus to cover with the shield of his high 
 renown his too guilty colleagues; but that which was gen- 
 erous as a private man, was a serious fault for a statesman. 
 It was giving reason to the royalists, who confounded in one 
 all the shades of republicanism. They calumniated, like- 
 wise, the French people, in supposing that the blood shed 
 upon the scaffold had been necessary for the prodigies of our 
 armies. Far from that — our armies performed prodigies of 
 valour, notwithstanding the horror with which the crimes of 
 the interior inspired them. The prompt and violent meas- 
 ures of the administration, the conscriptions, the forced 
 circulation of the assignats, the forced loan, and even the 
 maximum, had, without doubt, contributed to our military 
 
LrCIEN BONAPARTE. 29 
 
 successes ; but never did a drop of blood shed by our tyrants 
 upon the scaffold have the shghtest influence over our vic- 
 tories — never. Savans, learned men employed by the com- 
 mittee of the public safety, contributed greatly to those vic- 
 tories in creating extraordinary means, by which they ob- 
 tained twelve millions of saltpetre in a few months, instead 
 of one million, the ordinary produce. They owed to them 
 fifteen foundries of bronze and iron, instead of six that had 
 formerly existed ; twenty new manufactories of arms, two 
 hundred workshops for repairing, the telegraph, and the bal- 
 loon applied to military service. In a word, they owed to 
 them the perfection of all the arts of war, and the simplifica- 
 tion of processes by the most profound theories. But if 
 even Bailli and Lavoisier had not fallen beneath their con- 
 ventional proscriptions, would those sciences which the re- 
 public made use of have been less useful in their results 1 
 
 It was then absurd to say that the blood that was shed 
 had served us in our victories ; it was certainly not the 
 blood of the chiefs of science, nor of the old men, women, 
 and children — nor that of the martyred king, of his wife, and 
 his sister — nor that of the marriages in the vessels of the 
 Loire, nor of those who fell by the murderous grape shot at 
 Lyons and Toulon. The false position in which Carnot 
 found himself, made him say what he would never else have 
 thought of saying. He shut his eyes upon what might be 
 the result of that conduct which in the departments struck 
 us with stupor, and encouraged the fury of the enemies of 
 the revolution. 
 
 " Behold," said they, " that atrocious convention sup- 
 ports Barrere, Billaud, Collot, Carrier, Fouquier Tinville : 
 those who overthrew Robespierre are not, then any better 
 than he. All they wanted to do was to save themselves. 
 We must get rid of them altogether : we must disarm and 
 imprison, in their turn, all those who served under the gov- 
 ernment of terror." 
 
 During the first months after Thermidor, the conduct of 
 the convention did the greatest injury to the patriots of the 
 provinces ; its hesitation, its unskilful returns towards the 
 reign of blood, compromised the republic. We multiplied 
 addresses to them, in order to satisfy at length the universal 
 indignation against the principal accomplices of Robespierre, 
 the only measure to prevent the people from doing justice to 
 themselves. After three months of error, the convention 
 began to open their eyes, but not soon enough to be before- 
 hand in the South, with the companies of the Companions of 
 Jesus, and of the Sun, who took, as a pretext for their or- 
 ganization, the impunity of the great criminals. In Novem- 
 ber, 1794, Carrier (a name for which there is not a sufficient 
 epithet in the human language) ceased to stain the soil of 
 France. In January, 1795, the cavern of the Jacobins was 
 
 C2 
 
30 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 closed. In April, he who talked of the awakening of the 
 lion, might, with more truth, have said the awakening of the 
 tiger ; and the other, who took the balance of the guillotine as 
 the die for coining money, was, with one of the two execu- 
 tioners of Lyons, condemned to transportation. In May, the 
 infernal judge was judged in his turn. 
 
 The partisans of the reign of terror, beaten on the day of 
 the 12th Germinal, could not prevent the banishment of their 
 chiefs ; and the convention, after these inevitable measures 
 that it had too long retarded, could resume with less embar- 
 rassment the course of its dictatorship. The last part of the 
 year 1795 was the most glorious for the convention. It 
 knew how to subdue in turn the convulsions of terrorism, 
 and the daring conspiracies of the royalists. 
 
 Cured of its demagogical delirium, it prepared the basis of 
 the directorial constitution founded upon the division into 
 two chambers of the legislative power. It owed to this 
 newly acquired wisdom, as much as our armies, the recon- 
 ciliation of the republic with several powers. The treaties 
 of peace with Tuscany, La Vendee, Prussia, Holland, and 
 Spain, succeeded each other after short intervals. But 
 while the convention substituted a great deal of good for all 
 the evil it had permitted to be committed, the royalists of the 
 South had in their turn enlisted bands of assassins. The 
 horrible cry of Ca Ira ! — the aristocrats to the lantern ! had 
 been succeeded by a hymn not less horrible, called " The 
 Awaking of the People." An improvident law had ordained 
 the disarming of the terrorists, and under that name all the 
 republicans had been disarmed. It was no longer possible, 
 therefore, to resist the counter revolutionists. I hastened to 
 quit St. Maximin ; and I set out as inspector in a military 
 administration for the commune of St. Chaman, near the 
 town of Cette, while Napoleon, rejected at Paris by the com- 
 mittee of war, thought of seeking service in the East. 
 
 St. Chaman was quiet enough. As chief of the adminis- 
 tration, I was very well received ; they occupied themselves 
 with poUtics as everywhere else, but without going to 
 extremes. My office occupied me only a part of the day, 
 and I went generally to pass my afternoons with a very 
 amiable family, the most considerable in the commune, 
 whose name I am ashamed to have forgotten. They played 
 in general at little innocent games in the garden of the house, 
 where several of the neighbours, both old and young, were 
 assembled. I was closely engaged one day in declaiming, 
 I know not what verses, to redeem a pledge, when I was in- 
 formed that an officer was at the door and desired to speak 
 to me. I made great haste to go to him, thinking it was 
 some affair belonging to the service ; and upon seeing the 
 personage, I was surprised, but not alarmed. It was the 
 young Auguste Rey of St. Maximin, whose parents had been 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 31 
 
 fastened with cords upon one of the carts, ready to depart 
 for the tribunal of Orange, when I rescued them. The pres- 
 ence of that young man, who was scarcely sixteen years of 
 age, was agreeable to me, and I was only astonished to see 
 him in a brilliant uniform. It was the uniform adopted by 
 the assassins of the South, too celebrated under the fantastic 
 name of the Companions of Jesus. 
 
 " Well, Auguste, what do you want with me — and how are 
 your parents ]" 
 
 " March, brigand, and give me your hands," was his reply ; 
 and taking from his pocket a strong cord, he prepared to tie 
 my hands. Resistance was useless — others of the Com- 
 panions of Jesus were there. 1 was then strongly fastened, 
 and conducted to my lodging to deliver up my papers. 
 Auguste held the end of the cord, and menaced me with his 
 sword to make me go faster. All our companions of the 
 games ran to speak in my favour as they followed me. " He 
 is a Jacobin," replied my grateful young man : " it is now 
 our turn to be the masters. Go on," he cried ; " and you, 
 citizens, be quiet and let us alone." 
 
 I must own that the intervention of those young ladies 
 was little agreeable to me. I should have preierred for them 
 not to have seen me in so sad a plight. They took my pa- 
 pers, and everything I possessed ; and after having hand- 
 cuffed me, my guard made me mount with him in a cabrio- 
 let, his companions mounted on horseback, and we set off. 
 *' Where are you going to take me 1 Are you going to cut 
 my throat, as a recompense for having saved your parents?" 
 
 " No, you have nothing to fear upon that score. I shall 
 take you to the prison of Aix." 
 
 " To the prison of Aix ! Why it is only a few days since 
 the prisoners were massacred. It is as bad as the prison of 
 Orange." 
 
 It was in vain I used all my efforts to shake the resolution 
 of my keeper. He dragged me to the prison of Aix. Those 
 young persons, who had all the appearance of having been 
 well brought up, bellowed incessantly in my ear the burden 
 of the song of the awaking of the people. They shall not 
 escape us. In consigning me to the jailer, Auguste ex- 
 claimed, " Here ! there is another in the cage ; keep good guard 
 over him for us against our first visit /" I entered into that 
 horrible house, where, notwithstanding it had been washed 
 several times, the traces of blood were still visible of the 
 unfortunate beings whom they had assassinated seven or 
 eight days before. It was again filled. The chamber which 
 I occupied contained about a hundred prisoners 
 
 That I may not have to speak again of the unfortunate 
 young man, I will observe here that I heard no more of.him 
 until several years after. 1 then heard that, after having 
 plunged into every excess of vice, he at length expatriated 
 
\ 
 
 32 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 himself, and had died miserably, far distant from his honour- 
 able family, who held his conduct in horror. 
 
 The demagogical party, driven to despair at Paris, organ- 
 ized a last effort more terrible than any of the preceding. 
 The hall of the assemblies, invaded, was soiled with the 
 blood of the representative Ferraud. The vilest populace 
 committed every excess in the fatal days of Praireal, (the 
 end of May, 1795.) The convention was at time truly great. 
 The calm of Boissy d'Anglas, its president, the sublime at- 
 titude of that assembly, silently seated upon their benches, 
 distant but two steps from those who came to murder them, 
 equalled all that history offers us the most heroic. The fac- 
 tions of 1793 were repulsed after repeated attacks. The 
 revolution of Thermidor ended in the month of Praireal. 
 Doubtless, it can only be from inadvertence that in a history 
 full of talent upon the revolution those sanguinary wretches 
 of Praireal are repeatedly called patriots! patriots! And 
 what then was Ferraud, Boissy d'Anglas, and their col- 
 leagues] This title thus transposed is a stain upon that fine 
 history. Without doubt, the death of the Deputy Romme 
 and his companions was heroic ; their profound conviction 
 and their stoicism may leave an incertitude upon the justice 
 of their condemnation. For my part, I cannot persuade my- 
 self to believe them guilty ; what connection could there 
 be between such men and brigands 1 In our prison of Aix, 
 they gave also the name of patriots to the insurgents of 
 Praireal. The first news announced their tiiumph. De- 
 tained, with or without reason, as terrorists, we hoped for 
 our delivery from the victory of the insurgents; but the 
 song of the awaking of the people, which resounded with 
 redoubled energy around us, very soon proclaimed the vani- 
 ty of those hopes very excusable in our position. We had 
 several alert murderers around us, from whom we were for- 
 tunately quit, with only their ferocious music. More fortu- 
 nately still, an order from Paris, obtained by Napoleon, re- 
 stored me to liberty. It is but just to declare that Barras 
 did not evince any animosity towards those who had re- 
 pulsed the mission of his terrible agents at St. Maximin ; 
 not that he had forgotten my action, but from an easiness 
 of disposition, which was his greatest merit, he loved to 
 oblige. He contented himself v/ith saying upon that occa- 
 sion, that I had been very bold, and had a lucky escape ; and 
 it was he who gave my brother the order for ray liberty. 
 
 I had been six weeks in prison, and left there many citi- 
 zens equally as innocent as myself. But such is the justice 
 of parties — they are all alike ; and we might say to them as 
 to the adulteress, " Let those who are without reproach cast the 
 first stone.^'' After my deliverance, 1 retired to Marseilles. 
 The predominant opinion of that great town was changed. 
 The defeat of the Jacobins had been celebrated with fanati- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 33 
 
 cism. They railed as rniich against the victorious convention 
 as against the vanquished Jacobins. The catastrophe of 
 Quiberon (subject of ineffaceable shame to the Enghsh gov- 
 ernment of that period, if it be true that it abandoned its 
 victims, and for the French government, which had the atro- 
 cious courage to immolate them, with or without capitulation) 
 raised the public indignation. The royalists were equallj 
 skilful in appropriating to themselves the fruits of the heroism 
 and the errors of the conventional party. The counter 
 revolutionary spirit was not calmed. I liad no longer any 
 employment ; and I thought of retiring into the country, 
 when fresh political struggles decided otherwise. 
 
 The victory of Praireal had completely dispelled the dema- 
 gogical intoxication. The ideas of justice, of concord, of 
 the division of power, of equilibrium, had replaced the fever 
 of the conventional dictatorship. The enlightened patriots 
 could make themselves heard, and the constitution of the 
 year 3 enabled us to make a giant step towards true repub- 
 lican ideas. Two legislative chambers and an executive 
 directory of five members, offered a pledge of stability. In 
 the month of August, that new constitution, enlightened by 
 the error of the constituent assembly, ordered that two thirds 
 of the two new chambers should be taken into its bosom. 
 
 That law of the 13th Fructidor exasperated all those who 
 were tired of the yoke of the convention. It cannot be de- 
 nied, that to restrain thus to their own profit the exercise of 
 the right of election, was making an attempt upon the sove- 
 reignty of the pope. To be free from all reproach, the law 
 should have been subm^itted to the same voting as the consti- 
 tution. It was what the convention did, and then its enemies 
 had only to obtain the majority of the suffrages ; for it is the 
 universal voting which consecrates, and which can alone 
 consecrate a new power. If they recognise the sovereignty 
 of the people, that fundamental maxim must unavoidably be 
 acknowledged. The royalists, although opposed to that 
 doctrine, neglected nothing to cause the decree of Fructidor 
 to be rejected. They succeeded at Paris, but they failed in 
 other places. Nearly the whole of the primary assemblies 
 accepted the constitution and the decree. The sections of 
 Paris, misled by the royalists, dared to call to arms, notwith- 
 standing the universal vote. The convention menaced — 
 named Barras as chief of its defenders. Barras confided the 
 command to General Bonaparte, who was still without em- 
 ployment. And the 15th Vandemiaire (October, 1795) could 
 not, unfortunately, assure the triumph of the patriot party, 
 but at the price of the blood of too many Frenchmen. 
 
 The constitution of the year 3 was brought into activity, 
 as well as the law of Fructidor, The General Bonaparte 
 was promoted to the command of Paris — named Commissary 
 of War. I departed for the cap tal to rejoin my brother. It 
 
\ 
 
 34 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 will naturally be imagined how much I reflected at that mo- 
 ment upon what he had said to me at Antibes, scarcely two 
 years before — " Have patience ; in a little time I shall command 
 Pans r 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DIRECTORY. UNTIL THE EXPEDITION TO EGYPT. 
 
 " in organizing the Powers, the force and the success of the Constitu« 
 tion depends upon the equilibrium." — Raynal. 
 
 The Directorial Constitution compared with the Constitution of 1791— 
 Address of Raynal to the Assembly — Mirabeau, Raynal, and Napoleon 
 — Corsica re-enters the French Family— Binasco and Pavie — Monsieui 
 Thiers and Waher Scott — The inviolability of a Legislative Assembly 
 — Joseph Bonaparte at Rome and at the Council of Five Hundred — 
 Opinion of Napoleon upon the Executive power of five or three Magis- 
 trates — Expedition to Egypt — My Election to the Legislative Body. 
 
 I ARRIVED in the great capital a few days after the opening 
 of the legislative councils, which I entered three years after. 
 I found my brother in high favour with the directory. It 
 was through his influence that I was appointed commissary 
 of war to the army of Moreau, which 1 joined after having 
 remained a month at Paris. During this month's stay I 
 beheld everything on the bright side. French society, re- 
 stored to the ideas of true liberty and public order, appeared 
 to me the more admirable wijen 1 compared them to the con- 
 vulsions of Jacobinism, and to the reaction of tl^e Royalism 
 of tlie South, of which I had nearly become the victim. I 
 assisted frequently at the sittines of the councils, which made 
 me take a disgust Lo the futictions that I had hitherto been 
 happy to obtain. I would willingly have renounced them all, 
 not to have been distant from the public tribunes ; but I was 
 obliged to depart for Munich, Brussels, and Holland, where 
 I went in turn during the course of the year 1796, to execute 
 an employment, ill or well, in which I occupied myself with 
 much less ardour than in reading the political journals and 
 pamphlets. I became a very decided partisan of the two cham- 
 bers of the directorial government. Until that period, my 
 sentiments had not kept pace with the prevailing opin- 
 ion ; but I then found it accorded with my own. Here, at 
 last, I said to myself, is a republic ! The division of power 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 35 
 
 is the guarantee of our liberty. At the general quarters of 
 the armies, I was very fond of making speeches, and fre- 
 quently got into quarrels with the Jacobins or Royalists. 
 But soon the glory of Napoleon, who had just terminated in 
 a few days his first campaign of Italy, that wonderful glory, 
 covered me with its brilliancy. My chiefs paid me a great 
 deal of attention, and they excused both my indolence in my 
 administration, and my eternal discussions. I obtained the 
 friendship of the general-in-chief, Tilly, who commanded at 
 Brussels, and that of the excellent General Eble, commandant 
 of the artillery at Malines, with whom I remained over a 
 year. This last, above all, was an honest and since»e repub- 
 lican, and agreed perfectly with me in my sentiments; we 
 were strictly united in friendship. We thought the republic 
 was established b} :he new constitution. The hatred with 
 Which it inspired it; 3 two extreme factions was its highest 
 commendation. 
 
 These impressions of my youth may have left me some 
 prejudices. I owe to them, perhaps, an erroneous opinion 
 upon the directorial regime ; but I still wish to think that the 
 regime was not so bad, and that if the different factions 
 would have yielded to it, the great republic was founded 
 upon a solid basis. A.s I have nothing to say of myself that 
 merits p';.bhc attention, having been, until 1798, out of all 
 political employment, I may be permitted to speak of my 
 opinions. Those opinions of 1706 and 1797, have been con- 
 firmed by succeeding events ; and notwithstanding all the ill 
 that has" been said of the directorial constitution, I think 
 now, as I did then, that a good Frenchman, a reasonable 
 man, n.ight be a sincere partisan of a repubhc founded upon 
 so good a legislative basis. If, notwithstanding these bases, 
 the constitution could not resist the internal convulsions and 
 military reverses, it is only to the relative weakness of an 
 executive power too moveable, to wnich it must be attribu- 
 ted ; and also with a small portion of good fortune in 1798, 
 and less violence among the parties, the directorial regime 
 might have completed the revolution, and perfected it by 
 gradual and pacific ameliorations. This assertion will, with- 
 out doubi, appear difficult to reconcile with the 18th Bm- 
 maire. Yet, notwithstanding, the 18'U Brumaire, properly 
 considered, fully confirms it. It is what I hope to develop 
 in the course of these memoirs. 
 
 The directt rial republican constitution offered more guar- 
 antees for public order than the monarchy of 1791. Let us 
 compare the basis of the two codes : as for the code of 1793, 
 which separates them, it was but a senseless d^^^iocracy, in- 
 apphcable to a great nation. 
 
 In 1791, the sovereign or legislative power was concen- 
 trated m a siiigle body, which was to be entirely renewed 
 every two years. 
 
36 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 In 1795, the sovereign power was divided into two bodies, 
 of which the fifth part was to be renewed every year. Now 
 the concentration of the sovereign power in one individual, 
 or in a body, what is it then but despotism ? 
 
 The frequent and complete renewal of the individual or 
 of the body, in which the sovereign power is deposited, what 
 else is it but anarchy 1 
 
 The constitution of '91 was a confused medley of the 
 principle^ of despotism and anarchy. It had only displaced 
 despotism or legislative unity. It exchanged an hereditary 
 master for a triennial master. The new master was more 
 absolute than the old, for there was no longer either parlia- 
 ment, or noblesse, or clergy, or provincial states to oppose 
 it. On the other side, the triennial renewal of this absolute 
 sovereign incessantly brought the whole in question. Every 
 two years we might pass from a republic to a monarchy, 
 and from a monarchy to a republic ; there only needed for 
 this a sudden transport of enthusiasm, or a decree wrested 
 by fear. What a state of society ! The assembly called 
 the constituent had not then constituted anything. It had 
 worthily proclaimed the principles of liberty, of civil equal- 
 ity, and universal toleration. Noble and holy inheritance that 
 we owe to it ! but it had erred completely in the application. 
 It was an assembly of philosophers, rather than an assembly 
 of legislators ; and was it to be wondered at 1 How, at the first 
 step, could it attam its ends in that arduous career, when the 
 history of the world only signalizes five or six names for 
 the admiration of posterity ] For the task which that as- 
 sembly had given itself (forgetting the limits of its man- 
 dates) was absolute : entirely to renew a social order ! So- 
 lon and Lycurgus were very far from having so great a task 
 to fulfil ; and they had passed a long life in meditating upon 
 what we were expected to perform at once. The constitu- 
 ent assembly had for uitecedents only the theories of Rous- 
 seau, of Montesquieu, and other great writers, and the ex- 
 ample of England and that more recent one of America. 
 But its work answered only those antecedents in its immor- 
 tal preface, the declaration of rights ; as for the book itself, 
 its deplorable influence was and must remain in an inverse 
 sense from the intention of its authors. 
 
 The executive power, formed by the constituent assembly, 
 had the wisdom to retain, even after the flight of Louis XVI. 
 to Varennesj the unity of that power, and its succession ; 
 but it had overturned, in its impatuous course, all the de- 
 fenders of royally. It placed then a throne, without a basis 
 and v/ithout support, before a sovereign ail powerful, and 
 changing continually. Ic left to that shadow of a king, nei- 
 ther the proposition of the law^, no*- the right of dissolving 
 them. A suipeiisiv veto for two years served only to ex- 
 pose it to the vengeance of an absolute master. The cen- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 37 
 
 stituent assembly, having concentrated the supreme power 
 in a single popular body, had founded the democracy, and it 
 would have been therefore more wise and less cruel (inten* 
 tions apart) to have sent Louis XVI. out of France. . . . 
 With the constitution of 1791, there was no longer any pos- 
 sibility of royalty. The President of the United States 
 had more power than they had left to the King of the 
 French. 
 
 And in 1795, the executive directory had more power than 
 Louis XVL In the first place, there was no longer only 
 one sovereign. The legislative power, divided between the 
 two councils, left to the directory a relative force, superior 
 to that of the king of 1791. One of these two councils being 
 accessible only to men of forty years of age, offered a still 
 stronger guarantee of order and stability. The reading of 
 each proposition, three different times, with an interval of 
 three days between each, prevented the council of five hun- 
 dred from coming to a hasty decision without time for re- 
 flection. The two councils, therefore, being renewed by 
 fifths every year, rendered the change almost imperceptible 
 and without danger. Ail the advantages, therefore, were on 
 the side of the directory. 
 
 It will be observed, without doubt, that an executive 
 power of five chiefs did not offer to a great nation so strong 
 a guarantee as the unity of the hereditary executive power 
 of 1791, It is true that the directory had neither unity nor 
 right of inheritance ; but its renewal was as prudently com* 
 bined as that of the councils. Chosen by the council of an- 
 cients upon a tenfold list, forme-d by the council of five hun^ 
 dred, the directors were named for five years. One among 
 them only went out every year. This method left to the 
 executive power almost as much force as if it had not been 
 temporary. And besides, is it nothing to be freed for ever 
 from minorities, regencies, and disputes of succession 1 But 
 this order of ideas did not appertain to the epoch of the di- 
 rectory. I am advancing too far upon the subject, and I 
 hasten to retrace my steps. 
 
 The monarchy of 1791 had still against it the power of the 
 clubs, whose existence it had consecrated ; at the same time 
 they were prohibited in the directorial charter. That single 
 difference was decisive. The work of 1791 might have be- 
 come less imperfect if the great orator had not closed his 
 eyes at the moment when the court had learned to appreciate 
 him ; a sentiment common to all parties made them look 
 upon the death of Mirabeau as a national calamity. But this 
 powerful, intrepid, and true statesman, who did not bend be- 
 fore the opinion of the day when he thought it pernicious — 
 could he, in spite of that opinion, have established two cham- 
 bers ! That is not probable. Besides the death of Mirabeau* 
 which preceded, by four months, the publication of the 
 
 D 
 
38 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ^charter of 1791, left a void which the well disposed endeav- 
 'oured in vain to fill up. A project of revisal, concerted 
 among the friends of the constitutional monarchy, was frus- 
 trated by some unfavourable circumstances ; but if it had suc- 
 ceeded, that revision would have remained powerless before 
 a single, absolute, and triennial chamber. To subdue and 
 bring back opinions towards the system of the two chambers, 
 against which public opinion had pronounced its anthema, 
 required the greatest civil courage, united with magical in- 
 fluence. I was necessary to brave the name of aristocrat ; 
 and let us not fear to say it : if we go to a battle as we 
 would go to a fete, civil courage is in general less commori 
 among us. We would sooner brave death than the hisses 
 of an assembly, or of the multitude. We sacrifice too much 
 to the pLeasure of being applauded ; and when we are con- 
 tradicted in our opinion, instead of appreciating the courage 
 of our opponents, we excommunicate them without tolera- 
 tion. Thus twenty days after the death of IMirabeau, we 
 beheld one of those great geniuses, the honour of the 18th 
 century, the famour Abbe Raynal, treated with the most 
 profound disdain, when he went himself to read at the bar 
 of the assembly a prophetic address, in which were the fol- 
 lowing passages : — 
 
 " Called to regenerate France, yon ought to consider what 
 you could usefully preserve of the ancient order; and, above 
 all, that which you could not abandon. France being a mon- 
 archy. . . . Purify the principles by seating the throne upon 
 its true basis, the sovereignty of the nation : fix the limits by 
 placing them in the national representation, was what you 
 had to do. And you think you have done it! But in organ- 
 izing the powers, the f;)rce, and the success of the constitu- 
 tion, depended upon the equilibrium ; and you had to defend 
 yourselves against the bent of prevailing ideas. You ought 
 to have seen thatthepowerof kings was declining in opinion, 
 and that the rights of the people were increasing. Thus in 
 weakening without measure that which tends to deca}^ nat- 
 urally, in fortifying without proportion that which tends 
 naturally to increase, you arrive forcibly at the sad result — 
 of a king without authority — a 'people ivithout reslTaint .'" 
 
 And that illustrious old man, who, upon the brink of the 
 grave, performed so admirable an act of patriotism, was 
 scoffed at : they were provoked at his boldness. If Jean 
 Jaques, Voltaire, and Montesquieu, had accompanied him, 
 they would not have met with better success. What would 
 have been the science of those men, compared with the sci- 
 ence of the day] That intolerance of opinion has too often 
 overwhelmed in our assemblies the voice of our best citizens ; 
 and perhaps our giant of the tribune, our Mirabeau himself, 
 died in time for his glory. 
 
 The names of Raynal and Mirabeau bring me back to Na- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 39 
 
 poieon. Napoleon, in one of those cong^es which he went to 
 
 Eass at Ajaecio, (it was, I believe, in 1790,) had composed a 
 istory of the revolutions of Corsica, of which I wrote two 
 copies, and of which 1 mucli regret the loss. One of these 
 manuscripts was addressed by him to tlie Abbe Raynal, whom 
 my brother had known on his passage to Marseilles. Raynal 
 found that work so extremely remarkable, that he decided 
 upon communicating it to Mirabeau, who, on returning the ^ 
 
 manuscript, wrote to Raynal that that little history appeared \ 
 
 to him to announce a genius of the first order. The reply 
 of Raynal accorded with the opinion of the great orator; and / 
 
 Napoleon was enchanted. 1 have made a great many re- 
 searches in vain to find these manuscripts ; they were per- 
 haps destroyed in the burning of our house by the troops of 
 Paoli. 
 
 These literary communications had strengthened the ad- 
 miration of Napoleon for those two great men of genius. 
 The death of Mirabeau afflicted him very sensibly. The ad- 
 dress of Raynal to the constituent assembly was not with- 
 out in.luence upon us ; and if Paoli had confined himself to 
 declaring for the party in France, favourable to the ideas of 
 political equilibrium, we should have seconded him with all 
 our efforts. 
 
 The course of events had decided it otherwise, and we 
 could but felicitate ourselves. Napoleon had arrived at the 
 theatre of that great war for which he felt himself born ; and 
 from his field of victory, it sufficed for iiim to send some of- 
 ficers and arms to tear Corsica from the English and from 
 Paoli, who disputed it with them. Already the young re- 
 nown of Napoleon had effaced the former renown of the an- 
 cient chief. Among the officers sent into Corsica, was the 
 brave Costa of Bastelica^ the defender of our family in the 
 days of adversity. 
 
 I had just arrived at Genoa in time to see the departure 
 of our islanders, and to embrace Costa, for whom I had al- 
 ways, from my childhood, a particular friendship. Had it 
 not been for the impatience which I felt, to behold, in the 
 midst of his triumphs, my brother, already master of Lombar- 
 dy, 1 should have set out for Ajaecio. In the course of a 
 few days we learned that the whole island had revolted, and 
 that Paoli, in despair, had taken refuge in London, where he 
 received, till his last hour, that respect which was his due. 
 They even wished to perpetuate that respect by erecting to 
 his memory a tomb in Westminster Abbey. It is also in an 
 English tomb that Napoleon reposes ! ! ! But what a tomb ! 
 — what a vengeance ! Oh ! eternal shame to freemen, who 
 become the instruments of despotic kings ! I fear not, noble 
 British nation, although amid ye, to let this fraternal cry es- 
 cape me. 1 have travelled in your provinces and in your 
 palaces ; in your houses and in your cottages. 1 have often 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 been affected with the sight of the image of Napoleon ; and 
 I have exclaimed, a hundred times, on beholding it, " Here 
 is what attests the sentiment of reparation in a nation that 
 knows how to appreciate a hero. Those who confined and 
 suffered the noble victim to die upon the rock of St. Helena, 
 did they show themselves worthy of the great people whom 
 they governed?" 
 
 I had obtained permission to quit the North to goto Milan, 
 where our army had made its entry. Napoleou was no lon- 
 ger at Milan, The revolt of Pavia had just broken out, and 
 it was said that the general was gone to the banks of the 
 Adige to chastise the guilty city. I hastened to Pavia. 
 Upon the road my eyes were struck with the distant reflec- 
 tion of a vast fire. It was the village of Rinasco, delivered 
 up to the flames, to expiate the assassination of several of 
 our straggling soldiers. 1 traversed the burning ruins. 
 Pavia presented me, in a few moments after, with a specta- 
 cle even more deplorable. 'I hat great city had been deliv- 
 ered up to pillage in the morning ; the traces of blood had 
 not been washed away. The bodies of the peasants, who 
 had refused to surrender, were not carried away. People 
 were occupied with those funeral rites within the gate by 
 which I entered. The streets and places were transformed 
 into a perfect fair, where the conquerors were selling to hid- 
 eous speculators the spoils of the vanquished ! What mis- 
 eries even in the most just of wars — in the most necessary 
 of victories ! 
 
 1 could only remain with my brother half a day. He was 
 to return in the evening upon his favourite line of the Adige. 
 He gave me his instructions, and I departed for Corsica. 
 After some days of a stormy voyage, I found myself in my 
 beloved native town, where I thought only of obtaining the 
 suffrages of my fellow-citizens for the epoch when I should 
 become eligible. 
 
 The last six months of the year, and the following, ('96 
 and '97,) were filled with the exploits of Napoleon and the 
 army of Italy. From Montenotte to Campo Formio, it was 
 a continuation of prodigies. " When we consider it alto- 
 gether, the imagination is struck with the multitude of the 
 battles, the fecundity of the conceptions, and the immensity 
 of the results. Entering into Italy with thirty and a few 
 thousand men, Bonaparte separated, in the first place, the 
 Piedmontese from the Austrians at Montenotte, and at Mil- 
 lesimo succeeds in destroying the first at Mondovi ; then 
 hastens after the second — passes the Po before them at Plai- 
 sance, the Adda at Lodi, takes possession of Lombardy — 
 stops for a moment — soon resumes his march — finds the Aus- 
 trians reinforced upon the Mincio, and completes their de- 
 struction at the battle of Borghetto. There he seized, as 
 with a coup d'oeil, the plan of his future operations ; it is 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 43 
 
 composed (in 1795, as it was in 1791) of proprietors only, 
 whose income equalled a hundred days of work. The infe- 
 rior properties of those who had not any property, although 
 they composed the majority of the nation, were not repre- 
 sented at all. Even the exercise of communal suffrage ap- 
 pertained only to those who paid a contribution equal to 
 three days' work, (in 1791,) and a contribution of some sort 
 in 1795. The convention had much enlarged the basis of 
 the right of citizens fixed by the constituent assembly ; but 
 that basis was not the universal suffrage in the community. 
 Thus, there were still in France two distinct populations, 
 one composed of inhabitants without any political rights, 
 subject, nevertheless, to all the duties ; and the other com- 
 posed of privileged citizens, having solely the right of nom- 
 inating the electors. It was reserved for the constitution of 
 Brumaire to consecrate universal suffrage, and to modify it 
 by the triennial hsts of notables. I mean here to speak only 
 of the republican constitution of Brumaire. 1 consider that 
 alone in my reflections, and I sei aside the senatus consultes 
 soi disant organic which succeeded it. Everything which 
 regards the constitutive laws of ttje empire is foreign to my 
 examination, because it was but a glorious dictatorship, for 
 ever immortalized by the heroism of our armies, and by the 
 
 universal concord But it was not, nor could it be the 
 
 definitive code of a free nation. I take then only for the 
 scope of my investigations, in these memoirs, the charters 
 of the constituent assembly of the directory, the consulate, 
 and 1830. 
 
 The charter of the directory having given us only privi- 
 leged electors, the councils could only represent the propri- 
 etors who had named them. It is less surprising then, that 
 after that the mass of the nation should find itself in opposi- 
 tion to this imperfect representation, the audacity of which 
 increased every day. It drove the government to the last 
 extremity. It had already taken from it, with the direction 
 of the treasury, every pecuniary resource; and there re- 
 mained only to organize the national guard of Paris, as 
 planned by Pichegru, to assure the fall of the directory. 
 
 Ought the armies of the republic thus to have suffered the 
 counter revolution to reap the fruits of a hundred victories 1 
 
 We had now arrived at a political crisis which left us only 
 the choice between illegality and the counter revolution. 
 The illegality of the 18lh Fructidor saved the country. 
 Hoche had caused several bodies of troops to approach 
 Paris. Napoleon had thought it ^sufficient to send Ange- 
 reau with the menacing addresse's of the army of Italy. 
 The national representation was violated by 2 coup d'etat, 
 and nearly the whole of the nation applauded the proscrip- 
 tion of two hundred of its deputies. The majority of the 
 directory, Hocbe and Bonaparte united to the legislative 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Tuinority, accomplished a melancholy duty, but the absolute 
 duty of a citizen, in not respecting the inviolability of the 
 majority of the councils, because the inviolability of a chief 
 or of an assembly does not require them to betray with im- 
 punity the object of their political mandate. Instituted to 
 maintain a republic, tlie councils in seeking- to destroy it 
 ceased to be inviolable. Insurrection, or a coup d'etat, is a 
 natural right in such a crisis. It is the double right of pub- 
 lic welfare and individual defence. Pichegru, recognised as 
 a traitor to his country, and conspiring with foreigners, had 
 seduced or corrupted the majority of a legislative chamber: 
 that chamber attacked the republic which it was charged to 
 defend. And from that time the coup d'etat and insurrection 
 were right, just, legitimate, necessary. Sad necessity, with- 
 out doubt the most melancholy of all political necessities, 
 but a necessity justified by right and duty. . . . It is giving a 
 senseless extension to the inviolability of an assembly not 
 constituent., but constituted, that vve may condemn the 18th 
 Fructidor. They approve (even of principle) when it is con- 
 sidered that inviolability has for its limits the order imposed 
 upon all legislative assemblies. Thus the nation and the 
 army celebrated the 18th Fructidor as a day of triumph. 
 The hopes of Austria were baffled ; and the peace, which 
 was suspended by the plots of the royalists, was signed at 
 Campo Formio. Unfortunately, the coup d'etat of Fructidor 
 was not submitted, as it ought to have been, to the vote of 
 the nation. Still more unfortunately, the severity which re- 
 called the days of terror dishonoured Fructidor. And an 
 atrocious banishment condemned the vanquished to live and 
 die in the deserts of Sinamari ! 
 
 Napoleon, conqueror and pacificator, arrived in Paris at 
 the end of that year. The directory gave him, at the Lux- 
 embourg, a triumphant reception, of which all our historians 
 have repeated the details. Fhe public mind was so much 
 exalted, that the government could not avoid feeUng some 
 inquietude and ih-concealed mistrust. What Frenchman 
 remain calm in reading, upon a great banner which was pre- 
 sented in that solemnity to the army of Italy, that inscrip- 
 tion without a rival in history, either ancient or mode-n? 
 
 " The army of Italy has made a hundred and fifty thousand 
 prisoners — has taken a hundred and seventy colours, five 
 hundred and fifty pieces of siege artillery, six hundred field 
 pieces, five bridge equipages, nine vessels, twelve frigates, 
 twelve sloops, eighteen galleys — armistice with the Kings 
 of Sardinia, of Naples, the pope, the Dukes of Parma and 
 Modena — preliminaries of Leoben — convention of Monte- 
 bello with the republic of Genoa — treaties of peace of To- 
 lentino, and Campo Formio — liberty given to the people of 
 Bologna, of Ferrara, of Modena, of Massa — Carrara, of Ro- 
 magna, of Lombardy, of Bresica, of Bergamo, of Mantua, of 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 41 
 
 upon the Adige that he must establish himself to face the 
 Austrians. As for the princes that were in his rear, he con- 
 tents himself by holding them in check with negotiations 
 and menaces. A second army is sent against him nnder 
 Wurniser. He could only defeat it by rapidly concentrating 
 his own forces, and sinking alternately each of those iso- 
 lated masses. As a resolute man, he sacrifices the blockade 
 of Mantua, overwhelms VVurmser at Lonato, at Castiglioiie, 
 and drives him again into the Tyrol. Wurmser is reinforced 
 at Beaulieu. Bonaparte was beforehand with him in the 
 Tyrol, remounts the Adige, overturns all before hitn at Rove- 
 redo, throws himself across the valley of the Brenta, cuts off 
 "Wurmser, who thought of cutting him off, overthrows him 
 at Bassano, and shuts him up in JMantua. This is the second 
 Austrian army destroyed afier being reinforced. 
 
 " Conaparte, always negotiating, menacing from the banks 
 of the Adige, awaits the third army. It is formidable. It 
 arrives before he has received a reinforcement. He is 
 obliged to give way before it: he is reduced to despair. He 
 is about to fall before it when he finds, in the middle of an 
 impracticable marsh, two dikes that opened on the flanks 
 of the enemy. He throws himself into the[n with an incred- 
 ible audacity. He conquers again at Areola. But the ene- 
 my, though stopped, is not destroyed. He returns a last 
 time, and more powerful than the first. On one side he de- 
 scends the mountains ; on the other, he coasts along the side 
 of the lower Adige. Bonaparte there discovers the only 
 point where the Austrian columns, scattered over a moun- 
 tainous country, might reunite. He springs upon the cele- 
 brated platform of Rivoli ; and from that platform falls like 
 a thunderbolt upon the principal army of Alvinzy : thence 
 resuming his flight towards the lower Adige, entirely sur- 
 rounds the column that had crossed it. This is his last opera- 
 tion and. the finest, for here good fortune united with genius. 
 Thus, in ten months, besides the Piedmontese army, three 
 formidable armies, three times reinforced, had been destroyed 
 by an army which was little more than thirty thousand strong 
 at the beginning- of the campaign, had scarcely received 
 twenty to repair its losses. Thus, fifty-five thousand French- 
 men had beaten more than two hundred thousand Austrians, 
 had taken above eighi'y thousand, slain or wounded more 
 than twenty thousand — had engaged in twelve pitched bat- 
 tles, and more than sixty others, passing several rivers, in 
 braving the floods and the fire of the enemy. When war is 
 a purely mechanical routine, consisting only in driving or 
 kiUing the enemy that is before us, it is little worthy of his- 
 tory. But when one of those encounters presents itself, 
 where we behold a mass of men, actuated by one sole and 
 vast thought, which develops itself in the midst of bursting 
 thunder, with as much clearness as a Newton or a Descartes 
 
 D2 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 in the silence of the closet, then the spectacle is worthy of 
 the philosopher, as well as the statesman and the soldier. 
 If this identification of the multitude, with one single indi- 
 vidual, which produces strength in its highest degree, helps 
 to protect and defend a noble cause, that of liberty — then 
 the scene becomes equally moral and grand." 
 
 I could not resist the desire I felt to transcribe this page 
 of M. Thiers, (in his History of the Revolution,) a most ad- 
 mirable strain of truth and eloquence. What can be better 
 said ? I trust that the reader will pardon me this long quo- 
 tation, worthy of the minister who will, without doubt, con- 
 tribute to the return of his ashes from St. Helena. . . . 
 Sir Walter ! Sir Walter ! this is the way to write history ! 
 When we do not know how to free ourselves from the miser- 
 able spirit of localities and parties, we should not pretend to 
 judge of real heroes. 
 
 The armies of the North, commanded by Hoche, Moreaii, 
 and Jourdan, rivalled in patriotism and ardour the army of 
 Napoleon. So great a success, which guarantied the exter- 
 nal peace, could not remain without influence in the interior. 
 Could they suffer to be prepared, with sang froid, the fall of 
 the republic 1 Was it for our enemies that the armies had 
 triumphed 1 It was in vain that the directory had at first 
 repressed, with a firm hand, the Jacobin conspiracy of Ba- 
 beuf, and the royalist conspiracy of Brothier. The embar- 
 rassment of the finances, still overburdened by assignats 
 and territorial mandates of no value, incessantly presented 
 fresh obstacles. The Jacobins did not dare to complain after 
 our victories; and, above all, after the establishment of the 
 republics in Italy. The national glory which, even in the in- 
 auspicious days of their blood-stained errors, never ceased 
 to cause those ardent hearts to palpitate, had momentarily 
 suspended their opposition. But these victories, these new 
 republics only exasperated the foreign factions ; which ably 
 profited by the embarrassment of the finances, and to so great 
 a degree that the directory, although victorious externally, 
 was upon the brink of its fall. The terrible lesson of Vende- 
 miaire appeared to be forgotten by the royalists of Paris ; 
 and Austria, well informed of their plots, had found sufficient 
 courage to retard the signature of peace. 
 
 How had the royalists arrived at such a result? They 
 had become the masters of the elections ; and it was at the 
 head of the legislative councils themselves that they were 
 marching to the counter revolution. They hoped to do it 
 legally. Pichegru, who had for a longtime been a traitor to 
 the republic, was in correspondence with the Prince de Con- 
 de and the Austrians. At the renewal of the second Tiers 
 Etat he had been named to the council of five hundred. El- 
 evated to the presidency of that council, he was certain of 
 the support of the majority, becau=ie the electoral body was 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 45 
 
 Cremona ; of a part of the Veronese, of Chiavenna, of Bor- 
 niio and the Valtelline ; to the people of Genoa, to the im- 
 perial fiefs, to the people of the departments of Corey ra, to 
 the ^gean sea and Iihaca. Sent to Paris the chief d'ceuvres 
 of Michael Angelo — of Guerchino, of Titian, or Paul Vero- 
 nese, of Correggio, of Albano, of the Carraccis, of Raphael, of 
 Leonardo da Vitici, &c. Triumphed in eighteen pitched 
 bailies — Montenotte, Millesimo, Mondovi, Lodi, Borghetto, 
 Donaio, Castiglione, Roveredo, Bassano, St. Georges, Fon- 
 tanassova, Caldiero, Areola, Rivuli, La Favorite, Le Taglia- 
 mento, Tarwis, and Neumarkt — engaged in sixty-seven bat- 
 tles." 
 
 The peace of Campo Formio had thus acknowledged in 
 Italy the Cisalpine republic, of which the finest province of 
 the Holy See formed a part. The republican spirit in Ro- 
 mania, and the papal legations, soon communicated itself to 
 the rest of the Roman states. Joseph Bonaparte, ambassa- 
 dor at Rome, employed his influence to maintain the public 
 peace, and followed with address and firmness, the pacific 
 instructions of the directory. But nothing could stop the 
 republicans of Rome, and the insurrection broke out with- 
 out combination or support. The insurgents, repulsed by 
 the troops of the Holy See, and by a furious multitude, took 
 refuge in the palace of the ambassadors, where they pursued 
 them, without respect for the diplomatic jurisdiction. My 
 brother sprang forward to endeavour to put a stop to the 
 confusion. . . . And the brave General Duphot, who 
 was at his side, was struck with a mortal blow. The am- 
 bassador quitted Rome, and hastened to Paris. We had at 
 the same time nominated him in Corsica, member of the 
 council of five hundred. The General Berthier received or- 
 ders to invade Rome, which was constituted a republic, and, 
 like Milan, Amsterdam, and Switzerland, wished to imitate 
 the directorial constitutioa. That political imitation was 
 the natural result of events. Napoleon had been desirous of 
 introducing some changes in the Italian constitutions. He 
 had proposed to give more strengui to the Cisalpine govern- 
 ment, by reducing the five to three directors ; but that prop- 
 osition had displeased the French government, who insisted 
 upon the geneial's abandoning his project of concentration. 
 The general obeyed with regret. He had also in vain de- 
 manded that Sieyes might be sent to him, that he might aid 
 him in his constitutional improvements. He thought that 
 these essays of legislation, applied to the republics of Italy, 
 might hereafter be applied to France, when experience had 
 proved their advantages ; and as soon as he could manifest 
 his opinion without fading in his duty, he did it openly. Ge- 
 noa had not been conquered like the Cisalpine : mistress to 
 give herself the laws that she preferred, the councils which 
 she asked of Napoleon, were a pledge of confidence which 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 left him entirely at liberty. Also, without the intervention 
 of the directory, and notwithstanding the contrary order ex- 
 ecuted at Milan, Nopoleon decided at Genoa, the establish- 
 ment of three magistrates instead of five. There arose 
 against him very unjust complaints. The general had given 
 his advice and obeyed a contrary order. An individual, con- 
 sulted by a free people, might, and ought to have given that 
 council which appeared to him to be the best. Napoleon, 
 after the 18th Brumaire, in speaking to me of the three con- 
 suls and their relative powers, recalled to his memory the 
 laws he had given at Genoa. 
 
 " The directory," said he, " instead of complaining of my 
 conduct, ought to have profited by it: my opinion and my 
 example proved my sincere desire to serve them. It was in 
 vain that 1 showed them the route that they should have 
 followed. By concentrating, they might have maintained 
 themselves. At that period three magistrates, equal in power, 
 were probably capable of governing well ; but now, after all 
 our reverses, that concentration is no longer sufficient. Of 
 the three consuls to be established, one alone ought to have 
 the power, or we shall have nothing permanent." 
 
 In recalling this anecdote of Brumaire, 1 do not in the least 
 mean to prejudice a question that we are to discuss hereafter. 
 I cited it here only to show that Napoleon before his depar- 
 ture desired the consolidation of the directory, and that it 
 did not depend upon him that the government did not fortify 
 itself after the example of the Italian republics. 
 
 Upon his return to Paris, Napoleon, brought into contact 
 with the executive power of five persons, tossed amid the 
 factions, and swung from one side to the other, became dis- 
 gusted. I never knew of the project, which several writers 
 have attributed to my brother, of entering the directory on 
 having a dispensation of improper age granted to him; it 
 might have been mentioned to him, but he never attached 
 any importance to it. Far from wishing to become a part of 
 the directory, he thought it his duty to withdraw from it. 
 The East, that country of great renown, charmed his imag- 
 ination; he projected, obtained, and prepared the expedition 
 to Egypt. He wished me to accompany him ; but the elec- 
 tions of the year 6 approached, and I preferred being a can- 
 didate for the deputation. The expedition to Egypt sailed 
 from Toulon. That mysterious expedition revealed itself by 
 the taking of Malta, while I traversed France in order to take 
 my seat at the council of five hundred, to which 1 had been 
 unanimously named. 1 was struck, during my journey, at the 
 diversity of opinions among public men, upon the departure 
 of Napoleon. Some, already seduced by the news from 
 Malta, were in ecstasies at his departure, and presaged such 
 successes, that should even efface the prodigies of Italy. 
 Others accused the directory of perfidy. " The lawyers said 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 47 
 
 they wanted to get rid of a hero, who had suffered himself to 
 be duped by them" But the greatest number appeared to 
 me to disapprove of the absence of the general, and of so fine 
 an army. I strongly partook of that last opinion, which the 
 change in our military affairs soon rendered universal. But 
 't was to the government, far more than to the general, that 
 those reproaches ought to have been addressed. I vvill not 
 deny that an immense ambition of glory, the most noble of 
 all egotism, had not greatly influenced the determination of 
 Napoleon. A victorious career, upon the traces of Alexander 
 and Caesar, must have inspired his soul ; that brilliant per- 
 sonal future might even have dazzled him, and overcome the 
 present interest of his country — but he did not leave France 
 without renowned generals ; and he took with him only thirty 
 thousand men. It would have been, on his part, too great an 
 excess of vanity, to have supposed that his presence was 
 indispensable for the public security. The political horizon 
 presented at that moment but very feeble presages of a new 
 tempest. England alone was in arms against us; and Egypt 
 was the point where England was the most vulnerable — 
 Egypt, the advanced post of war and commerce towards In- 
 dia — post of watchfulness towards the Bosphorus. A con- 
 queror was very justifiable in shutting his eyes upon every 
 other consideration to spring towards that Egypt, the pos- 
 session of which assured to France — promised the abasement, 
 more distant but certain, of London and St. Petersburg. 
 And what weight should we not, in fact, place in the political 
 balance, if Egypt could have remained ours, if one of our old 
 marshals was now in the place of the great viceroy ; if the 
 valiant Clauzel, instead of triumphing over the Arabs of Atlas, 
 was encamped with his army upon the banks of the Nile, 
 already become one of our rivers? . . . For so great a result, 
 all our sacrifices, and perhaps even the disasters of Aboukir, 
 would not have been too dearly bought. 
 
 But that dazzling perspective, so natural, so noble, so heroic 
 for Napoleon, to whom repose was a burden, completely 
 changed its aspect, when taken in a point of view with re- 
 spect to the government. The duty of the directory was to 
 devote itself to the certain, and cooly calculated, present 
 interest of the republic. It was a part of its responsibility 
 to moderate the ardour of our heroes, and to direct instead 
 of following them with the enthusiasm of the battle field, or 
 with the weakne;-G of an uneasy and subdued magistracy. 
 For the chiefs of a republic, weakness or enthusiasm are 
 equally criminal— the slumber or intoxication of a pilot 
 places the ship equally in danger. The directory had studied 
 that great question under every aspect. Several of its mem- 
 bers had at first opposed it ; they had felt that after the 
 peace of Campo Formio, the events at Rome and in Swit- 
 zerland had offered pretexts sufficiently plausible for the ill 
 
48 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 humour of Austria. They thought and said with reason, 
 that the projected expedition would draw upon us a war with 
 Turkey, and that in giving us a new enemy, we should awa- 
 ken the ancient : that it secured the English ascendency at 
 Constantinople. And thus, in raising these perils, it threw 
 far distant from the land of France, the first of our generals, 
 and thirty thousand chosen men, and delivered over our 
 marine to perilous chances. All these considerations were 
 developed and patriotically sustained by the director La Re- 
 veillere. ... And as they did not produce any effect, the gov- 
 ernment was left without excuse. But the assertions of M. 
 de Montgaillard, and of those who have followed him, are 
 contrary to truth, when they attribute the project of the ex- 
 pedition to Egypt, to the desire of removing, at any price, 
 the victorious general. Far different is the jealousy and in- 
 quietude which one, subordinate to them yet so powerful, 
 could excite from the criminal resolution of depriving the 
 country of thirty thousand warriors to rid themselves of a 
 rival. On the contrary, they only yielded to Napoleon. 
 The fault of the government was weakness ; and that fault 
 was sufficiently weighty for the chiefs of a republic, with- 
 out attributing to them an imaginary plot. Since the coup 
 d'etat of 18th Fructidor, the directory had gained strength at 
 the expense of the legislative body ; but soon that strength 
 began to decay. The expedition to Egypt appeared to have 
 marked the end of its bright days. Scarcely arrived in the 
 chamber of representatives, 1 assisted only at the fall of the 
 directory. Here begins my legislative functions, and I must 
 pass lightly over acts in which I concurred. 1 fear that my 
 opinions, my votes, and my discourses, may not always be 
 worthy to fix the attention of my readers — but I must give 
 them, such as they were. I cannot pass them over in si- 
 lence, since I write the memoirs of my public life. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 49 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DIRECTORY TILL THE REVOLUTION OF BRUMAIRE. 
 
 ' Get esprit d'imprudence et d'erreur, 
 De la chute des Rois I'uneste avant-coureur." — Racine. 
 
 The Powers — The Allied Republics — The Armies — The Interior. 
 
 Upon my entry into the council I was welcomed with a 
 favour entirely due to the enthusiasm which they felt for 
 Napoleon. Joseph, our eldest brother, admitted since the 
 preceding election, possessed the esteem and friendship of 
 his colleagues. They endeavoured to raise some doubts 
 upon my election; but the assembly, supreme judge without 
 appeal, pronounced it to be valid. 
 
 I passed the first months without taking a decided part 
 in the council. Animated by a sincere republicanism, I 
 thought to keep my individual independence among the dif- 
 ferent parties, not daring to approach that formidable tribune, 
 however much I might have desired it. I listened atten- 
 tively, and I prided myself upon voting for them by turns, 
 one after the other, with the directorials, or with the oppo- 
 sition, according as they appeared to me to be right. There 
 were no longer any royalists in the chambers on the ISth 
 Fructidor ; they had been so completely overwhelmed, that, 
 during eighteen months, they had not regained courage. 
 The directorial party appeared to me at that time to be the 
 most reasonable. Why not aid the government at the mo- 
 ment, above all, when the nullity of the congress of Rastadt 
 made them fear the renewal of hostilities T 
 
 The establishment of our armies by the departure of Na- 
 poleon, was another motive for us not to weaken ourselves 
 still more by discord. The majority of the legislators saw 
 how much union was necessary, and, though they con- 
 demned the conduct of the executive power, they lent it 
 their assistance. The opposition was composed of the Ja- 
 cobin party, and of the personal enemies of the directors. 
 These last called themselves the only constitutionalists, 
 with as little reason as the Jacobins called themselves the 
 only patriots. Before we enter further upon this subject, 
 we will declare that this name of Jacobins, wiiich was given 
 to the most violent portion of the opposition, no longer sig- 
 
 E 
 
60 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 nified, as it had done formerly, men of disorder and blood. 
 The illustrious General Jourdan was among the number, and 
 all idea of crime must be effaced when we speak of the Ja- 
 cobins of that epoch. They abhorred the scaffolds of 1793 
 as much as we did ; but they were always faithful to the 
 conventional doctrines. They reproached the government 
 for not having sufficiently profited by the victory of Fructi- 
 dor : they saw no remedy for all the evils but in the omnip- 
 otence of their party, and in the usual measures of the pro- 
 paganda, the conscription, forced loans, political clubs, and 
 terror. The soi-disant constitutionalists found, on the con- 
 trary, the directorial system sufficient, and condemned only 
 the directors, of whom they thought they had reason to 
 complain, either right or wrong. A change of persons ap- 
 peared to them a remedy for their present situation ; and 
 among them was pronounced, with regret, the name of 
 Sieyes, whose embassy to Berlin was considered as an hon- 
 ourable exile. That illustrious name, as M. Thiers very 
 justly observes, was at that time the second in the republic. 
 
 That historian is less true, when, in speaking of me, he 
 says, " Lucien had ranged himself in the constitutional op- 
 position, not that he had any subject of personal discontent, 
 but he imitated his brother, and assumed the part of censor 
 of the government. It was the attitude best suited for a 
 family desirous of forming a party of their own." 
 
 That conjecture is an error. Not only I had no reason 
 to complain of the directory, but the connexions of my 
 brothers with Barras, to whom I owed my deliverance from 
 the prisons of Aix, had drawn me to the Luxembourg, 
 where I was very well received. I had every reason to 
 praise Barras, Rewbell, La Reveillere, Merlin, and Freil- 
 hard. I did not, therefore, seek to set myself up as censor. 
 I did not enter into any systematic opposition. My first 
 votes were most frequently favourable to the government ; 
 and no personal consideration influenced my conduct. 
 
 But, in a few months after my admission to the council, 
 it was no longer possible to support the directory ; not only 
 fortune was adverse to it, but its inconsistency, its weak- 
 ness, its incapacity, no longer admitted of excuse. The in- 
 dulgence with which M. Thiers judges the directors, may 
 be applied to their intentions, but not in any way to their 
 condi'ct. After having deprived themselves of their great- 
 est strength, they provoked, by their mad audacity, the war 
 which at least they ought to have retarded until our prepar- 
 ations were completed. They had united Geneva and Mul- 
 hausen to France. They had a second time revolutionized 
 Holland. They troubled Switzerland, for fear, without 
 doubt, of keeping a single ally for France. In one word, 
 that unfortunate government appeared struck with a vertigo. 
 To complete their imprudence, they endeavoured to disor- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 51 
 
 ganize the Cisalpine republic, the principal work of Napole- 
 on in Italy. It was then only that my brother Joseph and 
 myself declared for the opposition, being persuaded that the 
 executive power, composed as it was at that time, left no 
 hope to the republic. 
 
 It was in the beginning of Fructidor, three months after 
 my entering into the legislative body, that I for the first 
 time attacked the government upon the subject of the Cis- 
 alpine repubhc. During those first three months, I had only 
 appeared at the tribune to combat the forced observance of 
 the Decadis ;(4) to disapprove of the re-enactment of the 
 tax Upon salt ;(5) and to make two reports : the first rela- 
 tive to the pensions due to the widows and children of the 
 defenders of the country. (6) And the second upon the di- 
 lapidations. (7) In this last report only can be found the tone 
 of an opposition, which was beginning to become violent. 
 Without stopping at these objects of little importance, it 
 will be sufficient to insert in the Notes the discourses which 
 refer to them. But I do not think that in future I ought to 
 content myself with so rapid an analysis as that which I 
 have hitherto employed. It may have sufficed for that 
 which I did not see myself; but with respect to the affairs 
 in which I have taken a part, I shall prefer giving a monthly 
 summary of my proceedings, to which I will add my obser- 
 vations. I was elected secretary of the coujicil. 
 
 Month of Fructidor, year 6. Fro7)i the ISth of August to the 
 
 \lth of September, 1798. 
 
 Complaints of Switzerland and Italy— My motion of order for the Cisal- 
 pine Republic— Reflections upon' that motion — A Constitution once 
 violated no longer exists in principle— Political oaths— False applica- 
 tion of the word Aristocrat — The powers. 
 
 The treaty of Campo Formio had stipulated that there 
 should not be any changes made in Italy but with general 
 consent. Had we faithfully kept to that condition? . . . 
 Since that treaty we had entered Turin, of which we oc- 
 cupied the fortress. The king, our ally, had retired to Sar- 
 dinia; he had only the shadow of authority left to him upon 
 the continent. Our republican principles had raised the 
 whole of Piedmont; if we had not excited them, we had at 
 least profited by them, without the concurrence of Austria. 
 That power had, therefore, a just cause of complaint. At 
 all times the invasion of a kingdom is a legitimate motive 
 for the renewal of a war. If history is not impartial, it is 
 no longer any thing but a source of error. We certainly 
 were not to oppose a neighbouring people imitating our ex- 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ample, but the introduction of our troops into their fortress- 
 es was committing a decided act of hostility against Aus- 
 tria ; and it was with an ill grace that we afterward com- 
 plained of the obstacles thrown in the way of the negotia- 
 tions of Rastadt. Neither did the taking possession of Mul- 
 hausen afford any proofs in favour of our moderation. The 
 directory had recently united them to France ! — As for the 
 Roman government, it could not justify its culpable indo- 
 lence in the fanatical insurrection which cost the life of the 
 brave General Duphot, and in which the life of the intrepid 
 ambassador (Joseph Bonaparte) had been menaced, and his 
 residence basely violated ; we were justly entitled to a sig- 
 nal vengeance. . . . But was there absolutely no other 
 reparation possible than the overthrow of the temporal au- 
 thority of the pope 1 That temporal authority is useful, 
 necessary, indispensable, for the independent exercise of 
 the spiritual authority of the see of Rome over all the Cath- 
 olics in the universe. The immense majority of the French 
 people professing the Roman Cathohc religion, could not 
 fail lamenting, from the bottom of their hearts, the desola- 
 tion of the Holy See. Still greater reason had Austria to 
 resent, as a Catholic and neighbouring power, the new in- 
 fraction of the treaty of Campo Formio. The kingdom of 
 Naples had never dissembled its hatred against France ; but 
 the establishment of the Roman republic furnished it with a 
 plausible pretext. Thus Naples and Austria were provoked 
 by the changes that had been made in Italy. 
 
 Russia, discontented, threatened ; Paul I. had taken the 
 order of Malta under his protection ; and we did nothing to 
 retard or ward off the attacks of this new enemy. The di- 
 rectory kept the citizen Talleyrand at Paris, instead of 
 sending him to Constantinople, according to the promise 
 made to my brother. If the mission of that skilful diploma- 
 tist had only succeeded in retarding for some weeks the 
 hostilities of the Porte, the result would have been im- 
 portant ; but directly upon the departure of the fleet, the di- 
 rectory had forgotten its promise. 
 
 England was fully sensible of all the evils that the 
 French expedition might cause. The newspapers were 
 filled with alarming conjectures. Was it towards Egypt, or 
 towards India, that our army was directed 1 In all cases it 
 threatened the British interest with the greatest dangers. 
 About the same time, fifteen hundred of our brave fellows, 
 under General Humbert, had landed in Ireland, where the 
 discontented population hastened to join our standard. 
 What motives for our great enemies to redouble their ef- 
 forts, and to endeavour to renew a coalition with the kings 
 of the continent! To attack us was to defend itself. Noth- 
 ing, therefore, was neglected. Every day they approached 
 towards their object at St. Petersburgh and Vienna. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 6'3 
 
 Berlin alone still resisted. The illustrious Sieyes had ac- 
 cepted that embassy, where his influence fortunately bal- 
 anced the solicitations of the Count de Cobentsell and the 
 Prince Repnin. Sieyes absents himself willingly from Par- 
 is ; he had never approved of the constitution of the year 
 3, which appeared to him to be insufficient. His foresight 
 had preceded, by two years, the opinion of everybody. 
 He had refused to enter the directory ; and ahnost universal 
 regrets had followed him to Berlin, the only capital in 
 which, since his presence there, our directory had tri- 
 umphed. 
 
 Such was the state of the powers. If the strange politics 
 of our government did nothing to quiet our enemies, it had 
 in requital turned with impetuosity against our own allies. 
 A rage for directorial propagandisni had laken possession of 
 our chiefs. They wanted to reduce every thing to their 
 own resemblance : their commissaries, their acts of author- 
 ity, their ambassadors, carried trouble into the neighbour- 
 ing republics, which, scarcely born, were certainly not in 
 want of those interior convulsions. 
 
 THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 The nearest to us, the Helvetic republic, was so much 
 exasperated, that her minister plenipotentiary, Zeltner, ad- 
 dressed to the directory the following note, a piece remark- 
 able for its bitter censure, very slightly covered with some 
 diplomatic compliments. That note, an act of real accusa- 
 tion against the French directory, after having enumerated 
 the injuries of Switzerland, ended thus: — 
 
 " The consequences are much to be dreaded of a con- 
 duct so revolting towards a people who never suffer them- 
 selves to be diverted by pleasures, nor intimidated by force, 
 and who are only to be gained by kindness. It is very im- 
 politic, instead of endeavouring to become better acquainted 
 with the character of the people, the maintaining towards 
 them the same conduct as if they possessed the happy light- 
 ness with vv'hich the French adopt novelties, or the apathy of 
 the Batavians, or the docile pliability of the Italians. These 
 irritable and courageous people are zealously attached to 
 their religion, their pure democracy, and ancient morals. 
 Whatever bears the stamp of infidehty or oppression, fills 
 them with bitterness and indignation. When there is no 
 longer any thing to be lost, when animated by despair, 
 they become capable of every excess, and Helvetia may 
 become the theatre of scenes more horrible than those of 
 La Vendee. 
 
 " The undersigned shudders while holding this language, 
 but it is that which it is his duty to hold. Not to make 
 known to the French directory the whole undisguised truth, 
 
 E 3 
 
64 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 would be a crime. Already have the Orisons retreated 
 from us at the news of the deplorable state in which Swit- 
 zerland finds itself. They prefer the yoke, which once in- 
 spired them only with horror. The fetters of the Tyrol are 
 forged anew. Suabia, ready to embrace a system of liber- 
 ty, repels it far from her. Those who, not long since, had 
 sworn to propagate, now swear to oppose it with all their 
 strength ; and the neighbours of Helvetia reject with af- 
 fright fruits which to them appear to be poisoned. 
 
 " The real republicans of Helvetia will be the first vic- 
 tims of so great a disorder. The towns, the only support- 
 ers, the only asylums of the new order of things, will be 
 delivered over to the fury of the country-people, who 
 accuse them of being the cause of their misfortunes in 
 giving the first impulse to the revolution. It is upon them 
 that will fall the first excesses of their blind rage. All Eu- 
 rope will resound with their fatal prognostics. 
 
 " The English think they have escaped from the anger of 
 the great nation, because she permits useful neighbours to 
 destroy one another, and precious advantages to pass into 
 the hands of her enemies. For the localities, history, every 
 thing proves the importance of such a neighbourhood; 
 every thing excites the enemies of the French nation to at- 
 tach themselves to a brave and estimable people, who now 
 inspire, and must for ever inspire, a universal interest. 
 
 " Citizen directors, you who decide with as much felicity 
 as glory the fate of nations, calm, v/hile there is yet time — 
 calm the intestine tumult of the Swiss people. You have 
 the power. The memory of the past, actual suff'erings, all 
 concur to agitate them. Let then your wisdom obviate the 
 extreme misfortunes which may become inevitable. Fulfil 
 the wishes of the Helvetian people, in the name of humani- 
 ty, of liberty, and equality, presented to you by their or- 
 gan, the undersigned. Thenceforth the remembrance of 
 your bounties will constantly be as dear to them, as they 
 M^ill glory in forming a strict indissoluble alliance with the 
 first people upon the earth. 
 
 " To that eff'ect the minister plenipotentiary of the Helve- 
 tian republic demands : — 
 
 " 1st. That funds of all descriptions which have been se- 
 questrated, or that have been carried away from the Helve- 
 tian nation, shall be remitted to the new government, in 
 order that it may be in a state to meet the expenses of the 
 revolution ; of organizing an armed force, that will render 
 the Helvetian republic worthy of an alliance with tbe 
 French repubhc, to pay for objects of pecuniary necessity 
 which France can furnish to Switzerland, such as grain, 
 salt, &c. 
 
 " 2d. Tliat divers parts of Helvetia, charged with contri- 
 butions, shall be exempted. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 55 
 
 " 3d. That the artillery, the arms, the magazines, and in 
 general all the effects taken from the Helvetian nation, 
 shall be returned into the hands of the constitutional gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 " 4th. That the number of French troops in Switzerland, 
 the cavalry above all, shall be reduced to what is absolutely 
 necessary, and that those troops shall go av/ay entirely as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 " 5th. That the constitutional government of the Helve- 
 tian republic shall be favoured by every possible means in 
 the exercise of her authority, and for that end it must be 
 ordained : — 
 
 " That the agents of the French republic in Helvetia 
 shall come to an understanding with the directory of that 
 power, upon all the objects which it concerns, acting only in 
 its name with its consent, and in observing all the respect 
 which is due to it. 
 
 " That the French troops which remain in Helvetia shall 
 be only auxiliary troops ; that, far from being any impedi- 
 ment in the acts of the government, they shall assist it and 
 lend it their support, in case of necessity, every time they 
 shall be required to do so. 
 
 " That the advantages accorded to the canton of Berne, 
 relative to the maintenance of the troops, shall be extended 
 throughout Helvetia. 
 
 (Signed,) " ZELTNER." 
 
 This bold claim of the Helvetian minister was not with- 
 out some success. Mutual concessions were made about 
 the end of the month. A treaty of alliance and a treaty of 
 commerce were signed ; but the substantial complaints 
 were not silenced. The French agents continued to tyran- 
 nise over and to despoil Switzerland, who, on her side, 
 supported with impatience the yoke of her pretended lib- 
 erators. 
 
 Holland was not recovered from her interior revolution, 
 that the General Dandaels had effected in the preceding 
 month of June, thanks to the aid of the French General 
 Joubert. The Batavian directory had been attacked and 
 dissolved by the French influence. The directors, and a 
 part of its deputies, had been rendered destitute. That 
 Batavian revolution had this peculiarity, that the ambassa- 
 dor and the general of our troops acted in opposition to 
 . each other. Our allies were not edified by such a disunion, 
 which might have prolonged the struggle ; but the party 
 of Dandaels and Joubert having obtained the ascendency, 
 the ambassador, Charles Lacroix, returned to Paris, where 
 his complaints were unavailing ; they served only to lessen 
 the consideration of the French directory in the eyes of the 
 opposition, Holland, after that epoch, beheld the parties 
 
56 MEMOIRS 01* 
 
 more exulting than ever : some bore upon their cockades, as 
 a rallying sign, the inscription, " 22g? Jan., 1798;" and 
 others, the words " Disarmed of the 23d of June.'''' The dis- 
 orders in Holland could not reasonably be wholly attributed 
 to the French government, but it had contributed to them 
 by its violence and unskilfulness ; and, thanks to that state 
 of discord, the Batavian republic was a greater expense 
 than benefit to us. 
 
 Genoa had also had her directorial crisis there, as in Hol- 
 land. It was the power of France which decided the vic- 
 tory between the tv/o parties ; but on this occasion our 
 minister and our general entirely agreed in opinion. The 
 citizen Belleville sent for to his house, without further for- 
 malities, a part of the Genoese legislative body, and made 
 them sign, in his office, the dismission of all tlie Genoese 
 representatives of the people, who from that day became 
 the enemies of France. 
 
 The republic of the capital existed but in name. The en- 
 tire authority was exercised by a French commission. The 
 consuls of the Roman people had scarcely any other func- 
 tions than to superintend the packing up for France, the 
 chefs d'oeuvre of the arts and sciences, to press the pay- 
 ment of the enormous tributes imposed upon the patrician 
 families to the amount of nine or ten millions, and to repeat, 
 with the ridiculous style of sovereignty, the French edicts, 
 which drove from the capital of Catholicism and the arts the 
 foreigners who had taken refuge as in a port open to all in 
 adversity. Rome, deprived of her pontiff, without foreign 
 admirers, was by her own consuls aiding to despoil herself 
 of her treasures of every sort. Was it possible that Rome 
 could entertain any sincere wishes for France ] 
 
 The most powerful of the allied republics, the Cisalpine 
 republic, will that at least be spared by the directorial pro- 
 pagande ! — Will that escape our commissaries, prodigal of 
 their despotic counsels, constitutional levellers, popilius- 
 professo's, who trace with the point of their sword the le- 
 gislative lessons, by enclosing the people in a fatal circle ? 
 .... Far from forgetting Lombardy, it was there that the 
 wisdom of the directors, finding all of a sudden that what 
 they had done with Napoleon was detestable, endeavoured 
 to defeat it. It seemed as if they felt happy in being able 
 at last to command in that Lombardy which had remained 
 closed against their caprices, so long as the reins were held 
 by a firm and skilful hand. They usurped the constituent 
 power, and confided the exercise of it to their ambassador, 
 Trouve. Trouve went to correct Napoleon ! 
 
 Scarcely had the diplomatic reformer given notice of his 
 constituent mission, ere a profound agitation manifested 
 itself. Numerous pamphlets revealed the public opinion. 
 " It is a triumvirate," said they in those pamphlets, " a tri- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 57 
 
 umvirate, citizen ambassador, that you are preparing for us. 
 After having reduced the members of the Cisalpine direct- 
 ory to three, you will, upon the pretext of economy, sup- 
 press the half of our legislative body ! — Ah, let us double 
 the expense if it is necessary ; but let us preserve that lib- 
 erty which was given to us by a hero. You want to en- 
 feeble our legislative body, to subject it to your triumvirate ! 
 — No, never ; our constitution is our wealth : we will defend 
 it. When we want to reform it, it will be for the Cisalpine 
 people to do it, and not a foreign ambassador. We shall 
 know, citizens, soldiers, legislators, and magistrates, we 
 shall all know how to defend our independence." 
 
 The Milanese government, no longer able to doubt the 
 projects of the minister Trouve, sent directly the General 
 Lahoz to Paris as ambassador extraordinary. That general 
 demanded to be presented to the directory. He wrote as 
 follows to the minister of foreign affairs : " My mission is 
 urgent ; the question is to baffle an odious conspiracy 
 against the Cisalpine constitution, and to know the opinion 
 of the French government upon a handful of factious men 
 who assemble at the ambassador Trouve's, and who take 
 upon themselves the right of making innovations among us 
 which we do not desire." 
 
 The General Lahoz requested the intervention of the two 
 brothers of the founder of the Milanese republic. We un- 
 dertook willingly, but in vain, to interest ourselves in his 
 favour. We saw all the directors : w^e spoke of the painful 
 impression that a change in the Italian constitution would 
 cause to Napoleon. One of the directors (Barras) silenced 
 us upon that point by replying, " As for your brother, if we 
 had followed his advice, the dispositions that we are about 
 to take would have made a part of the first organization. 
 Have you forgotten that the general insisted for a long time 
 that there should be only three directors at Milan ; and that 
 he only estabhshed five in consequence of our positive or- 
 ders, and much against his will ? — Well I we will return to 
 his first advice. No one has less to complain of than he 
 has." That recrimination was not very easy to repel, if 
 they neglected to take advantage that the actual moment 
 was unfavourable for those reforms rejected by thQ Italians, 
 and the inconvenience of the despotic mode employed to 
 effect those reforms. Their value in themselves was con- 
 formable with what Napoleon had done at Genoa, and what 
 he wanted to do at Milan. The reply of Barras was there- 
 fore conclusive with regard to Napoleon, and only offended 
 me still more. I replied therefore with warmth : — " If you 
 tliink ihey can overturn the directory at Milan, why may 
 they not overturn the directory at Paris V And after that 
 menace, I left the Luxembourg. It was the last time I saw 
 Barras. The complaints of our allies had resounded in the 
 
68 MEMOJRS OF 
 
 councils ; those of Italy, above all, had raised sympathies 
 which menaced the directory. Far from seeking to appease 
 them, they endeavoured to brave them. They had refused 
 to hear the demands of the General Lahoz. Not only they 
 would not grant him an audience, but they sent him an order 
 to quit Paris. The general, informed that I intended occu- 
 pying the council with his mission and his dismission, sus- 
 pended his departure for twenty- four hours. As soon as the 
 sitting was over, I demanded a hearing for a motion of or- 
 der, and pronounced the following discourse : — 
 
 " Representatives of the people, depositaries of the con- 
 stitution of the year 3 — It is to you that I address myself. 
 Fame has pubhshed that innovations are intended in the 
 constitution of a republic and ally who rejects them in vain. 
 From the shores of the Eridan to the banks of the Seine, 
 the friends of liberty are in alarm. A longer silence on our 
 part would redouble their inquietudes, and dishonour us. I 
 am come then to call your attention to those innovations, 
 prepared by men who cannot have for that purpose either 
 mission or legal character. I am come to point them out 
 to you. If tliese are precocious truths, dangerous to publish, 
 there are also bold truths that we cannot permit ourselves to 
 conceal, without forfeiting our duty as public men. 
 
 " It is sufficient, sometimes, to disclose a project to discon- 
 cert its authors. This, I trust, will be the case with men 
 who have taken upon themselves the task of reforming the 
 laws of the Cisalpine people. Those laws are ours. The 
 constitution of Milan is the French constitution of the year 
 3 ... It is the depositethat the French people have confided 
 to you, to the directory, to the administrators, to the magis- 
 trates, to the army, and to the courage of every Frenchman. 
 Here reposes our social guarantee. If we swerve from 
 that path, I no longer behold a firm ground on which we can 
 fix the basis of our republican institutions. I see only a 
 land of fire and despotism, or the quicksands of civil war. 
 " How rash are those who, in their scientific pride, with- 
 out paying attention to the lessons of experience, dare call 
 making perfect the violent triumph of their system over our 
 constitutional system ! Is the moment then arrived w^hen 
 France and the republics, the offspring of her victories, must 
 leave the tutelary asylum they had entered, after so many 
 blood-stained storms?. . . How then? We have had scarce- 
 ly time to breathe — our laws are yet in their infancy ! A 
 neighbouring state has just adopted them ! And already we 
 dream of changes for our allies who refuse them ! Treaties 
 have been signed with the Cisalpine ; they have been guar- 
 antied by you, and they have the boldness to violate them 
 before your eyes, without your concurrence ! To-day an 
 ambassador salutes the independence of a republic, and he 
 dares to-morrow to conspire against it ! . . . And French bay- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. ' 59 
 
 onets are raised to support those plots! Notwithstanding 
 the numerous communications that liave reached us, I would 
 not give credit to projects so devoid of sense ; but the cries 
 of the Cisalpine people have been heard — the spectres of 
 aristocracy and discord are awakened before us, and already 
 they raise their heads, eager for vengeance, upon the cradle 
 of the Italian republics, daughters of our victories ! 
 
 " Perhaps it is only an illusion — at the same time, if the 
 government dissipates our alarms, we shall have to congrat- 
 ulate ourselves upon having expressed them. If a culpable 
 project exists, we must attack it, we must repress it with a 
 hrm hand. Let us not forget that an attempt made against 
 the Cisalpine republic might become an essay upon ours. But 
 before such an attempt shall be made upon our social com- 
 pact, they must resolve to pass over the bodies of more than 
 one representative of the people. This compact does not 
 arrogate to any authority the exclusive right of modifying it. 
 The reform of its errors is subject to constitutional rules. 
 The council of ancients can, at Milan as well as at Paris, 
 demand a revision; but it must never be the result of for- 
 eign manoeuvres. 
 
 " A French minister resides at Milan with the executive 
 power of that republic which Austria has so reluctantly rec- 
 ognised. What right has that minister of peace to attempt 
 reforming a power to which he is accredited ] If diplomat- 
 ic agents permit themselves to overturn republics of which 
 the treaties of peace have consecrated the independence, if 
 those treaties, guarantied by the French people, and paid for 
 with the purest of its blood, are not respected by the direc- 
 tory, where then will be the limits of the directorial author- 
 ity ] That authority cannot become tyrannic with our allies, 
 but in becoming despotic at home. Let then a thousand 
 times resound beneath these roofs, the words of the address 
 that you have received : ' If five or six persons are sufficient 
 at Milan to overthrow a constitution^ it loill only require at Paris 
 a rather larger number of audacious innovators.'' Let us at the 
 same time see in what those so much vaunted innovations 
 consist, which they want to impose by force upon Italy. 
 
 " They talk very much of economy ! . . . They are going, 
 Mdthout doubt, to put a stop to the dilapidations. The con- 
 tracts will in future be made public. A system of finance, 
 discussed and completed by the deputies of the Cisalpine 
 people, is about to be estabhshed. Before this system of 
 order, the fiscal ordinances of our generals and commissaries, 
 which are the source of so many complaints and struggles, 
 will fail. . . . No, representatives of the people, there is no 
 question of these sort of measures. The economies that 
 have been contemplated are confined to the suppression of 
 two out of the five directors, and a portion of the legislative 
 body. . . . Certainly, to find so powerful a resource, there 
 
60 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 was no necessity to resort to the profound combinations of 
 a commission of finances » 
 
 " In support of that diminution of the expenses, they ad- 
 journ the legislative body for eight months in the year. They 
 give to the executive power the initiative of the laws, and 
 that is what they call perfectionating. citizens. It was by 
 such perfectionatioiis that in days of yore tlie triumvirs 
 arose. At Rome they wanted to concentrate the power. . . 
 And the proscriptors soon divided the spoils and the blood 
 of the Romans. . . And the great republic, to escape from 
 the triumvirs, was reduced to resign itself to the yoke of 
 
 Cesar History reproduces incessantly events under 
 
 different forms. 
 
 " Cromwell, like the triumvirs, wanted also to concen- 
 trate, to simphfy, and to perfect the parliamentary govern- 
 ment ; and as there is nothing more simple, less eccentric, 
 and less complicated, than the absolute power of a single 
 man, Cromwell secured the whole power to himself. But 
 Cromv/ell was English ; he did not impose his yoke in the 
 name of a foreign power. Before he employed force against 
 the parliament, he waited patiently till that assembly had 
 lost its popularity by its errors. He introduced his agents 
 into it — excited them to act in direct opposition to public 
 opinion, and reduced it to so great a degree of ignominy, 
 that, when it endeavoured to assume a parliamentary atti- 
 tude, the time M^as past. Cromwell entered the House of 
 Commons. He commanded his soldiers to overturn the 
 manikin of national representation. His soldiers obeyed. 
 .... And English liberty expired, because its parliament 
 knew not how to preserve public opinion ; and that daring 
 man knew how to appropriate to himself that forsaken in- 
 heritance. And we are silent to-day ! — We permit our 
 armies to be employed in oppressing the people who are 
 our allies Have we then too many friends in Eu- 
 rope ■? 
 
 " But have you all reflected upon the danger of calling the 
 arms and the attention of the army upon these pretended 
 perfectionings imposed upon the people against their will ? 
 Have you already forgotten, that when the republic is men- 
 aced, the French army knows how to deliberate ] No ; the 
 representative system does not want defenders. If unfor- 
 tunate and difficult circumstances have changed the invio- 
 lability of the system, that change was necessary for the 
 preservation of the republic : it must not discourage us. It 
 proves that, to save the country, there is no sacrifice impos- 
 sible for the representatives of the people, even that of their 
 lives. It proves that, if civil war is a dreadful misfortune, 
 the counter-revolution is the worst of all evils. Proclaim 
 then that the constitution of the year 3 has never ceased to 
 be the supreme will of the people ; that its revision cannot 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 61 
 
 be obtained at Milan as at Paris, but by constitutional 
 means ; and that to affect even to prepare for it by other 
 means is an outrage, and that you are determined to stop in 
 its impure course the torrent of innovations with which we 
 are threatened. The Cisalpine alone can modify their con- 
 stitution in their primary assemblies. No power upon 
 earth can usurp the right of national sovereignty. 
 
 " I demand, citizen representatives, that a message shall 
 be addressed to the directory, to obtain from them, with the 
 shortest possible delay, informations upon the reports which 
 are spread of a movement in the Cisalpine, and of an inno- 
 vation of which the French ambassador is accused. These- 
 informations will calm our fears, or at least they Avill pro- 
 voke an explanation that is become indispensable for our 
 honour, our independence, and our security." 
 
 This harangue, delivered with some degree of impetuosi- 
 ty, was received with excessive applause ; the impression 
 of six copies Vv as demanded, and every thing announced a 
 success likely to have gone far in influencing the directory. 
 The principal orators devoted to the government, aston- 
 ished at first at so unexpected an attack, recovered from 
 their surprise, but, not daring to face the discussion, they 
 preferred letting the effect which I had produced operate. 
 They resorted to an adroit tactic, and demanded the gener- 
 al committee, to which they had a right when any diplomat- 
 ic question was agitated. As I had not come to an under- 
 standing with any party, I was not supported with sufficient 
 firmness, and a general committee was granted. 
 
 While they evacuated the tribunes, the ministerialists as- 
 certained that there was no party linked eitlier with the 
 Jacobins or with the constitutionalists, and they regained 
 courage. Their disciplined phalanxes made a terrible out- 
 cry against my proposition : and 1 was left alone in the 
 breach, to punish me, without doubt, for not hfiving com 
 bjned my attack with my colleagues ; and, notwithstanding 
 my resistance, I was repulsed by the order of the day. 
 The General Lahoz, who was waiting outside the chamber 
 of the assembly, departed immediately, furious at the indif- 
 ference of the council to the complaints of the Cisalpine 
 government. 
 
 May I now be permitted to judge myself, my discourse, 
 and my conduct 1 The confession of a public man of past 
 times, may sometunes serve for us to understand better 
 the public men of the present day. 
 
 The constitution of the year 3 ! Did I idolize it to such 
 a point that I looked upon it as our palladium ] No, cer- 
 tainly not. After the conventional tempesis, in which, like 
 many others, I had placed great faith, I liked all in that 
 charter which appeared to offer a guarantee against the re- 
 turn of the reign of terror. I compared it then, with ad- 
 
 F 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 vantage, to the charter of 1791 — ^but experience had cooled 
 my ardour. When I arrived at the legislative body, I soon 
 thought hke the rest of the members of the council of an- 
 cients, and the half of those of five hundred. We saw that 
 the charter had been violated in Fructidor by the proscrip- 
 tion of two directors and a part of the legislative body; it 
 had also been violated in Floreal by decimating the na- 
 tional representation. We cannot conceal that a charter 
 violated is a charter destroyed. We felt that the state of 
 affairs, produced by those two violations, v/as but a lawless 
 act, because it had never been rendered legitimate by the 
 voting of the people. 1'hat voting not having taken place 
 either after Fructidor or after Fioreal, there no longer ex- 
 isted any legal foiin. We therefore no longer understood 
 by the constitution any thing but the principles of the 
 sovereignty of the people, of its representation, divided ii^to 
 two chambers of a collective and temporary government. 
 We were sincere in those principles, but we had no longer 
 any faith in the remainder, because we no longer believe in 
 that which has ceased to exist. A defeated organization 
 will not revive. The principle alone, the soul, can sur- 
 vive the collective or individual body when struck by disso- 
 lution. If that dissolution happens from consumption or by 
 violence, the principle will reanimate another body, more 
 or less resembling the body that is no more ; but it cannot 
 give life to that which has become the prey of time, to that 
 greedy, inflexible, insatiable power, that never lets go its 
 hold of that which it has seized. 
 
 Experience had confirmed the foresight of Sieyes, who, 
 in the year 3, had given a proof of his conviction in refusing 
 to enter the directory. After our reverses, the parties no 
 longer mutually imposed upon one another in speaking of 
 the constitution of the year 3. The Jacobins understood by 
 that the republic, and an executive power subject to the 
 omnipotence of a national assembly, alone capable, in their 
 opinion, of impeding the counter-revolution. The constitu- 
 tionalists, on the contrary, preserved their political faith in 
 the principles of a division into two chambers, and a gov- 
 ernment strong and free within its legal limits. Again, these 
 two principles, to which the sense of the word constitution 
 of the year 3 was reduced, did not shine in our eyes with a 
 pure and clear light. For my part, the division into two 
 chambers appeared to me then, as it does now, our ark of 
 salvation. But do those chambers effectively represent the 
 sovereign 1 With the electoral cause, and the eligible cause, 
 does there exist only one species of men in France ? Was 
 there a sincere representation when the greatest part of the 
 French people had not even the right of voting in their com- 
 munes ! It was natural then to desire a more perfect repre- 
 sentation. As for the executive power, provided it was elect- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 63 
 
 ive and temporary, I was not particularly desirous for the 
 number of five directors. The preference which Napoleon 
 had given at Genoa to three magistrates instead of five, 
 combated in my mind against the old idea of the triumvirs. 
 My opinion in that respect, therefore, floated undecided. 
 
 In that situation of mind, why was I so much disgusted with 
 the innovations which the French government imposed? 
 The division into two chambers v/as preserved. The direct- 
 ory remained elective and temporary. They adopted the 
 number of three, which the founder of the Cisalpine had at 
 first repulsed. There was nothing in that to create alarm, 
 either for Milan or for Paris. What sentiment then prompt- 
 ed me to enter into the most implaca,ble opposition ? My 
 vanity had been flattered by the mission of General Lahoz 
 to me, in the name of the Cisalpine people. My vanity had 
 been wounded at the little value the directors had set upon 
 my intervention. This sentiment of self-love, doubly exci- 
 ted in a contrary direction, had more influence over my 
 conduct than if I had acted from conviction. The political 
 oath ! In urging the council of five hundred to re- 
 new the oath of fidelity to the constitution of the year 3, 
 was I sincere ? Most undoubtedly. But that constitution 
 consisted at that time only of two chambers, and in an elect- 
 ive directory. I combated the reduction of the directors, 
 because the government supported it. The spirit of opposition 
 alone decided my incertitude. In proposing the oath, I 
 raised a barrier against the government. This oath ex- 
 pressed only the determination to combat the reduction of 
 five to three, and it was a serious fault on my part applying 
 that formula to defeat an object that was unworthy of it. 
 It was profaning that which was sacred. All the parties, 
 every individual in France, committed, and still commit, the 
 same fault ; but it should be imputed only to the legislation : 
 for the oath should only be applied to the principle, and not 
 to a form, any more than to a man. And as regards politi- 
 cal conscience, there are but two principles — the divine 
 right (which in its last analysis is perhaps reduced to theoc- 
 racy), and the popular right, which depends upon the suf- 
 frages of men. These two principles, which are divided in 
 the world, are alone worthy of an oath ; and it is to one or 
 the other of these three principles, that all political oaths do 
 and must in reality have reference. It is absurd, in fact, to 
 invoke Heaven to maintain a form of administration or 
 government ; for a principle admits of a thousand forms. 
 It is absurd to make oath to a man, for that man, however 
 absolute he may be, president, consul, king, or emperor, 
 commands under certain conditions, the violation of which 
 justly causes his downfall. When a government fails in the 
 performance of its own obligations, the governed no long- 
 er OAve it any duty. The oath of fidehty made to a man is 
 
64 , MEMOIRS OP 
 
 then only nonsense, since the oath to the charter might 
 exact the violation of the oath to the prince. There is then 
 a manifest contradiction between the oath to the social com- 
 pact and the oath to the magistrate, that your first oath 
 might force you to abjure. Tlie moral inviolabihty of a ma- 
 gistrate can never be absolute, which history has proved ; 
 and it caimot alter the evidence of the real contradiction be- 
 tween the two oaths, except in the question of the Arro- 
 ganese oath. ^^ If not so,'' it is not more reasonable to swear 
 fidehty to an assembly, which is only a collective magis- 
 trate; that assembly, if it was even invested with the con- 
 stituent power, has for its limits the mandate of its constit- 
 uents. Thus the oath which was nominally taken to that 
 assembly, was only taken in effect to the elective principle, 
 and to the sovereignty of the people. 
 
 It is quite natural that forms should change ; they depend 
 upon a thousand circumstances. Principles alone should 
 remain unalterable ; and they alone merit the oath of fideli- 
 ty. The powers which the sovereign can change have only 
 the rigiit of a promise of obedience, which ceases to exist 
 as soon as the magisterial power is revoked. Thus the only 
 persons who have forfeited their poHtical faith, are those 
 who have changed their principles. It is the faithful, 
 brought up in the adoration of kings almost as much as in 
 the fear of God, and wlio, from fickleness, from discontent, 
 or from ambition, pass over to the popular camp ; or popu- 
 lar men who pass over from the camp to the divine right, 
 I do not mean to say that one may not change a principle 
 with good faith ; but to be free from reproach, they should 
 consent to make a solemn abjuration, the same as when 
 they change a religion. I only mean, that notwithstanding 
 the thousand oaths that have been taken to so many differ- 
 ent charters within these fifty years, we must infinitely re- 
 duce the number of the guilty. The past generation was as 
 good as the present. The fault of this sacrilegious play 
 with oaths does not belong to individuals, but to the legis- 
 lative nonsense of lavishing oaths on forms of government, 
 instead of restricting them to two principles. That error is 
 not yet destroyed ; and, as long as it exists, there will be 
 nearly as many nominal perjuries as there are public men 
 who survive the several social organizations. Let us hope 
 that a good law may put an end to this scandal. 
 
 I return to the subject of the oath which I urged against 
 the innovations of the Cisalpine. It was only justifiable 
 under the consideration of the violation of tlie sovereignty 
 of the Italian people. Beyond that, as the orators of the 
 directory observed, the diplomatic question was alone to be 
 considered ; and even in admitting that the intervention of 
 the French government was violent, the question should 
 have been argued privately, and in a secret committee. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 65 
 
 The noise made upon the subject only increased the evil, 
 by encouraging the party, unfortunately too numerous, that 
 had arisen in Italy against our ambassador. In fact, al- 
 though the directory were in the wrong for having so awk- 
 wardly chosen the time for its innovations, it was wrong of 
 me to have accused them violently, and the council acted 
 wisely in passing to the order of the day. 
 
 The spectres of discord and aristocracy figured in my dis- 
 course. In speaking of discord, I expressed a very clear 
 idea ; and, unfortunately, I spoke only a melancholy truth. 
 But what did I then mean by aristocracy ] It was not the 
 aristocracy of the peerage, for the directory did not think of 
 again raising at Ptlilan that privileged caste. The question 
 was only a reduction among the functionaries. It was to 
 that reduction then that I gave the terrible epithet of an 
 aristocratical measure. The measure was notwithstanding 
 ill chosen ; it tended only to strengthen the cradle of the 
 Italian republic, and not to deliver it up into the hands of 
 the enemies of the aristocracy. My figure of rhetoric was 
 then but an imaginary spectre, notwithstanding it had more 
 eifect than solid reasoning. Strange power of certain words 
 in revolutions! Magic power, sometimes beneficial, too of- 
 ten fatal ! No word had a greater influence among us than 
 that of aristocrat. The anathema against aristocracy, born 
 in 1789, has not yet grown old in 183G! — It is always the 
 same word ; but to what different ideas, and often the most 
 opposite, have they not been applied ? .... In 1789, it 
 indicated the defenders of the abuses of the ancient regime, 
 the blind partisans of the reunion of all the powers in a 
 single hand ; and since that they have transferred it in turn 
 to the wisest defenders of the liberty of the new regime, 
 and to the enlightened partisans of the division and equi- 
 librium of powers. The mmisters of Louis XVI., Necker, 
 Malesherbes, and Roland, Bailly and Lafayette, the Feuil- 
 lants, the Girondins, the Moderates, in one word, all those 
 who were overthrown, received in turn that cruel epithet, 
 the preface to the scaffold. We had passed those deplora- 
 ble crises ; but the word, though it had ceased to be mortal, 
 had not ceased to be equally odious. It would have been 
 very unwise not to let fly that arrow at one's adversaries. 
 I did like the rest ; all who were meant to be held up to 
 public hatred were branded with that appellation. We bore 
 some resemblance to the good people of Lower Brittany, 
 who were so much occupied with the idea of the gabelle, 
 that they beheld it everywhere, even in the clock which 
 Madame de Sevigne received from Paris ! We must, how- 
 ever (except we prefer an absolute to a modified monarchy), 
 end by reconciling ourselves with the gabelle ! 
 
 F2 
 
Do MEMOIRS OF 
 
 III. THE ARMIES. 
 
 Our armies were not contented with the improvidence of 
 the government. They wanted generals like Brune, Mac- 
 donald, Championnet, and Joubert, to repair the faults of the 
 ministers. They would have attained, if they had arrogated 
 to themselves, as Napoleon had always done, the supreme 
 direction of the military administration. They attempted 
 it, and Championnet caused even some civil commissaries 
 to be arrested that opposed him ; but that which had suc- 
 ceeded with Napoleon, did not succeed with others. They 
 were obliged to yield to the agents of the ministers. They 
 sent them from Paris even the orders for the placing of 
 their divisions. They were obliged to divide when they 
 wished to concentrate them. The ministry, equally impe- 
 rious and incapable as the Aulic council of Vienna, knew 
 not how to do right, and prevented the chiefs of the army 
 from doing what they ought to have done. It was thus 
 they prepared for a new campaign ! 
 
 In the meantime fifteen hundred Frenchmen, conducted 
 by General Humbert, had landed in Ireland. England, in 
 alarm, despatched twenty thousand men against that handful 
 of brave soldiers. The disaffected Irish joined our standard 
 veiy slowly. The news of the descent upon Ireland was 
 hailed by all the parties with enthusiasm. 
 
 This triumph, which was destined to be short, was com- 
 pleted at the end of the month, by the ofhcial announce- 
 ment of the landing of Napoleon in Egypt. The taking of 
 Alexandria had raised the public confidence, and the council 
 declared that the army of Egypt had merited the praises of 
 the country. The glory of Napoleon reflected sufficiently 
 upon his brothers, to make me easily forget my legislative 
 (^dj^eat of the Cisalpine. That glory was like the shield of 
 tfte*-. mighty Ajax, beneath whose shelter the archers had 
 rallied — that shield high as a tower ! 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 The innovations of the Cisalpine had verj'- much increased 
 the agitation in the minds of the legislative body. I ranged 
 myself after that discussion in the constitutional opposition, 
 which had for its object a personal attack against the direc- 
 tors, at the same time that it defended the institution. We 
 did not refuse our concurrence in the measures that were 
 indispensable for the public service ; but the most bitter 
 censures paid the price of what we granted. We consented 
 to the famous law of the conscription, of which the con- 
 queror of Fleurus was the reporter ; a holy law when ap- 
 plied to an offensive war, because, by increasing indefinitely 
 
LTJCIEN BONAPARTE 67 
 
 the number of the respective armies, it might have brought 
 us to a state httle better than that of barbarians. In those 
 difficuU circumstances, every thing that the directory de- 
 manded was granted them by the opposition, except the 
 tax upon salt, which was rejected, notwithstanding tlie im- 
 portunities of the reporters of the commission of finances. 
 I took an active part in this rejection : a tax which affects 
 those w^ho possess nothing, has ever appeared odious to me, 
 and contrary to the ends of all good government. Let us 
 re-establish, as far as we can, an equilibrium in the differ- 
 ence of fortunes — diminish, as far as w^e can, the distance 
 between the rich and the poor. It Avas in vain tliat they 
 professed all those fine doctrines upon the superiority of 
 indirect taxation. Those taxes which reach him who, hav- 
 ing nothing, owes nothing to the state, are therefore unjust ; 
 and when they touch objects which are of primary necessity, 
 as salt, they are infamous. We admired the economical 
 dissertations, but we rejected the tax upon salt. 
 
 A law, which is under discussion even at this time, the law 
 upon the periodical press, traced a more decided line of de- 
 marcation between the parties. Berber was the reporter. I 
 matle a part of the commission with our president, Daunon, 
 Cabanis, the friend of Mirabeau, Genissieux, and Andrieux. 
 After the 18th Fructidor, a law had placed the newspapers for 
 one year under the inspection of the police. The end of it 
 was almost arrived. We proposed a penal law, founded 
 upon the judgment of the jury, of the public offences of the 
 press ; and upon tlie promulgation of the law, the preven- 
 tive action of the directorial police was to cease. Till then 
 all the members of the commission were agreed ; but ought 
 there to have been a fixed period assigned for the promulga- 
 tion of our law ? The majority of the commission, formed 
 by Daunon, Berber, Genissieux, and myself, decided for the 
 affirmative. We were impatient to deprive the police of its 
 dictatorship. We inserted in the second article, that the 
 dictatorship would cease at the end of three months, a time 
 fixed in which the council engaged to terminate ti;e penal 
 law. The discussion was stormy. Our colleagues, Caba- 
 nis and Andrieux, declared they had not voted that second 
 article, and demanded the suppression. The directorials 
 wanted to postpone for one year the dictatorship of the po- 
 lice. They caused our article to be rejected, and triumphed 
 again over the opposition. But our penal law assigned to 
 the jury the judgment of all the public offences of the peri- 
 odical press! Thirty-eight years have passed since that 
 sitting. . . . What progress have we made in the con- 
 stitutional guarantees ■? Has France marched forward since 
 that time 1 
 
68 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Month of Vendemiaire, yearl. From the 22d of September to 
 
 the 22d of October, 1798. 
 
 Dangers of Systematical Opposition — ^' Manet altamente repostum" 
 
 I. THE POWERS. 
 
 The end of the year 6 of the repubhc had been marked by 
 a most inauspicious event. The vague report which was 
 spread of the disaster of our fleet in the Bay of Aboukir, was 
 unfortunately confirmed in the first days of the year 7. I 
 beg leave to observe that I do not class the events in the 
 precise order of dates, but according as the news arrived to 
 us in the capital. Nelson, received in triumph in the Bay 
 of Naples, hastened the manifestation of the hostile senti- 
 ments of that court. During the time that the British hero 
 arrived from the coast of Syria, the General Mack, too soon 
 celebrated by fame, hastened from the banks of the Danube 
 to take the command of the Neapolitan army, increased be- 
 yond all proportion by precipitate measures. The future 
 exploits of Mack appeared to be indubitable at that court, 
 misled by a hatred that could not be considered without 
 motives, except in forgetting the scaifold of Marie Antoi- 
 nette ! Nothing was talked of but Mack upon the southern 
 frontiers of the Roman States. 
 
 Austria and the empire retarded, for a length of time, the 
 negotiations of Rastadt, and were far less seriously occupied 
 with protocols than with armaments. Our plenipotentiaries 
 had to combat a powerful adversary, the Comte de Metter- 
 nich. 
 
 Paul executed his menaces ; with one hand he drove his 
 fleet into the Bosphorus, struck with amazement at the as- 
 pect of the vessels of the Czar and the Sultan sailing to- 
 gether. With the other hand he precipitated fifty thousand 
 men, children of his melancholy deserts, into the fertile 
 countries of Europe. That horde, commanded by the terri- 
 ble Suwarrow, had already traversed the plains of Lithuania, 
 and touched the gates of Cracow. 
 
 The Porte, abandoned by our government to the English 
 diplomacy, saw only in our expedition the invasion of its 
 provinces ; she signed a triple alliance with London and Pe- 
 tersburgh. It cannot be dissimulated that the expedition to 
 Egypt was the cause of that triple alliance, and that it was 
 in favour also of the Russian influence at Constantinople, a 
 result that sways even now the European politics; a re- 
 sult more prejudicial, more fatal, than the triumphs of Su- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. QQ 
 
 warrow, equally owing to the absence of the generals and 
 soldiers of our great fleet. 
 
 England, reassured upon Ireland, contemplated a second 
 coalition against France. 
 
 The Piedmontese, tired of our pretended alliance, armed 
 ten thousand men whom they promised as auxiliaries, but 
 whose dispositions, like those of the population, announced 
 the most bitter enemies. Our provident and skilful Gener- 
 al Mesnard had a great deal of trouble to prevent a popular 
 insurrection against our garrison at Turin; and some solita- 
 ry murders had stained the streets of that capital. 
 
 At length the republic of the United States retired from 
 us also, to approach the nearer to our enemies. By dint 
 of unskilfulness and obstinacy, the agents of the direct- 
 ory had forced our natural allies to forget the memories of 
 Louis XVI. and Lafayette. Washington had personally ap- 
 proved of the alliance with England, in accepting of the com- 
 mand of the armies of the Union. 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 The French innovations were finished in Lombardy, with- 
 out their being able to repress the discontentment that each 
 town, each village, of that republic, expressed in the most 
 vehement yet useless addresses. Violence answered their 
 complaints. The General Lahoz was deprived of his place 
 for having dared to fulfd the mission of his government. 
 The disaffection of the people facilitated the success of the 
 old and faithful portions of the statuo quo ante bellum. 
 
 The parody that they were playing at Rome had arrived 
 at its last scene. 
 
 The military commanders gave and took away, at their 
 pleasure, the consular toga, from men so unknown that 
 they could not even become illustrious in mounting the 
 capitol ! 
 
 Holland, recovered from her last shock, began to assume 
 a calmer attitude. Seconded by our troops, she repulsed 
 the attack of the English upon Flushing. 
 
 Switzerland still resisted against our intervention, and 
 appeared always more irritated against the state of guar- 
 dianship forced upon them. These people, old republicans, 
 found no compensation possible for independence ; and the 
 diplomatic sophisms had little influence upon their good 
 sense. All the negotiations, therefore, were useless : they 
 flew to arms, and there was no alternative except to change 
 our pohtics or shed the blood of our aUies. The directory 
 did not hesitate in their choice — nothing is more flexible 
 than weakness, when it thinks itself sustained by victorious 
 bayonets. All reconcihation was neglected. Our brave 
 ^soldiers were thrown by a senseless and cruel order against 
 
70 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 a part of the good and simple Helvetians. Seas of repub- 
 lican blood were shed on both sides, as if we had any to 
 spare when upon the eve of combating against kings. The 
 District of Stanz became celebrated by a victory that was 
 a fratricide. 
 
 III. THE ARMIES. 
 
 The descent of General Humbert in Ireland was to have 
 been seconded by an expedition that sailed from Brest. 
 Our Aulic council had disposed the affair in so wise a man- 
 ner that the fifteen hundred Frenchmen who had just land- 
 ed in Ireland were not supported, and when the army of 
 Cornwallis had surrounded the valiant avant garde, which 
 was reduced to capitulate, the auxiliary squadron left Brest. 
 The Irishman, Naper Tandy, endeavoured in vain to make 
 good his landing. The arms which he brought with him 
 for ten thousand men arrived too late. For several days 
 past Humbert had been a prisoner. The insurgents of Ire- 
 land, pursued without ceasing, were beaten. The hope of 
 that powerful succour vanished like a dream. 
 
 Our armies of Italy and the North, re-enforced by the 
 first levy of the conscription, awaited with impatience the 
 signal for new combats — accustomed to conquer, thQy 
 
 thought themselves invincible ! Napoleon continued 
 
 his triumphs. We received despatches from Grand Cairo. 
 The taking of that capital, its administrative organization, 
 skilful and rapid, several victories, among which shone 
 those of the pyramids, the beginning of the works of the 
 institute in Egypt, all contributed to distract our attention 
 from the results of the loss of our fleet, and upon the triple 
 alHance, mistress of the Mediterranean. 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 The legislative body, excited by the danger which ap- 
 proached, appeared, at first, unanimous to second the gov- 
 ernment with all its power. They granted it some financial 
 resources ; they decreed a levy of two hundred thousand 
 conscripts, first tribute of the grand law. The announce- 
 ment of a crisis is always favourable in numerous assem- 
 bhes when the minds of people are exalted. The renewal 
 of the bureau had brought General Jourdan into the presi- 
 dency ; the majority of the secretaries also belonged to the 
 Jacobin opposition. That opposition, after having accord- 
 ed all the means of defence, returned to its natural malev- 
 olence, impatient at the slowness of the measures, and eager 
 for new ones. Briot, one of the most eloquent orators, 
 proposed the formation of a committee of seven members, 
 charged to meditate the measures that might be proposed 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 71 
 
 to the legislative body the day upon which the directory 
 announced the rupture of the negotiations of peace. That 
 mission recalled too sensibly the former committees of the 
 convention not to alarm us. It would, in fact, have displa- 
 ced the centre of action, and annihilated the executive 
 power. The orator had not even disguised his aim, for his 
 harangue breathed only the most immoderate praises of the 
 convention. We united with the directorials, and an almost 
 general disapprobation repulsed the commission of seven. 
 Another orator was not more fortunate in proposing the 
 emission of six hundred millions of national bank-notes : 
 they were afraid of that which resembled assignats, as 
 they were of that which resembled the committees of 
 powerful and terrible memory. We avoided every thing 
 likely to alarm the directory and peaceful men. The ex- 
 aggerated party were at that time in the minority. They 
 announced to us in a few days that the most estimable man 
 of the party, the conqueror of Fleurus, accepted the com- 
 mand of an army ; in fact, he wrote to the council to take 
 leave of him. This worthy citizen possessed the esteem 
 of all his colleagues. I took upon myself to become the 
 organ of the universal opinion ;(8) and they ordered the im- 
 pression of six copies of my discourse and the letter of the 
 general. This departure weakened the Jacobin opposition. 
 The parties of the council were nearly of an equal balance : 
 they desired, but were fearful of taking, bold measures. 
 They desired, but were afraid of giving, too much strength 
 to the government ; and the republic gained nothing with 
 all our hesitations. 
 
 The directorials hoped to profit from these hesitations. 
 They endeavoured to return to the tax upon salt ; and they 
 demanded also that those employed for the (Octroi) city 
 toll should be chosen by the government. The commission 
 of the finances protested that the tax upon salt, upon which 
 the produce, if certain, would exceed thirty millions, was 
 necessary : — the right was reduced to the half. It observ- 
 ed also, with reason, that, under the present circumstances, 
 it was wiser to leave to the executive power the choice of 
 above a thousand persons employed in Paris alone. 
 
 These importunities could not persuade the two opposi- 
 tions, who, united upon the two questions, caused both of 
 them to be rejected. They were not sparing in reproaches 
 to the commission of finances, for having dared to renew 
 for the tax upon salt a proposition that had already been 
 rejected, and to have presented it before the delay exacted 
 by law. They refused to the government the right of nom- 
 ination to the employments of the (Octroi) city tolls which 
 • they had established, and they preferred to confide the 
 choice to the departmental administration. I spoke and 
 voted for that last measure, v/hich was not very reasonable 
 
72 MEMOIRS Of 
 
 in the position of affairs : the particular administrations of 
 the capital had too often taken advantage of their influ- 
 ence ; but the mania of tormenting the government over- 
 balanced the wise counsels of our adversaries. 
 
 That mania of daily opposition to a government, in the 
 administrative measures that it claims for the public ser- 
 vice, has often proved fatal. It appears a noble proof of 
 independence ; but it is, perhaps, too often, though we do 
 not own it to ourselves, only a spirit of egotism in a body 
 or an individual. Ancient history has not transmitted to us 
 an example of these struggles, these daily broils, upon the 
 administrative details, between the supreme authorities of 
 the state. To embarrass one's government at every step, 
 is a sort of patriotism too much perfectionated in our times ; 
 the obstacles that are raised against the administration 
 (above all in grave cases) are far more prejudicial to the 
 governed than to those who govern. They weaken those 
 whom they ought to strengthen. It is like distracting the 
 attention of a pilot while he is passing amid the rocks and 
 quicksands : the vessel which he guides carries us with it 
 as vvell as him. If he is skilful, let him alone, and aid him 
 in his manoeuvres, instead of thwarting him ; but if he is 
 imskilful, and is likely to cause us to be shipwrecked — well, 
 then, even in that case we must aid him, till the precise 
 moment that our safety requires another guide, and then it 
 will not suffice to make puerile attacks. The question is 
 not one of gymnastics, nor of self-love, but it is one of life 
 and death. The more the blow is prompt and decisive, the 
 more the safety of all is assured. The crisis is the more 
 salutary when it is rapid. The political body is like the 
 human body ; a happy crisis or a revolution may save it ; 
 but years of long agony, or egotist opposition, systemati- 
 cal and tormenting, weakens and consumes it. The crisis 
 is sometimes the only means of salvation ; and, if obliged 
 to resort to it, the greatest danger consists in retarding it. 
 If the pohtical chief is constantly struck with repeated 
 blows, — if even the attacks are not very grave, they ener- 
 vate and stupify him, and may in the end so derange his 
 organization, that the vital strength of the heart may suf- 
 fer from it. . . . The directorial epoch, of which I here re- 
 trace the remembrance, and the epoch of 1830, offer two 
 striking examples of the different social maladies. The 
 directory, exposed to incessant attacks, resisted as well as 
 it could; but, weakened and languishing, it vegetated more 
 than it governed; and the republic, fallen into a state of 
 marasmus, was near the moment of expiring beneath the 
 Tartar pikes of Suwarrow. In 1830, on the contrary, by a 
 vigorous and rapid movement, they changed the chief who 
 had broken the fundamental compact of his authority, and 
 whom, to the eve of that change, they had not refused all 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 73 
 
 support and power. They changed ; and that crisis, if it 
 had received the sanction of a universal voting, would be 
 the most irreproachable crisis of the revolution. Our long 
 opposition of 1798 was, I believe, fatal to France, by weak- 
 ening the chiefs in the moment of danger. We ought to 
 have aided them, or have changed them sooner. The op- 
 position of 1830 was wiser than we ; it left to the govern- 
 ment the means of strength and defence to the last hour ; 
 but the resolution to overturn it, if it persisted in error, 
 augmented silently in every heart. The crisis once desired 
 by the majority — the famous ordinances — was only the oc- 
 casion, well chosen and quickly taken advantage of. Let 
 us be better advised than to endeavour to weaken the gov- 
 ernment at an unseasonable time. Let us aid it as long as 
 we keep it, that it may be strong, not for itself, but that its 
 weakness may not touch the heart of the state. If it be- 
 comes guilty of an outrage against the sovereign, of which 
 it is only the first magistrate, let opinion, inevitable and'' 
 supreme strength of civilized societies, arise and increase, 
 calm and terrible, in the bottom of all hearts, until the day 
 marked by Providence ; or, become general, and then irre- 
 sistible, it shall reveal itself of a sudden in one of those 
 bursts of thunder which clear the horizon. While we await 
 that day — manet altamente repostum. 
 
 But opinion is often a long time before it becomes gen- 
 eral. Without doubt, it is very fortunate for human society; 
 for if the opinion of an entire people was as easy to be 
 formed as that of an individual, we should have revolutions 
 every week. If what every faction, every writer, calls 
 intrepidly public opinion, was actually such, we should 
 have a thousand public opinions for one. Wlien the true 
 public opinion is formed, nobody can be deceived ; it has 
 no occasion for commentaries — it shines like the sun. We 
 must await it, for it is the sovereign ; it is the only master 
 upon earth to whom our political symbol has engaged us. 
 To act against the supreme master is a crime : to take its 
 name in vain is a sacrilege. Have we acted with the con- 
 viction that we have followed his intentions, although not 
 yet expressed ? Then our absolute duty, of which the suc- 
 cess cannot enfranchise us, is to submit our actions to the 
 universal vote, the only sincere expression of universal 
 opinion. As long as that opinion does not agree with 
 yours, resign yourselves that you are going on before ani 
 behind, to the right and to the left ; if you are not with it, 
 cease to take its name, and conclude with sincerity, that it 
 is not you, but the government, which still represents the su- 
 preme opinion of the only master to whom yo'. pay homage. 
 
 Happy is the government that reposes upon so solid a 
 basis ; it need no longer fear the factions of any sort or 
 colour. This situation — is it that of the government of our 
 country ? 
 
74 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Month of Brumaire, year 7. From the 22d of October to ths 
 
 22d of November, 1798. 
 
 Barbarous Law against the transported of Fructidor— and the fine words 
 of the Orator Rochon— Endeavours of the Jacobin party against the 
 Priests — Troubles in several Departments — Incertitude of the Legisla- 
 tive Body. 
 
 I. THE POWERS. 
 
 The situation of the powers, with regard to us, presented 
 no change in the month of Brumaire, except the entry of 
 the Austrians in the country of the Grisons. The imperial 
 minister had offered several times the intervention of his 
 master to protect the government of Coire against the party 
 who desired the reunion of the league of the Grisons with 
 the Helvetic confederation. This party announced that 
 the French troops were marching towards Rhette. Austria 
 thought the time was opportune to awaken. This time she 
 was beforehand with us. 
 
 Our president thought of retiring to Zurich. The French 
 column, which occupied Shaf housen, prepared to march to- 
 wards the Grison leagues, where they expected to have a 
 serious conflict, when a courier from Paris carried an or- 
 der not to consider the invasion of Coire by the Austrians 
 as a hostile measure. The directory feigned to be content- 
 ed with the assurance which terminated the declaration of 
 the Austrian general. " The general commander notifies, 
 that the entry of the imperial and royal troops is amicable, 
 pacific, and protective. He protests that it has no other 
 object than to protect with perfect accord, and after their 
 own wishes, the actual government legally established." 
 
 The exalted part of the councils disapproved of the mod- 
 eration of the directory. We were spoiled by two years 
 of victories ; and we found it very bad for our enemies to 
 do once that which we did every day. It was, however, 
 perfectly evident that the change in the attitude Of Aus- 
 tria announced the resolution to provoke the renewal of 
 hostilities. The Russian army was in the heart of Ger- 
 many. 
 
 The insurgents of Ireland, far from being discouraged, 
 regained new strength. Several of our vessels departed 
 without accord from Brest and Rochefort, and, by showing 
 themselves upon the coast, sustained them with the hope 
 of a better regulated disembarkment ; but the coasts, cover- 
 ed everywhere with English troops, were inaccessible. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 75 
 
 Superior fleets surrounded our vessels, and the Le Hoche, 
 battered with the cannon of five of the enemy's vessels, 
 surrendered only after prodigies of valour and intrepidity. 
 The insurgents had no resource left but to intrench them- 
 selves in their retreats. There was but one cry in Paris 
 upon the cause of these disasters. No one was ignorant 
 that the delay of funds had prevented the squadron of Bom- 
 part to set sail at the same time as that of Savary, and to 
 land in that part of Ireland that the English had not yet had 
 time to put in a state of defence. If those funds had 
 been expedited a few days sooner, it would have rendered 
 the affairs of Ireland very problematic. The success of 
 England may be attributed to the slowness and improvi- 
 dence of the directory, as much as to the rapidity of the 
 General Cornwallis. 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 Among the allied republics, the Cisalpine alone occupi- 
 ed us seriously. The General Brune, who had taken the 
 command of our army, disapproved of the innovations and 
 the choice of the ambassador Trouve. To appease the dis- 
 contentment, he determined upon changing every thing, 
 without the concurrence of the new ambassador, Fouche de 
 Nantes. They wrote to us from Milan: "We no longer 
 knov/ who we are, where we are going, or who to confide 
 in. All is again overturned in our republic. This morning 
 the gates of Milan were shut, and we learned that a part of 
 our representatives had given in their resignation, demand- 
 ed by the general-in-chief of the army of Italy, and that 
 they were replaced by those who, not being willing to ac- 
 knowledge the constitution of Trouve, had been put aside. 
 Three of our directors are equally forced to turn out : con- 
 firmed only a few weeks since by the French directory, 
 they were far from expecting this disgrace. They do not 
 know to whom they are to attribute this sudden resolution, 
 so contrary to the last events. This nobility has thrown us 
 into the greatest incertitude. It is well calculated to favour 
 the plots of Austria. They must end by consulting the Cis- 
 alpine people, if they wish to satisfy reasonable people." 
 
 We were as much astonished at Paris as they were at 
 Milan. I had already announced that I should demand a 
 secret committee to call upon the directory, when we were 
 informed that the changes of Brune were disapproved of, 
 and that, to put an end to all these divisions, they were go- 
 ing to consult the Cisalpine people upon the new o-onstitu- 
 tion that had been given by the ambassador Trouve. That 
 measure, by which they ought to have begun, caused all 
 complaints to cease. Those whom Brune had deprived of 
 their employments were restored to them. The municipal 
 
76 MEMOIR? OP 
 
 assemblies united, accepted, by a very great majority, the 
 new charter, and then all pretext for discontent was at an 
 end. It is because the people are sovereign, that they can 
 choose the worst party, and that no one has the right to im- 
 pose the best, when they are contented with that which 
 they consider good, nor the good, when they prefer the 
 worst. That voting of the Cisalpine caused me to regret 
 my opposition to the directorial innovations. 
 
 III. THE A.RM1ES. 
 
 The General Jourdan had quitted us for the army. Cham- 
 pionnet and Macdonald commanded in the southern part of 
 Italy. Joubert was sent to Milan to replace Brune, and he 
 was named general of our army of Holland. He whom 
 Napoleon had named the child of victory, Massena, went to 
 Switzerland to await the Russians. Preparations upon all 
 the lines of operations took place on both sides. 
 
 • 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 I DO not speak so much of the council of ancients, as of 
 the council of five hundred ; because, as I was a member 
 of the last, I knew better what passed. The sentiment 
 which predominated among the ancients was that of the 
 insufficiency of the constitution of the year 3. Sieyes had 
 signalized its deficiency of equilibrium between the pow- 
 ers as the indubitable cause of new troubles. The 18th 
 Fructidor had confirmed his foresight, and to which his re- 
 fusal to enter the directory had given a greater influence. 
 They regretted not having paid greater attention to his coun- 
 sels. They complained of bis absence ; they felt vaguely 
 that, in a short time, they should be forced into new combi- 
 nations, and that no person was more capable than Sieyes 
 to direct them. A serious inquietude upon the future des- 
 tiny of the republic troubled the council of ancients. That 
 inquietude became more sensible, according as the agitation 
 increased in the minds of the young. They followed, how- 
 ever, sometimes our impulsion, all the time fearing the rev- 
 olutionary exaltation, towards which we were driven by the 
 new war, which there was no longer any hope of averting. 
 That exaltation manifested itself in a manner not very hon- 
 ourable upon the subject of the transported in Fructidor. 
 The greatest part of these victims died in the deserts of Si- 
 namari : four or five only had escaped from the dreadful 
 agony of so atrocious an exile, by flying to Surinam, where 
 the Dutch had received them ; and from thence they took 
 refuge in London. Pichegru was among the number, whose 
 treason had been undeniably proved by the papers which 
 Moreau himself had seized and delivered up to the direct- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 77 
 
 ory; but among the fugitives was also the director Barthe- 
 iiemi, who the first liad signed treaties of peace in the name 
 of the repubhc — Barthelemi, whose integrity, moderation, 
 and pacific glory, merited from his ancient colleagues re- 
 spect and clemency. Another of the proscribed, whose no- 
 ble and simple character honoured the council of ancients, 
 Barbe Marbois, had refused to escape, that he might not 
 compromise the fortune of his family. The escape of 
 some of the transported irritated the directory, and they 
 brought upon the carpet a new project of law that had been 
 presented after the 18th Fructidor, and which they had 
 abandoned. They came to propose to us to assimilate with 
 the emigres, the transported xoho had concealed themselves to 
 avoid transportation, or who had escaped from the place of their 
 transportation, except that ivithin the space of two months they 
 presented themselves to the French authorities to learn the 
 place of their future transportation. And the penalty of the 
 emigrants was death ! 1 abstained from voting, although 
 the whole of the opposition united with the directorials. 
 That law, worthy of 1793, passed almost unanimously in 
 the council of five hundred, and in a great majority of the 
 ancients ! In that last council, several noble voices were 
 raised in favour of justice and humanity. Among us one 
 single orator, the intrepid Rouchon, dared speak for the 
 proscribed. He braved the cries and the outrages, and 
 sustained alone against all, during several weeks, a com- 
 bat in which all the glory was for the vanquished. In 
 expiation of the silent neutrality I had kept in that 
 circumstance, and with which I afterAvard reproached 
 myself, I will cite some of the eloquent words of the 
 orator Rouchon. 
 
 " Representatives of the people — A month after the 18th 
 Fructidor, that is to say, at an epoch near to that day, the 
 project of law that is now proposed was rejected as useless 
 and unjust, as contrary to the constitution, as revolutionary ! 
 .... And a year afterward it is reproduced at the discus- 
 sion ! This project contains the constraint, the confisca- 
 tion, the permanence of the penalty ; and with regard to tliose 
 persons whom you recall, they have never been judged. 
 It is as unjust as it is without example, to ordain a man to 
 return to present himself for execution! I know that the 
 grand signor sends the cord to the pacha with whom he is 
 discontented, to the vizier who displeases him ; but I have 
 never heard that he commands his victims to come them- 
 selves and take the fatal cord. A coup d'etat should not 
 drag after it but a momentary penalty. Never should a per- 
 petual punishment result from it. Do you remember what 
 Condorcet had put in the constitution \ ' A penalty pronounc- 
 ed as a measure of public welfare, should never extend ieyond 
 six months.'' No tyrant, not even Nero, ever thought of 
 
 G3 
 
78 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 punishing a man because he did not come to demand liis 
 own execution ; and your reporter, in proposing such a 
 code against our ancient colleagues, pronounces at every 
 phrase the words of justice, of humanity, of clemency ! I 
 must own that my hair rises upon my head. ... Is it then 
 with a sardonic laugh that they plunge the poniard 1 
 
 " At these words 1 am answered with bursts of laughter. 
 . . . Representatives of the French people," cried Rouchon : 
 " I could imagine your laughing if the question was to par- 
 don ; but I cannot conceive what you mean when it is a 
 question of punishment." 
 
 They thought to reply to Rouchon in speaking of the ex- 
 cesses committed by the royalists during the reaction, as if 
 Barthelemi and his companions had organized the bands of 
 the companies of the sun ! They reproached the transported 
 fugitives for having taken refuge in England, as if there had 
 been so many free countries upon the earth where one was 
 sure to meet with an asylum against all t3^rannies. But such 
 was ever the pitiless logic of factions ; and factions rise nat- 
 urally more violent in moments of alarm. 
 
 Certainly their alarms were not without a motive ; besides 
 the menacing attitude of the foreign powers, the depreda- 
 tions in the west began again ; and, at the same time, bands 
 of armed rebels overran the environs of Brussels, of Tirel- 
 mont, and the Luxembourg. They granted to the execu- 
 tive power all it demanded ; the taxes upon the patents, the 
 roads, the gates, and windows, and upon tobacco ! The oc- 
 trois, or city gates, were accepted as soon as proposed. But 
 it too often happens that patriotic enthusiasm does not know 
 how to be moderate, and they pass a law of banishment 
 with as much coolness as a financial law ; they would at any 
 price add to the power of the government. They put in 
 force the laws against emigration. At length the opposi- 
 tion, that is to say, the constitutional and Jacobin, voted for 
 some days with the most devoted partisans of the directory. 
 The Jacobins endeavoured, even at the end of the month, 
 to profit by the occasion. Briot prepared, in the name of 
 the commission, to assimilate the emigrants with the priests 
 condemned to transportation, Avho concealed themselves, or 
 who entered France. They commanded them to present 
 themselves directly to submit to the penalty. . . It was the 
 continuation of the new law against those who were van- 
 quished in Fructidor. Briot gave these motives for the 
 proposition of death : " Do you doubt," said he, " of the 
 coalition of the refractory priests with the royalists and the 
 emigrants 1 Cast your eyes upon the nine united depart- 
 ments, at this moment torn and bleeding — do they not cry 
 out to you that it is the priests who have kindled the fire 
 of rebellion, and who want to call the English ? Do you 
 not hear the tocsin resound in the country 1 Its mournful 
 
LTJCIEN BONAPARTE. 79 
 
 sound announces that the blood of Frenchmen flows, shed 
 by the hands of Frenchmen. The defenders of the country 
 are murdered, and the unfortunate cultivators fall beneath 
 their blows ; while the cowardly author of those troubles, 
 with hands uplifted to heaven, prays that blood may still 
 flow, provided that he may be preserved to create new 
 crimes." 
 
 Briot, an ardent mind, and incorruptible patriot, forgot 
 that the persecuted priest, pursued even to the bottom of 
 his conscience, was not the author, but the victim of our 
 troubles; he did not perceive that in rendering the persecu- 
 tion more cruel, they augmented those troubles which they 
 desired to appease. His proposition was adjourned, but 
 they ordered the impression of his discourse in three copies. 
 
 Thus, upon the eve of a new coalition, our march became 
 always more uncertain. In Vendemiaire we refused to the 
 government the nomination of some insignificant employ- 
 ments. ... In Brumaire we abandoned to them, without re- 
 morse, the fate of the transported. We went alternately, 
 from an outrageous defiance to an unlimited confidence. 
 Public opinion, tossed from side to side, retired from us. 
 The faults altogether of the administrative measures, the 
 false direction and the irresolution of the legislative meas- 
 ures, carried away, step by step, the directorial republic, to- 
 wards a state of incurable languor. Scarcely arrived at her 
 fourth year, she had already the first features of decrepitude. 
 
 Month of Frimaire and Nivose, year 7. From the 22d of Nov.j 
 1798, to the 2lst of Jan., 1799. 
 
 Two Russian Fleets in the Mediterranean — Censure of the Newspapers 
 
 Prorogued. 
 
 I. THE POWERS. 
 
 The diplomatic influence of Sieyes maintained always 
 the court of Prussia in neutrality. The other great powers 
 of the continent had finished their preparations, but had not 
 yet declared themselves ; but they gave the signal to Naples 
 and Turin. The King of Naples, encouraged by the num- 
 ber of soldiers that he enrolled, and by the renown of Gen- 
 eral Mack, dared to commence hostilities. He summoned 
 all the French to quit the Roman States, republicanized 
 and usurped since the peace of Campo Formio, and never ac- 
 knowledged hy his Sicilian Majesty, nor by his august ally, the 
 emperor and king. The innovations made at Milan by our 
 ambassadors, were represented in several writings of the 
 civilians of Naples as violating the state of peace. Upon 
 
80 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 the French replying in the negative, the Roman States were 
 invaded by all the Neapolitan bands. Championnet evac- 
 uated momentarily Rome, where he left a strong garrison 
 at the castle of St. Angelo. He retired into the Apennines 
 to concentrate the few forces that he had at his disposal. 
 He let Mack engage heedlessly, but separately, his numer- 
 ous columns, and drove the aggressing monarch to the lim- 
 its of his kingdom, that he was not destined long to keep. 
 At the same moment that the great army of Mack retired 
 in disorder, a Neapolitan division, imported by an English 
 fleet, landed at Leghorn, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany 
 protested diplomatically or sincerely against it. As for the 
 King of Sardinia, he had not commenced hostilities, but the 
 Austrians, masters of the Grison leagues, were spread to 
 the limits even of Piedmont, whose evil dispositions began 
 to show themselves openly, by the frequent murders of our 
 isolated soldiers. Our safety in the south of Italy exacted 
 that they should secure the Alps ; and the directory pro- 
 posed to us in the same message to declare war against the 
 kings of Naples and Sardinia, whom they equally accused 
 of having broken the peace. That double declaration uni- 
 ted all the votes. We were all of us tired with so long an 
 uncertainty. We were not long in felicitating ourselves 
 upon our success, upon learning that the two dethroned 
 kings had taken refuge in the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. 
 The Russian vessels preceded the hostihties of Su war- 
 row. A fleet of that nation, united with the English, block- 
 aded the coast of Holland, while another, united with the 
 Turks, attacked the Venetian Isles that had become French. 
 Cerigo and Zante were taken. Corfu repulsed all the ef- 
 forts of the Turkish Russian fleet. The great statesman 
 who then presided over the destinies of England, while he 
 allied his flag with that of Russia, must have meditated 
 more than once upon this simultaneous and double appari- 
 tion of two Muscovite fleets in the seas of Holland and 
 Greece. Pitt could not, without doubt, observe that phe- 
 nomenon without anxiety for the future. . . What would he 
 say — what would he do ? .... If he could see the British 
 influence annulled at Constantinople, and the Czar domina- 
 ting over the Bosphorus, and excluding the British vessels 
 from the Black Sea! .... 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 The state of war had suspended, by the fact, all exercise 
 of national authority in the Italian republics. Our generals 
 commanded exclusively at Genoa, and Milan, and in the 
 Roman States. The existence of these republics was 
 again brought in question. 
 
 Switzerland, endowed with a more ancient strength, and 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 81 
 
 an independence whjch she had known how to defend till 
 that epoch, kept herself in the position in which our last 
 treaty of alliance had placed her in face of us. She armed 
 eighteen thousand men, who were to join our troops. 
 
 Holland had new dissensions to combat. Brabangon aux- 
 iliaries, united with Dutch officers who had emigrated, en- 
 tered the Batavian territory. The anarchical party who had 
 sent for them, had framed a plot to overturn the govern- 
 ment. The chiefs were arrested. It was to the French 
 directory that the Batavian directory owed the discovery 
 of this conspiracy. The Anglo-Russian fleet which cruised 
 along the coast was probably not a stranger to these 
 movements. 
 
 III. THE ARMIES. 
 
 The army of Championnet re-entered in triumph at 
 Rome, and left it immediately to take possession of the 
 kingdom of Naples. It was but a military march ; from the 
 deck of his vessel, the fugitive monarch could see our col- 
 ours peacefully received in his beautiful capital. Leghorn, 
 scarcely invaded by his troops, was evacuated immediately 
 in haste. The army of Joubert took possession of all Pied- 
 mont without obstacle. They organized a provisionary 
 government at Turin ; and also, after the departure of the 
 king for Sardinia, the Piedmontese troops entered into the 
 service of France. 
 
 The army of Massena was posted upon Mont St. Gothard 
 and St. Bernard, and its communications with the army of 
 Turin were assured. 
 
 The news from Eg}'pt was always favourable. We heard 
 of the revolt at Cairo that was so quickly appeased, and the 
 successive defeats of the Mamelukes, and the preparations 
 of Napoleon for the invasion of Syria. 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 We were alarmed with regard to the ancient Vendee. 
 The directory was called upon to know what extraordinary 
 measures would be required in those departments. They 
 replied that the existing laws were sufficient. This confi- 
 dence reassured the councils. 
 
 Belgium gave more uneasiness at that time to the direct- 
 ory than La Vendee. Two serious battles had taken place 
 in the environs of Antwerp and Enghien, in which several 
 hundreds of rebels and soldiers had fallen. Some few days 
 after, Louvain beheld a more serious combat. Brussels was 
 put in a state of siege ; and the calm was not estabhshed 
 without shedding a great deal of French blood. Many per- 
 sons thought, in the legislative body, that these deplorable 
 
82 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Struggles could only be attributed to the persecution exer- 
 cised against the priests. Others, on the contrary, pretended 
 that the persecution was not sufficiently rigorous ; and the 
 proposition of Briot against the transported priests was sub- 
 mitted to discussion. Violence thought to drag weakness 
 after it ; but the discussion was not more decisive than it 
 had been in the preceding month, and a new adjournment, 
 without any fixed term, was pronounced. 
 
 Briot was not discouraged; he had several times attack- 
 ed the elections of the judges chosen by the people in the 
 years 4 and 5. He recommenced his attack ; our tribunals, 
 according to him, were composed of royalists. The revision 
 of all the judiciary choices appeared to him to be urgent. 
 The sitting was stormy, and some votes only decided that 
 they should not attempt to touch the independence of jus- 
 tice. I voted against Briot, but I continued to keep silence. 
 I felt that we ought to support the government, which was 
 menaced in the interior and the exterior ; and, on the other 
 side, I felt a repugnance at granting an extraordinary pow- 
 er to persons who served so ill those powers which they 
 had already received. Several of my colleagues, uncer- 
 tain, as well as myself, how to act, showed themselves 
 more rarely at the tribune. We waited impatiently the 
 epoch that was fixed for the replacing one of the five di- 
 rectors, whom chance obliged each year to quit the direct- 
 ory. We purposed naming Sieyes, and we trusted that he 
 would give to the executive power more wisdom and sta- 
 bility. 
 
 Our political conscience was put to the test in the capi- 
 tal question of the liberty of the press, which they discuss- 
 ed about the end of the month several times. They wanted 
 to put to the order of the day the penal law proposed by 
 the commission, of which I formed a part, with a view of 
 destroying the dictatorship of the police upon the newspa- 
 pers. I had taken an active part in this project of law ; but 
 how refuse the evidence ? How repulse the demands of 
 the directorials ? Could the royahst and Jacobin journals 
 recommence their diatribes against the government in the 
 midst of the war, and the insurrections in Belgium 1 For 
 my part, I thought it right to yield ; and I voted for the ad- 
 journment of our project of the penal law. The ancient 
 republics, in the time of great danger, did not content them- 
 selves with partial measures of dictatorship ; they resigned 
 themselves to the dictatorship of a single man. Caveani 
 consules ne respubUca detrimentum capiat. We abandoned to 
 the government, till the end of the year, the censure of 
 the journals. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 83 
 
 Month of Pluviose, From the 21st of January to the 20th of 
 
 February, 1799. 
 
 The union of Ireland considered with regard to the English Constitution 
 — My Speech against the Tax upon Salt — That Tax rejected a third 
 time, after a sharp discussion. 
 
 ► I. THE POWERS. 
 
 r 
 
 In the United States of America, the prevailing opinion 
 was always unfavourable to France. The Congress ap- 
 proved of the military preparations of the President Adams, 
 and recommended the continuation of them. The measures 
 of the directory did not merit so mu(^h repulsion ; we all 
 thought in the legislative body, that the susceptibility and 
 the pride of the United States was excessive. Might we 
 not at this moment address the same complaint to our 
 friends of the New World 1 But the most essential point was 
 then, as it is now, to avoid the snare which was nearly 
 bringing about the scandal of discord between two great 
 nations that ought to be inseparable. 
 
 The progress of the conferences of Rastadt were in an 
 inverse sense to the preparatives for the war. Austria, to 
 prolong her stratagems, sent two ambassadors to Paris : these 
 new negotiators did not blush to complain of the events at 
 Naples. . . It was carrying the diplonintic courage very far. 
 Austria forgot that not only the King of Naples had been the 
 aggressor, but that it was an Aus^trian general who had 
 struck the first blows. At length they ceased to form 
 illusions. The negotiations of peace no longer deceived 
 anybody ; but nobody would have dared to suspect the 
 outrage which, in a few days; struck our negotiators. 
 
 Oiie of the greatest measures of Pitt occupied England 
 and Ireland. The project of the union of the two kingdoms 
 began to be proposed to the parliaments of London and 
 Dublin. This project, rejected at Dublin, raised so serious 
 a discontent against its partisans, that their safety was con- 
 stantly menaced. They feared at one moment a general 
 revolt, and to appease people's minds, they spread the 
 report that the project was adjourned for a year. That 
 report was soon contradicted by the discussions of the 
 British parliament, where the illustrious Sheridan displayed 
 the highest eloquence. Several times he combated the 
 powerful minister, who replied to his eloquence by a reason 
 of state, calm and profoimd. 
 
 " What will become of Ireland V cried Sheridan ; " she 
 will no longer be a country." " Ireland," replied Pitt, " will 
 become the country of England ; she will make one common 
 country with us and Scotland ; she will partake of all the 
 good that we enjoy." No orator was more beloved among 
 
84 - MEMOIRS OF 
 
 US than Sheridan: the admiration of France was divided 
 between him and Fox. No man was more detested than 
 the son of Chatham, to whom all our evils, whatever they 
 might be, were attributed. The project, therefore, of a union 
 was considered at Paris as a sacrilegious enterprise, against 
 which they had not sufficient anathemas. By that egotist 
 sentiment, from which no one is exempted, we condemned 
 in our enemy that which we admired in the convention, the 
 reunion of all the provinces under one law. We who had 
 pursued the federalism even to the scaffold, and whose 
 political symbol was the republic one and indivisible ; we would 
 no longer see patriotism among our neighbours, but in their 
 divisions; nor good sense, but in federalism. All our 
 sympathies were for the adversaries of the union. Without 
 doubt we should not be sincere if we did not appreciate in a 
 different manner at this moment our opinions of that epoch ; 
 without doubt, in shaking off the prejudices and hatreds of 
 that period, it must be owned, that all the objections which 
 they heaped together against the great measure, signified 
 very little. But is there not another manner of considering 
 the question? If the union offered, with regard to the 
 present, only an aspect of concord and strength, did it leave 
 no inquietude for the future? And the great statesman, 
 who did not foresee that future, is he without blame ? It is 
 under that point of view that the union of England with 
 Ireland has not been sufficiently considered ; and I beg my 
 readers to permit me to pause for a moment. 
 
 A conquered province is governed by the conquering 
 power, according to particular laws ; or else she is united ta 
 that power of which she becomes a part. As long as she is 
 treated as a conquered country, it is quite natural that her 
 provincial interests should be sacrificed to the interests of 
 the conquerors : " Vcb victis.'''' A good politic is then satisfied. 
 If they do not abuse their victory sufficiently to rekindle the 
 war, and if they know how to employ a mixture of force and 
 moderation in the legislative measures, with which the van- 
 quished have nothing to do but to obey. 
 
 The conquerors are magnanimous if they leave to the 
 conquered country some of its vague national forms, to 
 which the vanity of the feeble is too happy to cling illusively. 
 Such was the state of Ireland before the union. An active 
 inspection, a salutary mistrust, were the inevitable conse- 
 quences of that state of affairs. The oppression of six mil- 
 lions of Irish Cathohcs, forced to pay the tithes of a Protest- 
 ant worship, was not devoid of a certain relative justness : 
 it was a tribute to the religion of the conquerors. That re- 
 ligious subjection of the greatest number towards the church 
 of the dominant minority, was the consequence of a political 
 subjection. One of those forces supported the other. One 
 was perhaps necessary to the other ; and if it was necessary, 
 
V 
 
 LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 85 
 
 the political necessity absolved it. The Irish had not only- 
 been conquered, but despoiled : their lands had been dis- 
 tributed to the Protestants. The priests had been deprived 
 of the tithes, as the proprietors had been of their lands. A 
 conquest, driven to such terrible extremities, could not fail 
 to leave the most bitter remembrances behind it. That ter- 
 rible abuse of a victory could not quickly be forgotten. The 
 oppressor, not having the right, must naturally have no other 
 support left but the sword. In maintaining beneath his yoke 
 those whom he had stripped, in transmitting to the ministers 
 of the victorious church the tithes of the conquered church, 
 the la w was not inconsistent — it was the logic of the strongest. 
 But the conquered and despoiled population evinced its 
 discontent by alarming struggles, of which foreign enemies 
 endeavoured to profit; and the conquering power, for its 
 own security for the future, will treat as brothers those whom 
 it has hitherto oppressed ! It is resolved to enfranchise and 
 incorporate them, that they may have no longer to combat 
 
 them Nothing could be better, if they did not fail in 
 
 their aim — '\{ they do all, absolutely all that they ought to do, to 
 assure the affection of their new brothers. If they will sell 
 the confiscated land, and the tithes of that land, to those to 
 whom they belong ; or, at least, (as xMr. Grey said in the sit- 
 ting of the house of commons of the 14th February,) let the 
 union of sentiments, of interests, of hearts, take place be- 
 tween the two countries, and that they do not confine them- 
 selves to the union of two legislative chambers. But if the 
 moral reconciliation cannot take place, from whatever side 
 this impossibility may arise, the end has failed ; the incorpo- 
 ration of the conquered province, instead of becoming a 
 salutary measure of public welfare, may then become fatal, 
 by introducing into the state a foreign influence — by opening, 
 as it may be called, the entrails of the political body to a 
 hostile element. The Irish influence in the British parlia- 
 ment v/as not foreseen, or not appreciated as it ought to have 
 been. That is proved by the protestation of the Lords Hol- 
 land, Thanet, and King, (in the sitting of the house of lords 
 of the 18th of April,) and by the speech of Mr. Fox, at the 
 whig club, of the 9th of May. The protestation of the lords 
 rested chiefly upon the violation of the Irish independence, 
 upon the insufficiency of the measures taken to calm the 
 troubles, and upon the enormous increase of influence for the 
 crown that must result from the union ! The speech of Mr. 
 Fox condemned with justice the violent and arbitrary means 
 employed in Ireland to oblige them to vote for the ministerial 
 measures ; but in declaring against the project, neither the 
 protestation nor the discourse foresaw thnt the result would 
 be very different from giving an increase to the royal influence. 
 In the mean time, by not enfranchising six millions of Cath- 
 olics from the Protestant tithes, and by not satisfying other- 
 
 H 
 
86 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 wise the Catholic clergy, could they reasonably expect to 
 satisfy Ireland 1 I do not say that it was possible to restore 
 the lands and the tithes to the ancient proprietors ; but time 
 has often more force than justice : and since a reason of 
 state, good or bad, prevented them from completely repairing 
 all their past faults, why not continue to contain, as they had 
 done, the country which they would not satisfy ? Why, above 
 all, admit a deputation of that discontented country to par- 
 take of the supreme power of the British nation 1 The great 
 majority of the Irish remaining disaffectioned to the English 
 aristocracy, in whom they beheld their despoilers, the repre- 
 sentatives of those people must either be unfaithful to the 
 religious and political sentiments of their constituents, or 
 enemies of the English constitution, and, above all, of that 
 class which enjoyed their spoils. The concourse of those 
 representatives in the British parliament, with the oblivion 
 of all the injustice, confiscations, and intolerance of the con- 
 quest, with the reconcihation of minds in Ireland, would 
 have been a measure of high wisdom ; but if they had not 
 yet forgotten those injuries, if the moral reconciliation had 
 not taken place, they should have waited, for it would have 
 been a hundred times better for England to have left the Irish 
 parliament in its island, than to have exposed itself to behold 
 the day arrive, when the legislative balance in London should 
 incline at the will of the representatives of Dublin. In fact, 
 do they seek to learn from the past, from whence is the 
 source of that consumption that mines the old aristocratical, 
 electoral, and monarchical constitution of England 1 An ob- 
 server would soon be convinced that the evil remounts to 
 the legislative, and not real union of Ireland ; the most illus- 
 trious and wisest defender, therefore, of that unrivalled social 
 equilibrium, would be the first and real author of weakening 
 it. So true it is, that all human conceptions are but the 
 effect of hazard. And so dilRcult is the task of expiating 
 the destruction of an entire nation, decimated, despoiled, 
 and pursued, even to the sanctuary of her conscience ! ! ! — 
 Let the proud conqueror of Warsaw look at Ireland. . . . The 
 rehgious persecutions, the confiscations, the affronts, and the 
 scaffold, produce soon or late an impoisoned fruit. After so 
 many years, England bears in her own bosom the wound 
 which she gave to Ireland : to cure that wound, the wisdom 
 of the thoughtful is obscured, it hits at the wrong end of its 
 calculations: those who have the same interests divide. . . . 
 When Heaven chastises, of what avail is the most skilful 
 politic ? 
 
 I feel sensible that it may appear very hardy in a foreigner, 
 when he dares to condemn one of the greatest operations of 
 Pitt ; and I hasten to observe that it is as difficult to foresee 
 the future, as it is easy to reason upon the past and the 
 present, of which the whole offers, under the same coup 
 
lUCIEN BONAPARTE. 87 
 
 d'oeil, the cause of the effect. The future results of a polit- 
 ical organization depend upon so many circumstances, that 
 the most profound staiesman should, above all, recommend 
 his works to fortune, or to that unknown god of the ancients, 
 that was probably the future. Did Pitt, when he called a 
 hundred of the sons of Erin to Westminster, absolutely neg- 
 lect to calculate the moral strength of action that would in- 
 fluence the representatives, upon the continuation of the state 
 of disaffection, of so numerous a population 1 Or was it his 
 intention to put an end to that state of disaffection, by recon- 
 ciling with the Catholic clergy ? Or did he, in his calculation 
 as a legislator, place so high a value upon the good sense of 
 old constitutional England, (whig or tory,) that he considered 
 the Irish influence but as a fraction that might be neglected ? 
 .... For the honour of humanity, for the interest of that 
 people, now become the ally of France, of that people where 
 reigns for all true and equal liberty, may pohcy, justice, and 
 tolerance, produce such a reparatory and conservative result, 
 that the great measure of the union may become the bright- 
 est title of glory of the son of Chatham ! 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 The allied republics struggled against the administrative 
 committees of the directory, and the agents of the military 
 administration who disputed their resources. They seconded 
 powerfully the efforts of our warriors. A. new repubhc arose 
 upon the ruins of the Neapolitan throne : it took the name 
 of Parthenopian. As for Piedmont, the provisionary gov- 
 ernment, instead of proclaiming its nominal independence, 
 demanded of its own accord to be united with France. They 
 proclaimed everywhere that the demand had been secretly 
 ordered by our generals; but that order was not necessary. 
 Why should not a little neighbouring people have desired to 
 be incorporated with the great republic? Our decrees of 
 union were not incomplete like those of Ireland : they de- 
 spoiled no one, and they rendered the people equal, in every 
 respect, with those of Paris. It was by such a decree that 
 Corsica had passed from the state of a conquered island to 
 that of a French department ; and the sincerity of that incor- 
 poration had effaced all bitter recollections of the conquest. 
 Turin desired, with perfect confidence, a union which un- 
 fortunately destroyed all hope of Italian independence ; for 
 what is Italy without the Alps 1 
 
 III. THE ARMIES. 
 
 A very unfortunate choice had signalized this month as 
 the first of our reverses. The minister of war, Scherer, was 
 named general-in-chief of the army of Italy. During his 
 
88. MEMOIRS OF * 
 
 ministry, Scherer had repressed with firmness the abuses 
 of the administration of our armies. The military had an 
 antipathy against him. The directory, seduced by his fame, 
 had the folly to prefer him to Moreau, whom they had not 
 pardoned for having waited for the arrestation of Pichegru 
 before he denounced his correspondence with foreigners. 
 Scherer, notwithstanding his age, departed for Milan. 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 The troubles of Belgium, having been severely repressed, 
 allowed us to declare that Brussels was no longer in a state 
 of siege. On the 21st of January, we again gave the world 
 the sad spectacle of a great civihzed nation, celebrating the 
 regicide by an impious festival. The preceding year, Napo- 
 leon had taken advantage of the pretext of his not being in 
 service, to keep out of the way of that anniversary ; they 
 could not persuade him to appear, except confounded amid 
 the other members of the iustitute. That year several mem- 
 bers of the two councils did not appear at those funeral as- 
 semblies. The brothers of Napoleon were not seen among 
 them. 
 
 They informed us, a few days before or after, that they 
 had celebrated, at the tower of London, a festival equally 
 moral. We were told that upon the report that Napoleon 
 had been assassiuated, the cannons of the tower had pro- 
 claimed the hideous approbation of the English minister. 
 We would not believe it. 
 
 The most brilliant discussion of the legislative body took 
 place upon the tax on salt ; a tax that had been several 
 times rejected, and that the directory thought proper to 
 propose again as the only means of filling up the deficiency 
 of the last year. In the two councils, a great part of the 
 sittings were sacrificed to that question. I went no more 
 to the directory; but I was invited, with a great deal of ear- 
 nestness, to go there. I had contributed to cause the refusal 
 of that tax ; and I was known to be a decided adversary 
 against taxes upon objects of the first necessity. They 
 endeavoured to obtain my consent or my neutrality. I should 
 have yielded if I had been convinced of the deficit, or of the 
 impossibility of supplying it by any other means ; but I de- 
 clared my determination to combat the project without mer- 
 cy. I was provoked at the stubbornness of the authors of 
 the project, and I inscribed myself among the opposing 
 orators ; and whether it was with our colleagues of the five 
 hundred, or with our friends in the council of ancients, I 
 neglected nothing to render useless all the efforts of the 
 government. They accused me of violence, and that impu- 
 tation was just ; but my violence held to a profound convic- 
 tion that I still completely feel. I could never understand 
 
LtJCIEN BONAPARTE. 89 
 
 how they could possibly attempt to tax those objects that 
 are indispensable for the subsistence of the poor ; and in the 
 midst of the lights of our economists, my mind has always 
 remained a rebel to the science of indirect taxes upon things 
 of the first necessity. Nothing appeared to me to invalidate 
 the evidence of what Rousseau observes in a letter to D'Al- 
 embert : " The taxes upon corn, upon salt, beneath an ap- 
 pearance of justice, contain the most crying injustice, as he 
 who has little, pays a great deal, and he who has a great 
 deal, pays but little." I pronounced the following discourse 
 at the sitting of the 13th Pluviose. 
 " Representatives of the People : 
 
 " We are discussing the means to complete the six hun- 
 dred millions of revenue necessary for the expenses of the 
 year 7 ; each of us in that important discussion seeks the 
 truth with sincerity, and free from all personal consideration. 
 
 " To complete that deficiency, they announce to us projects 
 of economy and amelioration, and propose to us, for the 
 fourth time, a tax upon salt. Discussing, for the first time, 
 a question upon the finances, my inexperience ought to in- 
 timidate me ; but there are principles engraven upon the 
 heart, which it suffices to follow not to be naisguided. The 
 observations which I am about to submit to you, are drawn 
 from the source of those principles, which all the doctrines 
 and all the committees cannot destroy. 
 
 " I have inquired, in the first place, what was in fact the 
 deficit of the last year. I then examined the means which 
 they offer you to supply it, and I have read attentively, and 
 compared with your political system, all that they discussed 
 and printed for several months past upon the utility. of tax- 
 ing objects of the first necessity. 
 
 " Notwithstanding the readiness with which I undertook 
 that examination, the sum of the deficiency appears to me 
 to be very uncertain ; and the principles adopted by the com- 
 mission of finances, appear to me to be contrary to the spirit 
 of the constitution, illegal, and against the rights of the poorer 
 classes ; little favourable to the public treasure of the present 
 year, and advantageous only to speculators. 
 
 *' What is the amount of the deficiency 1 Several con- 
 tradictory opinions have been presented. Tired of that con- 
 tradiction, you have endeavoured to make your three com- 
 missions of direct and indirect taxes, as well as those of the 
 finances, united in one alone to make you a report. In the 
 sitting of the 24th Vendemiaire, our colleague, Destrem, in 
 the name of the three commissions, formally declared, that 
 in procuring to the treasury the re-entry of the fifty -five 
 millions, you would complete the receipts, and would assure 
 you the payment of all the ordinary and extraordinary expenses 
 of the year 1. To effect that re-entry, the reporter proposes 
 to you the tax upon the gates, windows, and chimneys, and 
 
 H3 
 
90 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 also upon the horses, carriages, and servants — this your 
 three commissions have valued altogether at forty-five mil- 
 lions ! There remained then only ten millions : while await- 
 ing at least that sum from the rectification of the customs 
 and the right upon the fabrication of paper. Thus, we have 
 all thought to arrive at the end of that painful career. I 
 have placed before you the proper terms of your three com- 
 missions. 
 
 " For some time past they have published, upon the indi- 
 rect taxes, very strange ideas ; they have professed the doc- 
 trine that these taxes could not be more conveniently placed 
 than upon the commodities that were necessary for the 
 general consumption. On the other hand, they have repulsed 
 as Vandal and revolutionary the project of taxing the en- 
 joyments of idleness and affluence ! They proposed a tax 
 upon corn, and they proclaimed the inviolabihty of luxury ! 
 They would not have dared to propagate these ideas without 
 some circumspection under any monarchy, in the time even 
 of their greatest corruption, that have been propagated be- 
 neath a republican government, the natural promoter of all 
 opinions favourable to the welfare of the greatest number. 
 
 " ' The tax which we propose to you,' continued the re- 
 porter of your commissions, "has not, like the tax upon salt, 
 the fault of being impolitic, iniquitous, and without profit. It 
 will not strike the indigent like the rich ; it will not recall a 
 thousand bitter remembrances to a thousand presentiments 
 that are not all without reason ; it will not make the fortune 
 of a few greedy speculators, who often convert into gold the 
 tears of the indigent ; it will not occasion either revolt or 
 inquisition, nor new estabUshments of a ruinous exchequer, 
 and of a bureaucratic aristocracy which seems to threaten 
 to overwhelm the entire republic ! ! !' 
 
 " You hear, representatives of the people ! Your com- 
 mission of the finances, and those of the direct and indirect 
 contributiops, in proposing to you, on the 24th of Vende- 
 miaire, a tax to fill up the deficit, announces to you, that 
 this tax has not,. like that upon the salt, the fault of being im- 
 politic, inquisitorial, and without profit. .... And the 26th 
 Nivose, those same commissions, notwithstanding the tax 
 upon the windows that we have adopted, brings the deficit 
 to the same sum as before that tax, and you propose to fill 
 it, the same tax which they condemned ! . . . . I pause here. 
 There are ideas that, to be seized, need only to be an- 
 nounced. 
 
 " The 26th of Nivose— you have heard the report of the 
 Citizen Males, who announced to you again the deficiency of 
 fifty miUions ! Since upon the 24lh of Vendemiaire it was 
 only fifty-five millions, when even the tax upon the windows 
 should be reckoned at sixteen millions, it follows, then, at 
 the most moderate calculation, that the deficiency is not so 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 91 
 
 great as the reporter tells us. To justify his assertion, he 
 informs us that several of the taxes that were decreed, did 
 not render the sum at which the ministers themselves had 
 valued them. I cannot suppose that the deputies of the 
 people, in the matter of taxes, would diminish the valuation 
 of the agents of the executive power. 
 
 " We have also examined if the demand of six hundred 
 millions was not exaggerated ! By several reports, have we 
 not heen convinced that the account of the ministers re- 
 quired some deductions 1 However, if, notwithstanding that 
 conviction, we had accorded the entire sum, why diminish 
 each day the supposed produce of the taxes decreed, and 
 contradict, by vague assertions, those solemn and public 
 valuations ? I place before you, upon this subject, a passage 
 of the report of the Citizen Destrem, in the name of the 
 same commissions of which the Citizen Males is to-day the 
 organ. 
 
 " ' As it is essential to fix the council upon the question 
 of the expenses for the year 7, and consequently upon the 
 necessity of establishing a sum of taxes of which the re- 
 ceipt will cover the expenses, and that it is useful, I may 
 even say necessary, that the French people know., that if we 
 carry the receipts to a very high sum, it is because the ex- 
 penses that they must cover are just and indispensable. It 
 is then a duty of your commissions to say to that tribune, 
 that incompleting by fifty-five millions of new taxes the six 
 hundred millions decreed for the ordinary service of the year 
 7, you assure that service, even if some of the indirect 
 taxes do not render the entire sum at which the produce is 
 valued, whether it is in the description joined to the mes- 
 sage to the directory, of the first of Messidor, or whether it 
 is in the report of our colleague Villers, of the 22d of last 
 Therm idor. 
 
 " After that positive declaration of your commissions, 
 after the comparison of the two reports made in Vendemiaire 
 and Nivose, it appears to me to be very uncertain that the 
 actual deficit can be fifty millions. 
 
 " Let us now examine the means offered by the Citizen 
 Males. He announces to us that to equalize the receipts to 
 the expenses, your commissions know only three means: — 
 
 " 1st. Reduction of the expenses by the economies and 
 reforms in all the oflices that will admit of it. 
 
 " 2d. Augmentation in the collecting of the duties already 
 established. 
 
 "3d. Creation of one or several branches of revenue. 
 
 " He has presented you successively a sketch of the re- 
 forms and the ameliorations, and I think it useless to follow 
 him in all his calculations ; it is sufficient to recall to you 
 what he says in page 16. 
 
 " ' 1 have shown that we might hope to cover the ha ,; 
 
92 . MEMOIRS OP 
 
 the deficit by economy and ameliorations in the collecting of 
 duties already established ; and I have added that it was in- 
 dispensable to seek the surplus in the establishment of some 
 new branches of the revenue.' 
 
 " Thus, representatives of the people, your commissions 
 assure you that the economies and the ameliorations will 
 produce you a sum of twenty-five millions. I believe that 
 these reforms will go much further : it is sufficient to cast the 
 eye upon the state of the expenses of the war and the marine. 
 We have made funds for the armies of the land and sea far 
 above the effective number of men. By calculating that over- 
 plus, we find that the economies must exceed twenty-five 
 millions ; and perhaps a new tax will not be necessary. If 
 there remained, however, a little deficiency, I should vote 
 for supplying it by a tax upon certain objects of luxury ; but 
 as long as that deficiency shall not be demonstrated to me 
 more clearly, I shall not consent to fresh taxes. I cannot 
 see how a vague and contradictory word is sufficient for the 
 decree of twenty millions of taxes. 
 
 " Why has not the commission made haste to offer us the 
 detailed account of the reforms to effectuate and of the ame- 
 liorations to be obtained 1 Instead of confining itself to letting 
 us have but a glimpse of that inviting perspective — why did 
 it previously propose the tax upon salt ] It is because you 
 have already rejected it several times, that this tax obtains 
 the priority. And if it is true that a legislator must tremble 
 in proposing a new tax; if he rejoices at the idea of a useful 
 reform, why, since they talk to us about salt, have they not 
 employed the time in fixing in a precise manner the state of 
 those economies that they have only announced to us 1 
 
 " It is again the reporter who furnishes us with the answer 
 to that question, in expressing, in page 16, in terms which I 
 have read several times, always with increased surprise, and 
 which I beg the chamber to weigh well with reflection. 
 
 '■' ' Your commissions,' said the reporter, 'have regarded 
 the establishment, as a new branch of revenue, (that is to say 
 the tax upon salt,) as so extremely necessary, that they have 
 charged me to declare, that without that tax you have not to 
 hope for either economy or amelioration, or for the return 
 of any credit ! ! !' 
 
 "And what connection, may I ask our colleague, what con- 
 nection does there exist between the tax upon salt, and the 
 ameliorations and reforms that are to be operated in the other 
 parts of the service] How then! — that tax acknowledged 
 by those same commissioners, the Hith of Vendemiaire, as impol- 
 itic, inquisitorial, and of no profit, becomes 2l\\ at once so neces- 
 sary, that we are solemnly informed that if we again refuse 
 them, we must renounce the twenty-five millions of econo- 
 mies and reforms, that they thus make to depend entirely 
 upon an odious tax, discredited yesterday at this tribune, but 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 93 
 
 without which there is no safety for the people at this mo- 
 merit ! 
 
 " So manifest a contradiction, so strange a connection, 
 between the amelioration so long retarded and a tax which 
 they never cease to reproduce, proves to every honest man, 
 that the exaggerated calculations of the reporter, and the 
 fearful images which he has described to us, have no other 
 end than to wrest from us the tax upon salt. What confi- 
 dence can all that phantasmagoria inspire in usl 
 
 " As for me, I declare, that it is demonstrated to me clearly, 
 that the deficit cannot arrive at fifty millions ; and that the 
 reforms will in a great measure cover it. I think it reason- 
 able, just, and politic, to know precisely the amount of those 
 reforms iDefore we accord another tax ; and then, if there 
 still remain some millions to be found, we will discuss the 
 choice of a new tax. The nation then, instead of seeing in 
 us only the distributors of its revenues, will see also the 
 economists ; then there will no longer remain any suspi- 
 cions with. those who think that all the reforms pompously 
 announced are only a deceitful illusion offered at a distance 
 to mislead us. 
 
 " It is here the case to explain more in detail that doctrine 
 which has been propagated, for some months past, with so 
 much profusion, a doctrine that I have already remarked as 
 too favourable to luxury, and tending, as a last consequence, 
 to tax the bread that the great majority of the French 
 people procure by the sweat of their brow; that doctrine 
 which they endeavour by all means to introduce among us, 
 is the true cause of the obstinacy which they evince against 
 the tax upon salt. That tax will not produce scarcely any- 
 thing this present year, but our law would be the prelude to 
 the admission of the financial system of England, which 
 monarchical governments, charged with an immense debt, 
 may covet, but which republican legislators must repulse. 
 They want to arrive at drawing, from what they call the 
 multitude, enormous sums which render, without doubt, gen- 
 erally speaking, the tax upon the commodities of the first 
 necessity. But because that doctrine remained for a mo- 
 ment without reply, do they believe it cannot be attacked 1 
 Is it sufficient that a tax will produce a great deal that they 
 should adopt it I Do they think to dazzle us by a pompous 
 comparison of the state of England with ours 1 The pros- 
 perity of England ! ! ! Where, then, do they see it with so 
 much certainty 1 Have they thoroughly calculated the ex- 
 tent of her debt and the influence of the taxes upon the popula- 
 tion 1 Have they examined if it is not upon that basis that 
 reposes the omnipotence of a minister king] Have they 
 forgotten that Fox and Sheridan are reduced to appear no 
 longer in the British senate ; or that it is vain they cause 
 their immortal voices to be heard ? No, no, representatives 
 
94 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 of the people, let us not quit the rigid principles of popular 
 wisdom for the financial system of our enemies. There, 
 where the legislators have the imprudence to open the veins 
 of the state, the exhaustion, a mortal exhaustion, is inevita- 
 ble. In talking to u-s of the prosperity of England, have they 
 made all these reflections'? As for the public credit, does it 
 not repose in safety under a good administration, under re- 
 forms that have been accomplished, and not promised only ? 
 Would they make us believe, also, that the public credit de- 
 pends upon the tax on salt"! Yes, without doubt, it is what 
 the Citizens Males and Jacqueminot want to make us be- 
 lieve. I will reply to them by a single observation which 
 will destroy all their reasoning : We have made funds for 
 six hundred thousand men and eighty ships of war. Our army 
 and our marine remain under that number. . . There cannot 
 then exist, at this moment, a deficiency so pressing to force 
 the contractors to double the price of their bargain. We 
 are assured, however, tliat the distrust of those contractors 
 really exists. Well, if that is really the case, we must at- 
 tribute it to other causes. ... It is the enormous sacrifices 
 that are exacted by the subaltern agents which cause the 
 dearness of the markets. It is there, and not in the doctrine 
 of Smith, that you should see the source of the discredit and 
 the mistrust ; and if the directory knows how to punish 
 those who abuse its confidence, the dearness of the prices 
 will cease, and the effects will disappear with the cause. 
 
 " To justify the taxes upon the objects of the first neces- 
 sity, they talk of the superiority and the facility of their 
 collection. So be it. But all that is useful is not always 
 conformable to our duties. We will not renounce this sa- 
 cred principle, that in a free country, they may tax property y 
 but not the person. To conquer our repugnance, they en- 
 deavour to show us that, by the augmentation relative to the 
 price of days of the workman, it is always in the definitive, 
 it is the rich who acquit the tax. Strange reasoning ! If 
 the price of the days of the workmen increases, their num- 
 ber will diminish; and work and money being synonymous 
 for the poor, he would lose on one side what he would gain 
 by that increase of salary ; if it was real, would it not be al- 
 ways in proportion with the increase of the price of provis- 
 ions'? Would that indemnify, with exactitude, him who, 
 every evening, finds beneath his thatch a family who look up 
 to him for bread ■? To understand that theory of which they 
 appear to be so proud, every workman ought to put the same 
 price upon his work ; but for that, ought not all the work- 
 men to have the same number of mouths to feed 1 The sin- 
 gle man, then, having less necessities than the father of a 
 family, will he not sell his work dearer ? As he is generally 
 younger and stronger, the single man would be preferred ; 
 and the father of a family would be but too happy to imitate, 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 95 
 
 for the price of his day's work, him who is more vigorous 
 and who has less wants. ... If he found work at the same 
 price as the single man, his work would be insufficient to 
 satisfy his family with that commodity that you had taxed 
 vvithout remorse. Is every workman also certain of finding 
 work every day ] And if he cannot find any, or if he is ill, 
 what becomes of your proportions between the price of 
 provisions and the price of his day's work 1 You may find 
 that chimerical proportion in Smith's book, for what mny not 
 be found in books 1 but you will not find it upon the pallet 
 of the poor man dying with hunger ! The unfortunate, the 
 women, the old men who can no longer work, the little for- 
 tunes, the small pensioners, the parents of warriors, where 
 will they find a compensation for the dearness with which 
 your law would strike their bread or their salt T 
 
 " Representatives of the people, those classes that are 
 poor and respectable should draw our attention, more than 
 those classes who know only luxury, and know not what it 
 is to want. No ; while the brothers and the sons of the 
 citizens shed their blood in the service of the republic, you 
 will not permit that such a system of taxes should arrive to 
 render the existence of their families more diflScult, already 
 sufficiently painful. 
 
 " Do not forget that the welfare of the people depends 
 upon the lowness of the price of provisions necessary for 
 their existence ; that every day's comfort, which consoles 
 and sustains the poor, and which alone can soften the bitter- 
 ness of that inequality of fortune inherent to our poor nature. 
 If by our laws we diminish and destroy the only wealth of the 
 greatest number, we betray our first duty. 
 " " I trust you will not approve of that impious doctrine. 
 With our eyes turned towards our constituents, let us not be 
 carried away by weakness to the evil that we have already 
 repulsed so many times. No ; notwithstanding the wonder- 
 ful art of opposing to your good intentions, address, and ob- 
 stinacy, notwithstanding the attacks that are renewed with- 
 out ceasing, ive will not tax the provisions that are of the first 
 necessity. I can vouch for your paternal sohcitude, and all 
 those generous sentiments which animate you, the monopo- 
 lizers will be baffled a fourth time, and they will learn that 
 in a republic they are sometimes deceived in prophesying 
 the acts of the legislative body. 
 
 " I suppose that the defenders of the project of the coni- 
 mission have employed every possible reasoning to cause it 
 to be adopted : but "^I never could have supposed that they 
 could have seen in that tax upon salt the true popularity. . . . 
 Party spirit, the envy of domineering without any obstacle, 
 might change enough in some heads the natural signification 
 of the words ; so that they call anarchy fidelity to the prin- 
 ciples of a mandate, and accuse even silence of conspiracy. 
 
83 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 But do they hope to make the nation partakers of the same 
 delirium, who listens and judges as a sovereign the words 
 and acts of its deputies ? Do they hope to persuade it, that 
 it is for the love of the people that they have employed, for 
 so long a time, in favour of the tax upon salt, the placards, 
 the libels, and the injuries with which the ministerial journals 
 are filled, and which all the other instruments of the press 
 copy with a servility that is but little honourable to them? 
 Will the people believe that their welfare will be increased 
 at the same time as the fortune of the monopolizers 1 It 
 would be in vain to reckon upon so much good nature. 
 
 *' The true popularity of a legislator is that which he ob- 
 tains in watching and defending the interests of the public, 
 with as much zeal as if it was his own personal interest. 
 Or, let me ask, who is he, who, after having approved with 
 his eyes shut the accounts of his house, would continue, 
 without ceasing, to grant fresh funds, before he had assured 
 himself that those which he had already given were ex- 
 pended 1 Such a senseless conduct is exactly what they 
 propose to us; and the defenders of the tax upon salt have 
 in vain ei-deavoured to weaken the contradiction of their 
 principles with the republican principles which direct us: 
 they cannot efface from their project the seal of national 
 reprobation. 
 
 " I leave aside the details of the project. For myself, I 
 will only consider the principle under which that tax re- 
 poses. It is in hatred of this principle that your conviction 
 has been already expressed by a reiterated refusal : the con- 
 viction of the legislator does not change in a few days, ex- 
 cept he finds himself justly exposed to decline in public 
 opinion. 
 
 " I shall conclude by only recalling to you, as several 
 orators have done who have preceded me, that this tax 
 would be of use alone during this present year to those who 
 have stored their warehouses with salt, which your three 
 decisions against the tax could not prevent. The law upon 
 salt in the warehouses will open a new source for the dilapi- 
 dations of a thousand agents. It will produce but a feeble 
 increase to the treasury, even from the declaration of your 
 own commissioners. The people support all the weight ; 
 the speculators alone will receive the benefit ; and the next 
 day they would come again to ask you, with the same cal- 
 culations and the same reasonings, a new indirect contribu- 
 tion which would probably enrich again fresh speculators, 
 equally as provident as those of to-day. . . . Thus the 
 tax upon tobacco, valued at ten millions in the project, is re- 
 duced to four millions after the law. . . . Thus we no 
 longer hear valued at sixteen millions the tax upon gates 
 and windows At the aspect of such reductions, might we 
 not compare our budget of the year 7 to the infernal cask of 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 97 
 
 the Danaides 1 And certainly we will not be condemned to 
 fill it without ceasing with the tears of those who have con- 
 fided to us their defence. 
 
 " I resume : — and I demand the order of the day upon the 
 tax on salt ; and that they declare to me in principle, that 
 there shall not be any tax made upon the commodities of 
 the first necessity. 
 
 " I demand, also, tjiat previous to any proposition for a new 
 tax, the commissions united, present us a precise report 
 upon the economies, the reforms, and the meliorations, in 
 the collections already established. After this report, we 
 shall know if there exists a deficit ; and in that case, it is 
 our duty to surround the directory with all her constitution- 
 al strength, I demand that your commissioners present di- 
 rectly the projects of the taxes, provided they do not weigh 
 upon the commodities of the first necessity. 
 
 *' I insist, above all, that the principle be put to the vote." 
 
 This discourse excited a great deal of agitation in the 
 council. The public galleries applauded, notwithstanding 
 the rules, and were called to order. They ordered an im- 
 pression of the discourse. The reporter Males felt very 
 sensibly so direct an attack. 
 
 " I will undertake beforehand," he cried, " the engage- 
 ment to pulverize .... to prove that Lucien Bonaparte, 
 against his intentions, without doubt, has committed capital 
 errors. I demand for the discussion to continue." 
 
 The discussion was adjourned to the next day. We did 
 not doubt the result. The directorials, exasperated, were 
 disconcerted ; the opposition from that day took a character 
 of violence that it had not before. 
 
 The next day the Deputy Creuze Latouche, in a very elo- 
 quent discourse, defended the tax and the commissions of 
 the finances. He raised the hopes of the partisans of the 
 tax, as he talked on my pretended errors in calculation. I 
 had printed the same day in the Moniteur the following 
 note : 
 
 " The Citizen Creuze Latouche has affirmed in his dis- 
 course of the 14th, that 1 had committed an error in calcu- 
 lation ; I think it right to deny that assertion, as it is abso- 
 lutely false. 
 
 " I said that the deficit did not appear to me to be fifty mil- 
 lions, because upon the 24th of Vendemiaire, the Citizen Des- 
 trem, in the name of the commission having brought the defi- 
 cit to fifty-five millions, and the tax upon the windows being 
 valued at sixteen millions, by the Citizen Males himself, it 
 evidently results that the deficit cannot be fifty-five, but le&s 
 by sixteen, that is to say thirty-nine millions: — except the 
 
 1 
 
98 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 commissioner formally disavows his report of the 24th Ven- 
 deraiaire, a disavowal which, not having been made, cannot 
 serve to form the opinions of the representatives of the 
 people. 
 
 " This, then, is what I said, and from whence I conclude 
 that the deficit was not so great as the reporter told us ; but 
 neither he, nor any other person, has replied to the in- 
 quiry. 
 
 " I never pretended that the taxes proposed by the Citizen 
 Destreni would have supplied the deficit, because I knew 
 very well that sum had been rejected, and the others reduced. 
 I have then only calculated the taxes of the Citizen DesLrem 
 for sixteen millions. I have heard that that sum was to di- 
 minish so much of the deficit, and not that it was to supply 
 it. The supposition of the Citizen Creuze Latouche is then 
 gratuitous, and the error is in consequence upon his side, 
 as he has taken wrong my opinion upon the actual deficit !" 
 
 This note remained without an answer : it was impossible 
 to refute it. 
 
 But the directory thought itself sufficiently strong not to 
 draw back. The last victories in Piedmont and Naples had 
 increased their audacity ; they addressed to us, during the 
 sitting, a message where they rendered us responsible for 
 our delay in completing the receipts : that document finished 
 thus : " The government absolves itself in the eyes of the 
 republic from all responsibility for the disastrous conse- 
 quences that an interruption of the most sacred and urgent 
 circumstances will cause." 
 
 This message, of which the reading followed the discourse 
 of Creuse Latouche, irritated us — as it was evidently made 
 to force us to their will. It was not, however, without ef- 
 fect upon impartial and undecided minds. The partisans of 
 the government endeavoured to profit by that circumstance 
 to close the discussion. Girod Pouzol, who was much es- 
 teemed in the council, insisted upon their voting instantly : 
 *' It is precisely," said he, " because they heard yesterday a 
 very luminous and eloquent opinion against the project — and 
 to-day, for the project, an opinion equally eloquent and 
 luminous, that I demand the close of the discussion. I do 
 not believe there is anything new to be heard upon that 
 subject." 
 
 1 was, for my part, disposed to put it to the vote. Not 
 having as yet experience in the assemblies, I did not imagine 
 that the art of profiting by an incident often decides the vic- 
 tory. One of my colleagues, better informed than I was, 
 warned me that if they voted at that moment, the rax would 
 pass. 1 profited by his advice ; and notwithstanding the 
 comphraent that Girod Pouzol had addressed to me, I fol- 
 lowed him to the tribune, where I combated him as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 99 
 
 ** I do not see why the discourses that have hitherto been 
 pronounced appear sufficient, and why all the orators that 
 are registered are not to be heard. Certainly they have not 
 said all that might have been said, which is proved by their 
 refusing to hear what there remains to say. Whatever argu- 
 ments or imputations they may make upon the subject ; 
 whatever accusations of conspiration they may form, and 
 from whatever authority those perfidious suggestions may 
 proceed, I shall remain as insensible to personalities as the 
 marble of this tribune. I shall listen only to the voice of my 
 conscience ; and I shall do only that which I think conform 
 able to the interests of the people. 
 
 '* Who shall dare to say that there has existed here an 
 opposition tending to deprive the government of the means 
 which are necessary for it 1 Was it not with general con- 
 sent that the 200,000 conscripts were called to arms, and 
 that the 125 millions destined for their maintenance was 
 voted. They announce to us to-day a deficit — they demand 
 fresh resources. Ought we not to discuss the necessity, the 
 results, the advantages, and the inconveniences ] Must our 
 determination be carried away by an incident, by an influ- 
 ence out of the council 1 We should prove, on the contrary, 
 to our constituents, that we have decided only after having 
 maturely weighed their interests. There is never a respon- 
 sibility for the representatives of the people to discuss in 
 liberty. I demand that the discussion may continue." 
 
 The discussion continued. The effects of the directorial 
 message, skilfully arranged, were neutralized in that sitting ; 
 but they had alarmed the timid. Two days were again em- 
 ployed to combat and defend the unfortunate tax, that the 
 government desired to have at any price. It was in vain 
 that they were offered several taxes equivalent, and that 
 were easier to collect. . . . They repulsed all that was 
 o-ffered. After a very stormy sitting, the government gained 
 by forty-six voices. After the adoption of the principle 
 which was so odious to us, we desired at least to diminish 
 the evil — the tax was fixed at a halfpenny in the pound. I 
 desired that it should not be increased, and although discour- 
 aged, I again spoke upon the reduction of the first article, 
 and proposed the following amendment : — 
 
 " 1 propose to declare that the tax of a halfpenny per 
 pound upon salt can never be increased. The majority pro- 
 nounced yesterday. It does not follow that we should again 
 renew the combat : but it is necessary to shut the mouths 
 of the malevolent, and not to leave them the pretext of ac- 
 cusing your intentions. I do not see why you repulse my 
 amendment. Will they, in opposition to this, pretend that, 
 as the legislative body votes every year the contributions, 
 what I propose is useless and unconstitutionaH But the 
 project of law says, lower down, that the right cannot be 
 
100 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 confirmed! . . . If you thus anticipate the decision of your 
 successors, you might as well decree that the tax should not 
 be augmented. In making this proposition, I consider my- 
 self the organ of several of our colleagues whose opinions 
 were quite contrary to the tax, and who have finished by 
 consenting only in consequence of the lowness of the price 
 of the tax. This declaration, which I beg of yon not to re- 
 fuse to make, will have the good effect of tranquiiiizing the 
 contributaries : it will impose silence upon the malevolent, 
 who are ever ready to seize upon occasions to do mischief, 
 and to impoison our intentions, and to throw a discredit 
 upon our decrees. They will not fail to say, that you are 
 contented to-day with a halfpenny, but that to-morrow you will 
 exact two or three, &c. 1 insist upon the declaration which 
 I propose as an amendment to your first article," My pro- 
 positron was repulsed ; the majority would not embeMish 
 their victory by moderation. Sad victory, which served 
 only to make enemies for the directory ; for the council of 
 ancients rejected the tax after a debate that was equally as 
 sharp and as prolonged as ours, in which Cornet, Lemercier, 
 and Boudin, decided the votes in our favour. The project 
 of law was sent back to us. The directory resigned itself 
 by force, and our commissions of the finances occupied 
 themselves with new endeavours necessary to make up the 
 deficit. 
 
 I have, perhaps, detained my readers too long upon that 
 question ; but it appears to me that it is not without interest 
 at the moment in which 1 write. Many of the departments 
 of France complain, at this very time, against the tax upon 
 salt ; for that tax, so often repulsed by us under the republic, 
 was adopted under the imperial monarchy, which does not 
 make any sort of change in my conviction. It was a sad 
 deviation from the popular spirit which animated the empe- 
 ror when that tax was re-established afterward. For these 
 thirty years past our financial system has made no sort of 
 liberal progress, since the person of the man who has only 
 his hands for his fortune, is struck by our taxes ; as if that 
 personal charge did not sufficiently oppress him, other taxes 
 raise the price of commodities of the first necessity. These 
 are the abuses which are really counter revolutionary, and 
 evidently in opposition to the principles of 1789, which the 
 French press should combat without ceasing. It is in suc- 
 couring the most numerous classes, and not in doubtful the- 
 ories, that the social progress consists. 
 
 Besides, this grand struggle was sustained on each side, 
 in the two councils, with an impetuosity which was very fatal 
 to the directory. It was th«n that the conviction was estab- 
 lished, in many people's minds, that such pilots were very 
 likely to shipwreck us. The conduct of the council of an- 
 cients was highly politic. It is by sustaining the material 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 101 
 
 interests of the people that a legislative assembly becomes 
 powerful: whether that chamber is composed of young or 
 old, let it be elective for life, or hereditary, there is no real, 
 strength for it, but in its popularity. Wo to tliose who, for- 
 getting that, repose their whole strength of right upon the 
 sword. In a free state, a representative chamber is nothing 
 when it has lost public opinion ; and the sword will not sus- 
 tain a longtime that authority which opinion has condemned. 
 
 Month of Ventose. Germinal and Floreal, year 7. From the 
 20th of February to the 2isl May, 1799. 
 
 New Elections contrary to the Directory — Assassination of our Pleni- 
 DOtentiaries at Rastadt — Sieyes named Director. 
 
 I. THE POWERS. 
 
 The spirit of peace and reconciliation in the American na- 
 tion, triumphed over a vanity skilfully envenomed by diplo- 
 macy. The president named three negotiators, of whom the 
 congress and the people beheld the choice with equal satis- 
 faction. That measure retarded the probability of a fratri- 
 cide war between the two grand republics of the new and 
 ancient world. 
 
 Russia and the Porte signed their treaty of alliance at Jas- 
 sy. Our heroic expedition to Egypt, formed against the Rus- 
 sian and English influence, had for its first results, the con- 
 trary of that which they desired to obtain, natural effect of 
 a vast plan of which they neglected one of the principal 
 parts. The directory was culpable in forgetting the mission 
 of the Citizen Talleyrand at Constantinople. That individual 
 egotism could have deterred a public man from a journey 
 which might have terminated in the Seven Towers, was per- 
 fectly natural ; but a government which holds the reins with 
 so feeble a hand, is a thousand times more culpable than its 
 agents. The Russians did not lose sight of the islands of 
 Greece. After a resistance of several months, Corfu yielded 
 at length to the fleets of the czar. The gold which Pitt 
 accorded to Austria, was in the end to be repaid by streams 
 of blood of the Continent. The Archduke Charles had 
 passed the river Jun, and directed his columns towards Ulm. 
 The General Jourdan had passed the Rhine. The Count 
 Metternich, ambassador of Austria at Rastadt, ceased to 
 dissimulate, and satisfied with having prevented our peace 
 with Europe, he quitted the congress. Our army of the 
 Danube, which was at first victorious, was surrounded by 
 forces so much superior, that it was obliged to repass the 
 Rhine. A long train of reverses began for us, Suwarrow, 
 
 I 3 
 
102 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 at the he^d of a Russian and Austrian army, invaded Italy, 
 and passed the Adige at Eridan. 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 Switzerland, valiantly defended by Massena, was the 
 only one of the alUed republics that seconded us power- 
 fully. She reaped the fruits of our success. The Grisons, 
 delivered from the Austrian troops, expressed loudly their 
 desire to be united with Helvetia ; and that union, not nom- 
 inal only, was real and absolute, and consolidated by the 
 Helvetian confederation. 
 
 Less fortunate, the Italian republics struggled at the same 
 time against their interior troubles, and the victories of 
 Suwarrow. In the Cisalpine, the enemies of the direc- 
 torial innovations had powerfully favoured the success of the 
 coalition. At home, the misfortunes of Pius VI., torn from 
 his throne and dragged to Florence, to Turin, to Parma, and 
 at last to Brian9on, kindled implacable hatreds. At Naples, 
 the emissaries of Sicily, protected by the Enghsh fleets, had 
 raised the Calabrians. Everything at once conspired against 
 us. The Cisalpine directory evacuated Milan with our army. 
 
 III. THE ARMIES. 
 
 Upon the renewal of hostilities, we had invaded Tuscany ; 
 but it was not sufficient for our armies to have to defend 
 themselves aerainst enemies that were more numerous, and 
 against the factions that divided our allies. It was necessary, 
 also, at the same time, to struggle against the agents of our 
 own ministry. Previous to his commanding in Italy, the 
 minister of war, Scherer, misled by an unseasonable rigour, 
 or carried away by the dilapidators of our financ n, had let 
 loose upon Italy agents, commibsaries, inspectors, who, de- 
 siring to appropriate all the administrative powers to them- 
 selves, thwarted the generals, and carried disorder into our 
 military administrations. Championet, fatigued with all their 
 stratagems, and convinced that those commissaries put the 
 army in danger, and irritated with reason at seeing them in 
 his general quarters, giving orders opposed to his own, caused 
 several of the ministerial agents to be arrested. He ex- 
 ceeded his powers without doubt, but the safety of the army 
 justified his conduct. Deprived of his employrlient, and ar- 
 rested by order of the directory, the council of war declared 
 him innocent, and the only effect of that unreasonable sever- 
 ity, was the disorganization of our army, and discontenting 
 it at the moment of combat. If the council of Vienna had 
 dictated such measures, it could not have chosen a better 
 time to afflict us. Macdonald replaced Championnet. Mas- 
 sena took the command of all the armies of Germany. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 103 
 
 Scherer, equally as unlucky a general as he had been an un- 
 lucky minister, was replaced too late by Joubertand Moreau. 
 This last, after having retired in good order by the river of 
 Genoa, waited for Macdonald to join him in Tuscany, and 
 to endeavour by that junction to recall fortune beneath our 
 standards. The Cisalpine evacuated ; the rest of Italy com- 
 promised ; Germany in the hands of Austria — such had been 
 in a few weeks the combined results of the directorial in- 
 ability and misfortune, terrible ordeal of governments as well 
 as individuals. 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 What an effect must a change so prompt and unexpected 
 have produced in the interior ? In the first three months the 
 measures to complete the two hundred thousand conscripts, 
 and to have them equipped by the municipalities, were de- 
 creed by urgency. We voted in the month of Pluviose for 
 taxes to make up the deficit not proved of fifty-five millions ; 
 and after those taxes were accorded, they had the courage 
 to affirm to us that the deficit was sixty-seven millions ! 
 Thus the last taxes, instead of making up the deficit, had 
 increased it. We, however, resigned ourselves, and granted 
 unanimously fresh funds. The tax on gates and windoM^s 
 was doubled : all gave way to the discussions on the finances. 
 We desired only to have explained to us the cause of this 
 eternal deficit, and I spoke to that effect as follows upon the 
 sitting of the 28th of Floreal : — 
 
 *' I claim also the priority for the finances ; but we must 
 declare that there still exists a deficit, not because the 
 legislative body has neglected to raise receipl.s to the level 
 of the expenses, but because the vices of the administration 
 have increased the expenses beyond the receipts. If the 
 new deficit really exists, it has no right to exist. That dis- 
 tinction ^ihould be loudly published. But, however, what- 
 ever may be the cause of the disorder, it must be repaired. 
 Cast your eyes upon our threatened frontiers, upon the 
 Cif^alpine overflowed with blood, and you will feel the ne- 
 cessity to make that lava vomited by the British volcano ret- 
 rograde. Union is more necessary for us than ever, of 
 men. of monev, and above all, public spirit. To raise that 
 public spirit, which can alone assure to us all the rest, let 
 us render to the press her liberty ; not that liberty which 
 disfigures its license, but that which does not permit crime 
 to envelope itself in darkness, but courageously brands it 
 with the zeal of pubucity. Bitter recollections may without 
 doubt bring forth imprudent reproaches; but the wisdom 
 and the concord of the powers; will save the republic, and 
 particular resentments will give way before the general in- 
 terest. They would feel only that neither with us, or with 
 
104 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 our allies, they must not extinguish generous sentiments, 
 nor proclaim patriotic indifference as a supreme virtue. 
 "When we have given our armies the victorious attitude which 
 they ought to have, then we shall know how, with a firm 
 hand, to establish the equilibrium of the powers. In the* 
 mean time, do not fear to give new strength to the govern- 
 ment ; fear only to retard for a moment a remedy for the 
 ills of the state." 
 
 All then was granted, but in vain : there was no longer 
 either intelligence or harmony among them. The directory 
 occupied itself with elections, of which the epoch was ar- 
 rived in the midst of that crisis of reverses. It was also the 
 time when they were to replace one of the directors. Peo- 
 ple's minds were in a state of excitement from the danger, 
 and were inclined to violent measures. The elections ap- 
 peared to be for the greatest part in favour of the Jacobins ; 
 and the government, seriously alarmed, was not afraid of 
 employing every means to influence the choice of the elec- 
 toral assemblies. The minister of the interior made a proc- 
 lamation against the anarchists, which was violently at- 
 tacked in the council of ancients. On our side, ministe- 
 rial manoeuvres against the independence of the elections 
 were not spared, and it was upon this subject that the oppo- 
 sition became more violent than ever. To make up the 
 number of votes, the electoral minorities were almost every- 
 where separated from the majorities, so that, in fact, there 
 were two assemblies instead of one : and as it was for the 
 chamber to pronounce upon the validity of the elections, by 
 assuring the majority of the councils, they could make the 
 electoral minorities triumph when they chose. Such a sys- 
 tem was, unfortunately for the directory, its only chance of 
 safety ; and they failed in that plan of campaign in the in- 
 terior, as they had done in their plans of campaign in Ger- 
 many and Italy. The two councils defended with emula- 
 tion the independence of choice. I was not the last to sig- 
 nalize myself, and I attacked in the following terms the elec- 
 tions of the department of the Escant : — 
 
 " Those elections might be approved of, if they could only 
 reproach the college with a fault in the forms ; but can they 
 dare to call so the illegal arrestations, the arbitrary deposings, 
 the menaces, the means of an influence so truly criminal 1 
 Those are not irregularities, bivt outrages against the nation 
 in the days of the exercise of her sovereignty. If they call 
 faults in the forms — those crimes which they denounce to us 
 . — all then is but a form, and the popular omnipotence, and 
 the representative power, and the electoral right, are only 
 vain illusions. I demand of the reporter of your commis- 
 sions a precise explanation. Is it true that they have arrest- 
 ed the members of the bureau"? Is it true that they have de- 
 posed the functionaries for having refused to vote at the will 
 
LUCIEN' BONAPARTE. 105 
 
 of Others ? Is it true that they proposed to an elector that 
 infamous compact, either to suffer a mandate of arrest, or to 
 vote against his conscience ? If these details are true, I can- 
 not see in the elections in question the desire of the people. 
 I see only crimes committed to stifle the public will beneath 
 the particular will. Is not liberty the first character of elec- 
 tions ? Where there is no liberty, the election cannot be 
 valid, whatever may be the number of the majority." 
 
 Notv/ithstanding its efforts, the directory heard every day 
 the names of its adversaries come out of the electoral urn. 
 Jourdan, whose plan of campaign had been neutralized by 
 the contradictory orders of the minister, Augereau, who had 
 been recompensed for the eighteenth Fructidor by distrust 
 and forgetfulness. The General Lamarque, and a great num- 
 ber of ancient conventionals, formed a part of the third of 
 the new legislative body. The position of the government, 
 not to render us worse than w^e were, stood in need of suc- 
 cess for the time present, and a ministerial election for the 
 morrow. But fortune granted them nothing. . . . And 
 to complete the measure, that long comedy of the congress 
 of Rastadt, which had only served to protect the prepara- 
 tions of the coalition, terminated by the most horrible trag- 
 edy. Our plenipotentiaries, Roberjot and Bonnier, were 
 massacred by the Austrian hussars. Jean de Bry escaped, 
 covered with wounds ; and his letters raised the minds of the 
 people to the highest pitch of exasperation. The cry of 
 vengeance resounded at every sitting in the council. The 
 most speedy means appeared the best. Order was forgotten, 
 for that revolutionary ardour which sees only the end, and 
 springs towards it by the shortest road, even amid preci- 
 pices. 
 
 The chance fell upon the Director Rewbell to leave the di- 
 rectory. We named at the council of five hundred ten can- 
 didates to replace that director. The name of Sieyes, which 
 we had placed at the head of the list, was marked by opinion 
 as the hope of a constitutional reform, of which we all felt 
 the inevitable necessity. The council of ancients, in fact, 
 chose Sieyes ; and at the same time, the o-nly one of our 
 ministers who had escaped from the cavern of Rastadt. 
 Jean de Bry was named president of our council. Vengeance 
 agriinst the Austrians ! Disgust of the directorial system ! 
 A vague confidence in the new director! Profound and too 
 late regrets ! The absence of Napoleon, of whom fame pub- 
 lished "constantly the new successes in Syria! Such were 
 the sentiments of the nation at that period of distress. 
 
106 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 The month of Praireal to the 15th of Messiaor, year 7. From 
 the 21st of May to the 4th of July, 1799. 
 
 Success of Suwarrow — Trotibles in the Interior— Dismission of the Di- 
 rector Treilhard — Conspiracy in the Councils against the Directors 
 Merlin and La Reveillere — Distinction between the Liberty of the 
 Press, and the Independence of the Newspapers — My Report in the 
 name of the Commission of Eleven — Permanence— Coup d'Etat of the 
 30th Praireal— Renewal of the Executive Power — The 30th Praireal 
 compared with the 30th July — Without Popular Voting, there is no Na- 
 tional Legitimacy . 
 
 I. THE POWERS. 
 
 The resistance of Prussia to the suggestions of England, 
 even after our first reverses, was attributed to the influence 
 of Sieyes, whose acceptation was received with an almost 
 universal satisfaction. The good which he had done when 
 ambassador served as a pretext for malevolence, and they 
 repeated, with perfidious concealment, that he was in per- 
 fect understanding with the King of Berlin. They were 
 certain that there had been long and secret conferences be- 
 tween them ; that the king had accompanied him for several 
 hours beyond the gates of Potsdam. They talked of a rich 
 portrait, and transformed into a mark of special favour a gift 
 which it is the custom to give to ambassadors at their depar- 
 ture. The enemies of the republic felt, that as the hope of a 
 political amelioration depended upon Sieyes, it was upon 
 him that they must strike. The new director, therefore, was 
 scarcely installed, but they had succeeded in throwing a mys- 
 terious suspicion upon his intelligences with Prussia, and 
 they endeavoured to interpret thus the neutrality of that 
 power. 
 
 Spain had united her fleet with ours ; and that junction, 
 "which had given us for a moment the empire of the Medi- 
 terranean, obliged England to augment her maritime arma- 
 ments. 
 
 The Russian Turkish fleet overran the Adriatic, and men- 
 aced the port of Ancona. Fortunately it had not any troops 
 to disembark, 
 
 Suwarrow continued his triumphant march in Italy; he 
 took the town of Milan, and a few days after, the fortress, 
 as the town hoisted the Muscovite flag. 
 
 Upon the Rhine they fought before the fortress of Kell. 
 The armies of the archduke extended to our frontiers. In 
 Switzerland, Massena himself, after five days of obstinate, 
 bloody, and glorious battles, was obliged to abandon Zurich 
 to the Austrians, whose eagle also dominated over the sum* 
 mits of Mont St. Gothard, 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 107 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 The directorial constitution, imposed upon Helvetia by the 
 proselytism of forms, which had been so fatal to us, had ex- 
 cited many resentments in several cantons, and above all at 
 Zurich. Massena had more than once experienced the in- 
 dolence and ill will of that important town ; and our enemies 
 had very few antipathies to encounter upon their entry. 
 Several other cantons, and above all the high valleys, de- 
 clared themselves openly against us. Eight thousand in- 
 surgents combated our columns on both sides of the Rhone. 
 Defeated several times by the General Xaintrailles, they 
 were not the less useful auxiliaries for the coalition. 
 
 There were no longer any republics in Italy, if we except 
 that of Genoa, of which the retreat of our army prolonged 
 the existence. The peasants also of Oneglia had risen in 
 rebellion, and annoyed us very much by opposing the arrival 
 of the provisions for our army. The priests were every- 
 where at the head of the revolted ; the pope basely and use- 
 lessly dragged from one prison to another, how was it pos- 
 sible not to irritate the whole of the Catholic population ? ■ 
 
 The Consuls of Rome, the Directors of Naples and Milan, 
 had taken refuge in our camp, their only asylum. The Cis- 
 alpine director, Adelasio, and many others belonging to the 
 republic, were seen to pass to the service of Austria. 
 
 " It is belter,''^ they observed in their proclamations, " to 
 obey a German archduke than a French cominissary .'" In op- 
 position to that conduct, we learned with great satisfaction 
 that the General Lahoz, although repulsed, deposed, and ar- 
 rested by the French government, for having protested 
 against the innovations of Trouve, had not hesitated to arm 
 for the common cause in the moment of danger. He de- 
 fended Bologna as long as it was possible against superior 
 forces. Some time afterward, this general, overburdened 
 with new persecutions, turned against us ; but at the time in 
 question, his honourable conduct, as well as the defection of 
 Adelasio, was equally a reproach upon the politic of our di- 
 rectory; and upon the successive oad news, we trembled to 
 see our destinies confined to the authors of so many disasters. 
 
 ' III. THE ARMIES. 
 
 Macdonald, after having left the kingdom of Naples and 
 traversed the Roman states, dispersing upon his road swarms 
 of insurgents, arrived in Tuscany. That province, generally 
 peaceful, appeared to have changed its character. Cortona 
 and Arrezzo vomited against us multitudes of armed and fu- 
 rious men : it was necessary to subdue them to assure our 
 retreat, and to take possession of both those towns by main 
 force. In the midst of so many obstacles, Macdonald drew 
 
108 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 near to Moreau, who saw no other hope of safety against 
 Suwarrow, except that junction of our two armies. 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 Sieyes was at the Luxembourg ; but four of the ancient 
 directors were still there. . . . The opposition calling itself 
 constitutional, had gained, since our reverses, a great num- 
 ber of partisans. The Jacobin opposition confounded itself 
 with us. This movement, which at first we did not perceive, 
 became evident afterward: the directory had lost the ma- 
 jority in the two councils. The new majority beheld Sieyes 
 as favourably, as it beheld with an evil eye his four colleagues. 
 We were desirous, however, of waiting to see the first effects 
 of the admission of the statesman into that disgraced pen- 
 tarchy. We resigned ourselves to fresh sacrifices : the 
 land tax contributions were augmented a tenth. The most 
 influential deputies drew towards a reconciliation with the 
 government. We endeavoured to forget the past, that we 
 might avoid a more disastrous future ; and Jacobins, consti- 
 tutionals, and directorials, were for several days confounded 
 altogether in one single body. 
 
 I only knew the orator of the tiers Hat by his renown ; and 
 I hastened., to see and hoar him. I saw him continually, and 
 I conceived so very high an esteem for him, that I hoped for 
 the present salvation of the republic, and its legislative ame- 
 lioration for the future, if such a man could induce his col- 
 leagues to follow his steps. 
 
 After some interviews 1 was completely devoted to him. 
 That sentiment which I had felt at first but vaguely, became 
 a sentiment of profound esteem. The legislative power and 
 the executive power had been ill seated in the constitution 
 of the year 3. There was no longer an equilibrium existing 
 between those powers ; we went from one masterpiece of 
 policy to another. That conservative equilibrium was what 
 we wanted to acquire to found a durable republic, armt'd 
 equally against the excesses of the government and the rep- 
 resentative chambers. 
 
 But the point in question was not of amelioration : the 
 question was how to escape from Suwarrow. Unfortunately 
 the ancient directors, envious of their new colleague, instead 
 of aiding him, took a great pleasure in thwarting him. Not 
 only they did not profit by the new resources that were ac- 
 corded to them by the councils, but they even had the auda- 
 city to reply to our indulgence, by a report from the minister 
 of the finances which justified the deficit, and attributed all 
 the reverses to us, because we had not given enough. That 
 report awakened the councils. We then formed the resolu- 
 tion to renew the directory without delay. We considered 
 that without that masterpiece of policy, the repubhc had 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 109 
 
 everything to fear. We resolved, therefore, to begin by an 
 individual attack, which at the same time should not deviate 
 from legal order. Treilhard, one of the directors, had been 
 named before a year had elapsed since he had left the legisla- 
 tive body. It was agreed to make use of that pretext of 
 form, to turn out Treilhard, and give to Sieyes a colleague 
 who partook of his opinions. We fixed our choice upon a 
 deputy of the ancients, Roger Ducos ; and the attack against 
 the government a moment suspended, recommenced more 
 regularly. This time it was combined in the two councils; 
 it struck progressively, but with a certain blow. 
 
 Rewbell, upon quitting the directory, entered the council 
 of ancients. Scherer, the ex-minister of war, was his rela- 
 tion. Rewbell had always looked up to him for support. 
 
 At the sitting of the 6th of Praireal, Dubois Dubay, in a 
 report against the dilapidators, signalized Scherer for the 
 public vengeance ; he accused the directory of having caused 
 the misfortunes of the state by the most disordinate and 
 shameful adniinistration. He proposed to pursue the dilapi- 
 dators, whether they were covered with a senatorial robe, 
 or whether they wore the mantle of a director. Rewbell 
 considered himself personally attacked in that indication, 
 and he protested against it with energy. They passed to 
 the order of the day ; but the attack resounded, and was re- 
 peated in the council of five hundred. They summoned the 
 directory upon the accounts of Scherer, who demanded of 
 his own accord to be judged, and surrendered himself pris- 
 oner. They replied as he merited, to the report of the 
 minister of the finances, whose duplicity was evident. 
 They demanded the accounts of the different ministers. 
 Briot and Garreau declared that the directory had given 
 funds for a representation of the opera of Adrian, where, 
 said they, a triumphant Caesar was shown at the moment 
 when the C?esar of Germany had just conquered our armies. 
 The last accusation, frivolous as it was, showed to what 
 a point opinion was irritated against the government ; it was 
 received, and the ministers were denounced one after another. 
 A pamphlet full of invective was diffused everywhere with 
 profusion ; and as the censure upon the nev/spapers existed 
 since the 18th FructiJor, tiiey demanded the report of the 
 law of censure, and they discussed the project of the com- 
 missions, of which 1 was a member, upon the abuss of the 
 press. The diiectors could no longer dissimulate tl.^t me 
 storm menaced them ; the Luxembourg begin to be deserted, 
 except the quarter of Sieyes una that of Barras, where in- 
 trigue still retR'ii'^d some unq-iiet partisan?-. 
 
 The public galleries of the councils were filled with fresh 
 spectators, who appeared to foresee an approaching tempest ; 
 they applauded, notwithstanding the rules, everything ihat 
 was said against the government, and their clamours exer- 
 
 K 
 
110 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 cised the patience of the president, and recalled the tumults 
 of the convention. 
 
 The news which we received from the departments of the 
 West, and the Mide, brought every day fresh aliments to the 
 effervescence; the reve"ses of our armies had encouraged 
 unworthy Frenchmen, vv^ho did not blush to make a common 
 cause with strangers. Numerous assassinations had taken 
 place among the republicans, the public functionaries, and 
 the purchasers of national domains. We addressed to the 
 directory a message which resembled very strongly an ac- 
 cusation, ill which were the following passages : — 
 
 " The security of the nation is menaced from without. 
 Six months back we were victorious everywhere. It is not 
 proper for the French people to keep any longer an attitude 
 of humility before other people. Within, public rumour in- 
 forms us, that there exists a great fermentation. Before we 
 proceed to take any measures, the council thinks it right, 
 citizen directors, to demand information from you ; and we 
 beg of you to grant it without further delay." 
 
 The same day (17th Praireal) the council voted an address 
 to the French people. That direct communication between 
 the nation and its representatives, indicated sufficiently that 
 they were diverging from the ordinary paths, and preparing 
 opinion for the measures upon \vhi.ch they had already de- 
 termined. 
 
 Three days afterward, the two councils celebrated a fu- 
 neral festival in honour of our plenipotentiaries who were 
 cowardly assassinated at Rastadt. The council of five hun- 
 dred offered a touching peculiarity, Jean de Bry, the only one 
 of the three victims who had escaped from death, occupied 
 the armchair ; his discourse drew tears from every eye. 
 
 The directory, notwithstanding its inquietude, was igno- 
 rant of the plan adopted by its adversaries : it thought it be- 
 held its loss certain if they took from it the dictatorship of 
 the periodical papers. It collected all that remained to it of 
 courage to defend itself upon that difficult ground. The few 
 friends who had not abandoned them united with them. 
 Bailleul published a very ingenious pamphlet to attenuate 
 our accusations. At length both side sustained, during sev- 
 eral sittings for and against the liberty of the press, an ob- 
 stinate struggle, which began in the first days of the month, 
 and which afterward we saw renewed twenty times in 
 our representative assemblies. Among the orators, Creuz6 
 Latouche for the censure, and Chenier against it, pronounced 
 some eloquent harangues ; but Le Cointe Puyraveau was 
 the most remarkable, and his words had shaken more than 
 one opinion. Le Cointe Puyraveau had renewed the rea- 
 soning, that the friend of Mirabeau, our colleague Cabanis, 
 had already demonstrated to our tribune. " I make," said 
 he, (upon the sitting of the 9th of Praireal,) " a great differ- 
 
LTJCIEN BONAPARTE. Ill 
 
 ence between the liberty of the press and the independence 
 of the newspapers. Let us, I beg of you, perfectly com- 
 prehend that idea ; it is essential for the developments into 
 which I am about to enter. Let us look behind us : we 
 shall see the liberty of the press profaned by men who took 
 possession of it to dishonour it by the most licentious ex- 
 cesses; by confounding the independence of the newspa- 
 pers with the right of expressing their thoughts. Observe 
 what has passed, and you will see that a tolerated license 
 has constantly been the presage of some great movement in 
 the state. All the factions have signalized, by the audacity 
 of the press, those excesses which they intended to commit. 
 Often have conspirators thus announced beforehand their projects. 
 Under the legislative, under the convention, a man whose 
 name cannot be pronounced without blushing, demanded not 
 the liberty of the press, but the independence of the news- 
 papers, and who in his writings committed the most violent 
 excesses. It was in vain that by decree he was declared in- 
 sane — in vain that he appeared before the tribunal. The 
 voice of calumny was the strongest; the firmest republicans 
 were the victims, and the friends of Marat himself finished 
 by dreading the envenomed shafts of his pen. T must recall 
 to your minds what the liberty of the newspapers has done 
 since: — re-established in its rights, it began by caressing 
 the convention which had given it life, and finished by pro- 
 voiiing its destruction. It was that which armed the fac- 
 tions of Vendemiaire ; it was the most terrible arm of the 
 reactors. It brought the horrors of the revolutionary gov- 
 ernment, and afterward the horrors of the reaction. But 
 so many excesses brought at last their own remedy ; the 
 18th of Fructidor came and shone upon France. The papers 
 were subdued, and then the calm was established; the pas- 
 sions are calmed. We have had no more struggles, no 
 more agitations." 
 
 Some voices called out, " No more liberty," and Le Cointe 
 Puyraveau replied with warmth, " Representatives, you de- 
 sire liberty, but our enemies desire latitude. Have they not 
 already announced that even this discussion will be the sig- 
 nal of trouble and disorder'? I may perhaps deceive njyself, 
 but the machinations of the journalists, who think to take 
 you unawares, may prove fatal, except you baffle them. 
 When we suffer reverses, when all the public enemies dis- 
 pute with us, ought we to place a powerful arm in their 
 hands \ If you revoke the law of the nineteenth Fructidor, 
 at the same moment the forty-four trumpets of royalism that 
 were broken at that period will again resound their fatal con- 
 certs. You will have a quantity of newspapers sold to roy- 
 alism, others to the exaggerated party whose hopes we do 
 not certainly desire to excite. Strangers will have theirs, 
 and will breathe among us discords, suspicion, and party 
 
112 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 spirit. You talk of dilapidators But those dilapi- 
 
 dators have got g-old ; and can you doubt that with gold they 
 will not find journalists disposed to walk in the path they 
 choose to trace 1 A greater evil awaits us, if the independ- 
 ence of the newspapers is re-established ; we shall behold 
 everywhere an erroneous opinion formed, which they will tell us 
 is the opinion of the majority ! Thus the Jacobins, the mother 
 societies, the adopted societies, will set themselves up as 
 the organs of public opinion. It is not public opinion that 
 will inform you of the independence of the newspapers — you 
 will only see traced the opinion of parties." 
 
 Thus spoke one of the most sincere republicans. Many 
 reasonable people thought like Le Cointe and Cabanis. It 
 was only in a time of calm, they said, that a good citizen 
 could weaken the government. The periodical papers ought 
 to be considered not as books, but like the preachings in the 
 streets: their dependance cannot prejudice the propagation 
 of the true public opinion, of which the representatives of 
 the people are the only authorized organs ; for never had 
 any person thought of submitting to the censure the account 
 exactly rendered of all the speeches pronounced at the legis- 
 lative tribunes. Those speeches were not subject to the 
 censure ; the dependance of the papers puts limits only to 
 the political preachings of individuals not authorized by the 
 people, and Avho might be neither citizens nor Frenchmen, 
 for nothing could prevent a foreign minister from creating 
 and sustaining a hundred newspapers which might preach 
 in every public place the overthrow of our laws, and which 
 could not be punished until after it had done an evil which 
 would be reproduced the next day. The tardy chastisement 
 of the incendiary would not have prevented the fire. 
 
 All these reasons could not stop us. We replied that the 
 newspapers did not express an erroneous public opinion, ex- 
 cept in those melancholy times of censure, where the press 
 repeats only, under a thousand different forms, the lesson of 
 the minister. A liberal paper, not paid, not being able to 
 sustain itself but by the adhesion of a great number of sub- 
 scribers, represents the true opinion of a great number of 
 citizens ; and the reunion of all the collective opinions, if it 
 is not the public opinion, is at least that which approaches 
 the nearest after the universal voting. As for the chastise- 
 ment after the blow, it will not prevent the evil from having 
 produced its effect. I replied that the efticacy of the penal- 
 ties that w^e proposed must assure all the world that our pro- 
 ject of law was almost equivalent to the censure, and put an 
 end to the abuses ; or to calm the alarms of the citizens, it 
 was right to give them the means of expressing their 
 thoughts — that the opinion of the national tribunes was not 
 sufficient for a free people, since even the conduct and the 
 discourse of the deputies was submitted to the judgment, no* 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 113 
 
 only of their constituents, but to that of every Frenchman, 
 whether they were electors or not. 
 
 These answers were not without force in theory. The 
 previous censure excluded all political liberty ; and v/hen one 
 is reduced to have recourse to that fatal weapon we must 
 be very near to a state of siege ; an imminent peril can alone 
 justify those two measures. Eut theory apart, on which 
 side was the plain dealing in our discussion 1 Will it be 
 thought that our repressive laws, substituted for the censure, 
 satisfied the directorial authority. Can we suppose that the 
 penalties proposed in our project were sufficient 1 No, cer- 
 tainly not. We felt, on the contrary, that our law v^ould be 
 illusory, and that was the reason it suited us. We wished 
 to break the executive power which was losing the repub- 
 lic, and it was necessary for us to disarm a power which 
 was our enemy, and that we had condemned. The passion 
 of the moment overbalanced in our minds the reasons of our 
 adversaries ; and the directory was deprived, in those crit- 
 ical days, of the preventive inspection of the papers ; that 
 example proves that an absolute opinion must sometimes 
 give way in practice to a relative opinion. / say must give 
 loay, because I voted then as I should vote now under the 
 same circumstances. We acted like good citizens in de- 
 stroying the government that destroyed us ; but if that gov- 
 ernm.ent had been good, our conduct would have been that 
 of enemies of the people. These details may perhaps not 
 be useless in aiding to judge public men in the time of a rev- 
 olutionary crisis. He who has navigated in the storm, is 
 better able to judge how to guide the vessel during those 
 hours when life is at stake. The measures, therefore, taken 
 in France, after the affair of the horrible infernal machine, 
 (except the attack against the jury which nothing can ex- 
 cuse,) the law, which, without re-establishing the censure, 
 pronounced against the license of the periodical papers ex- 
 ceeding great penalties of repression, appeared to me to be 
 wise, suitable, and patriotic, and completely justified by the 
 events : the censure being out of the question, the penalties 
 should be sufficiently strong not to be illusory. They would 
 have taken, under the same circumstances, measures at least 
 equally as severe in a republic. The task of governments 
 is not so easy in these days that they should be judged with- 
 out a little indulgence, if they do not wish to overturn it. 
 
 Non ignara mali miseris sucurrere disco. The law of the 
 censure abolished, they proceeded without interruption to 
 the discussion of the project of repression that we had pre- 
 sented. We desired a prompt decision. Our ulterior pro- 
 jects were known to above a hundred members of the two 
 councils, and might have been revealed by the slightest in- 
 discretion ; and the directory disposed of numerous troops. 
 We pressed therefore for the voting of the new law ; but an 
 
 K2 
 
114 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 unforeseen incident arrived to retard its adoption. Carrere, 
 deputy of the Rhone, proposed, in the course of the debate, 
 several measures which might have made us lose time ; he 
 demanded the formation of a republican jury of censure ; the 
 diminution of the stamp duty upon the newspapers ; the pro- 
 hibition of anonymous writings, &c. Fortunately that orator, 
 in signalizing the indolence of public opinion, had exagger- 
 ated even to the point of affirming that the murders of Ra- 
 stadt had excited only a very feeble indignation. I profited 
 (upon the sitting of the 22d Praireal) by the discontent 
 which that assertion had raised in the chamber to see only 
 that, in the discourse of Carrere, which would repulse en- 
 tirely all his propositions — I spoke as follows : 
 
 " I have just heard a sentence from the last speaker which 
 every one of us is ready to deny. It has excited in this as- 
 sembly an agitation which still continues. . . Where, then, 
 has it been found that the assassinations at Rastadt have ex- 
 cited only a feeble indignation in France 1 That assertion 
 is injurious — it is false. (A unanimous cry of ' Yes ! yes !') 
 
 *' What then ! have you not heard the cries of vengeance 
 resound again from one end of the republic to the other, 
 and which are become the song of departure of our youthful 
 defenders ? Do you not perceive on every side the striking 
 marks of zeal that popular indignation has excited ? Recall, 
 then, the generous accents of that immense crowd which 
 covered the Champ de Mars, and shed tears upon the tombs 
 of our ministers. What sentiments did you read in their 
 countenances ] What oaths have you heard 1 France in- 
 different to the crime of Rastadt] Already our armies, 
 electrified by that fatal news, have spread terror amid the 
 ranks of our enemies. From the bottom of the Helvetian 
 valleys, to the summit of the Apennines, one single cry has 
 been heard. The shades of the victims started — the mur- 
 derers trembled — that terrible cry, so often repeated in this 
 assembly and throughout every part of the republic, must 
 again answer for us here : Vengeance, vengeance upon the 
 assassins !" 
 
 The whole assembly rose repeating my last words. The 
 galleries burst forth with reiterated acclamations ; and the 
 propositions of our colleague had not any result. 
 
 Sieyes had caused the General Joubert to be named to the 
 command of Paris. It was necessary to act. A pamphlet 
 had dared to aver that it was not the Russians of Suwarrow 
 who were to be feared, but the Russians of the councils. . . 
 They decided to attack the election of the Director Treilhard 
 the next day, and above all to declare itself in permanence. 
 
 The directory had not yet answered the message of the 
 17th Prairael, where we demanded an account of our sil na- 
 tion, interior and exterior. Poulain GranJpre, at the sitting 
 of the 29th, proposed to send a second message more per- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 115 
 
 emptory, which should terminate by the terrible declara- 
 tion tiiat the council would remain in permanence until the 
 answer of the government. That measure was carried by a 
 great majority. The council of ancients followed our ex- 
 ample. The directory replied to us instantly, that it would 
 put itself, like us, in permanence, and that we should receive 
 the next day all the information that we demanded upon the 
 state of the republic. It was accepting our challenge, but 
 all the parts were distributed ; but instead of adjourning till 
 the next day, we continued our sitting all the night. Ber- 
 gasse came to announce at the tribune the election of Treil- 
 hard, and he had not much trouble to convince us of the de- 
 fects in the form ! We were convinced beforehand 
 
 Scarcely would they listen to a courageous voice in favour 
 of Treilhard. His election was annulled after two consec- 
 utive readings. At midnight the council of ancients during 
 the sitting confirmed our resolution. At near four o'clock 
 in the morning they suspended the legislative sittings till ten 
 o'clock. 
 
 The next day, the message of the directory upon the situ- 
 ation of affairs, read at the tribune of the five hundred, was 
 listened to with a sullen silence, and sent to the united com- 
 missions. We proceeded to the nomination of ten candi- 
 dates to take the place of Treilhard. From that list, the 
 ancients chose the Citizen Gohier, ex-minister of justice, who 
 had the advantage, by some voices, of Roger Ducos. Thus 
 was the first part of the plan that had been agreed upon ac- 
 complished. 
 
 The 30th Praireal, Bertrand da Calvados pronounced against 
 the message of the directory a powerful philipic of logic and 
 passionate movements. 
 
 " What then 1 the directory thinks to justify itself in ac- 
 cusing the legislative body and in offering it a generous par- 
 don. What an excess of audacity, perfidy, and dislionesty ! 
 What ! — when in the arsenal of Paris alone, a hundred 
 and thirty-three thousand guns were sold at twenty sous a 
 piece, when they v>-,.'re worth at the least twenty francs . . . 
 And it is the legislative body whom they accuse for the want 
 of arms ! What then ? — the ministerial reports fixed the ef- 
 fective of our armies at 437,000 men, when at the same 
 time they did not amount to 300,000 : and they dare com- 
 plain of the penury of the treasury! What! — because we 
 have rejected the odious tax upon salt, and have replaced it 
 by eighty-eight millions of new resources, they dare to re- 
 proach us with the deficit! Was it us who named your 
 Rapinat, your Trouve, your Scherer "? And you talk of par- 
 doning us, instead of miploring for yourselves the generosity 
 and commiseration of the French people ! You have not 
 placed in judgment the authors of your reverses ; and you 
 have dragged before the tribunals the chiefs who have 
 
116 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 gained our victories ! You propose to us a reunion ! And 
 I propose to you to reflect, if you can still preserve your 
 ■functions. You have no longer our confidence : you can no 
 longer do any good but in retiring." 
 
 Boulai de la Meurthe, succeeding to Bertrand, .fixed more 
 firmly what they desired. He nominally accused the Direc- 
 tors Merlin and La ReveiUere, and declared that those two 
 men must leave the Luxembourg to establish union in the 
 executive power, and that they should be forced if thej'^ re- 
 fused. He proposed to name a special commission of nine 
 members charged to present all the measures that circum- 
 stances might require. The General Jourdan caused two 
 more members to be added to that extraordinary commission, 
 which was composed of Boulai de la Meurthe, Bergoing, 
 Fran§ois de Nantes, Talot, Petiet, Joubert de Cherault, 
 Quirot, Poullain, Grandpre, Augereau, Jourdan, and myself. 
 
 We had scarcely been named, when the demissions of the 
 Directors Merlin and La ReveiUere were brought to us. 
 The council formed immediately two decuple lists for the 
 two vacant places ; and the General Moulins, and the friend 
 of Sieyes, Roger Ducos, completed the new government. 
 Barras, among the ancient directors, was the only one that 
 remained. 
 
 The government was thus renewed the 30th of Praireal, 
 without any violent struggle, thanks to the docility of our 
 adversaries, who yielded to the threat of an accusation. 
 The first Messidor I made, in the name of the commission- 
 ers of the eleven, the following report : — 
 
 *' Representatives of the people — Struck with the misfor- 
 tunes of the country, you demanded of the executive direc- 
 tory, in your message of the 17th Praireal, what causes had 
 brought the interior and the exterior to the deplorable state 
 in which you find it at this present moment. Upon the 24th 
 Praireal, you declared that you would remain in permanence 
 until the arrival of the answer of the directory ; and it was 
 the determination of each of us to remain as long as it was 
 necessary for the w^elfare of the republic. By that decla- 
 ration of permanence, you have called upon you the atten- 
 tion of every Frenchman : you have constituted yourselves 
 more particularly in the presence of the people. 
 
 " For if the people never lose sight of their representa- 
 tives, it is chiefly upon those decisive occasions when their 
 affections repose upon their chiefs. You have all felt what 
 duties that solemn permanence imposes on you, and you 
 will, by fulfilling it, answer the expectations of every citizen. 
 
 " To answer that expectation, it is requisite to know and 
 destroy the evils which aflHict the country. The executive 
 power, in its message of the 29th, indicated the waste of the 
 treasure, and demanded of you fresh resources of finances 
 as the only remedy. The deficiency of funds and credit caa 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 117 
 
 only be imputed to the leg-islative body. That artful in- 
 dication has pointed you out to the nation as the authors of 
 the pubUc misfortunes ; it has thrown upon you the defeats 
 of our armies and the disorders of the interior; it has re- 
 newed the perfidious insinuations so many times directed 
 against you during the servitude of the press. 
 
 " Such are the painful reflections which result from the 
 message of the •29th Praireal — that message promises a sec- 
 ond more precise. Without doubt, the respective dignity 
 and union of the first authorities, re-estabhshed by you, must 
 assure you a nii-re satisfactory answer, and more sincere in- 
 formation. The fatal impression of the first message may, 
 notwithstanding, alter the truth. We must demonstrate the 
 falsity ; we owe it to France, to the armies, and to our- 
 selves. 
 
 " The word deficit is a veil with which they obstinately 
 cover the picture of all the errors. It is in vain that they 
 have endeavoured to thicken this officious veil. It has not 
 deceived your solicitude ; they have in vain attempted to 
 give a change to the national indignation. 
 
 " You have observed, representatives of the people, with 
 what obstinacy they have persisted, even to this moment, 
 upon the deficit as the cause of all our misfortunes. We 
 have no occasion certainly to produce here the calculations 
 so often repeated by our commissions of the finances. Those 
 calculations have remained without an answer. What can 
 there be in common, in fact, between this pretended deficit, 
 demonstrated false so many times, with the reverses brought 
 on by the most complete inability, hy the most culpable in- 
 difl'erence '? If the authors of that strange message had 
 better consulted facts, they would at least, in default of 
 justifying themselves, have avoided the reproach of dishon- 
 esty that every citizen has a right to accuse them with. Up 
 to this moment a deficit cannot have existed in the expenses 
 of the war, since the open credit to the minister of war is 
 far from being exhausted. The observations in the message 
 are then chimerical; they will appear far more chimerical if 
 we compare them with what follows. We can affirm, with 
 the confidence of experience, that an army, a standing army, 
 of four hundred thousand men, ought not to cost more tlian 
 two hundred and eighty millions, comprising ail materials; 
 that is to say, seven hundred francs a year for a man. The 
 first eight rnonths of the year 7 ought not to consume but 
 the two thirds of that sum, or one hundred and eighty-seven 
 millions, by calculating the effective number of our armies 
 at four hundred thousand men, and the individual expenses 
 at seven hundred francs — the sum paid by the directory in its 
 last demand — as the minister Scherer, upon the first of Ven-- 
 demiaire, declared the state of the army at two hundred and 
 seventy-five thousand men, and the directory, after its last 
 
118 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 message, had decreed, up to the 5th of Praireal, two hun- 
 dred and forty-five millions for the expenses of the war. 
 The same result is consigned in the statements remitted by 
 the minister of war to our Colleague Genissieux. 
 
 " During the first eight months of that year, the govern- 
 ment has expended fifty- eight millions more (two hundred 
 and forty-five, instead of one hundred and eighty-seven) than 
 was necessary for an army of four hundred thousand men! 
 and our army was only two hundred and seventy-five thou- 
 sand! It is not then the insufficiency of the funds which 
 caused the failure of all the military operations. 
 
 " The diff"erent reports of your commissions of the finances 
 have already shown that the receipts ought to be nearly upon 
 a level with the expenses. The delays in collecting cannot 
 be attributed to the non-performance of the existing laws, 
 and it is the directory alone that is responsible for the non- 
 performance of those laws. Ought the legislative body to 
 vote another hundred millions, when the millions that were 
 voted were not paid in consequence of the vices of the ad- 
 ministration. New taxes would only have increased the 
 deficiency. 
 
 " On the other hand, we have passed very lightly over the 
 contributions of the conquered countries ; they have scarcely 
 figured in the picture of our resources. 
 
 " No, representatives of the people, it is not the deficit 
 which has caused the misfortunes of the state : it is the sys- 
 tem that has been followed by the executive power for this 
 last year; that system has been the most powerful auxiliary 
 of the coalition — it has prepared the successes. It is to that 
 we owe the disorganization of our armies, the pillage and 
 overthrow of the allied republics, and the momentary weak- 
 ening of the energies of the republic. 
 
 " Our armies ! surprised but not vanquished ; the destitu- 
 tion in which they were left could alone have induced them 
 to retreat. Upon the eve of battle, they were deprived of all 
 that could assure their success. They have not been re- 
 cruited. Their administration has been destroyed ; and the 
 dilapidations encouraged and unpunished, they have dared to 
 attempt even our arsenals. 
 
 " Since the opening of the session, these abuses have attract- 
 ed your attention ; but your good intentions have been para- 
 lyzed. The directory has daily abused the immense authority 
 that the 18th of Fructidor left in its hands. It has embraced, 
 and obstinately followed, an odious system, with a view of 
 maintaining itself out of the constitutional line, into which it 
 would not re-enter again. 
 
 " It has without shame applied the name of anarchists to 
 all the republicans. Braving all the counsels of the legisla- 
 tive body, it has always marched without looking behind it 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 1J9 
 
 — complaisance, flattery, and intrigue, have sustained it in 
 its march. Where ought it to have terminated ? 
 
 " After ihe disorganization of the armies, nothing could 
 have been more fatal than the deposing of the republicans. 
 That plan prepared with sang froid, and despotically exe- 
 cuted, produces discouragement; the friends of liberty, 
 treated without discretion, looked upon with distrust, quit 
 everywhere the reins of the administration : revolutionary 
 indifference is described and sought after as ihe first of civic 
 virtues, and men who were too much gifted with that virtue, 
 replace in all our municipalities the ciiosen of the people. 
 
 " The abasement of the legislative body itst-lf would have 
 been accomplished a long time since by the official papers, 
 if it had been as easy to pervert opinion as to abuse the laws. 
 The usurpation of the directory upon the independence of 
 the popular elections, is still more culpable than the audacity 
 of the privileged press. The right of electing is the only one 
 which the sovereign people reserved in its days of Comitia : 
 to depose a citizen, because he does noi exercise this su- 
 preme right to the pleasure of the superior authority, is an 
 absolute sacrilege. 
 
 " After having abjured the yoke of a king/after having 
 broken so many sceptres, could the citizens and the war- 
 riors patiently support the domination of all the subaltern 
 agents, who would make a sport of the civil liberty of indi- 
 viduals as they would with the political liberty of nations T 
 Those petty tyrants treated our allies like their slaves. Italy, 
 Helvetia, were become their domains. At Milan, they held 
 beds of justice. Every day brought a revolution where the 
 rights acquired were sacrificed to the most capricious aris- 
 tocracy. They changed thus into regrets and plots the af- 
 fection and gratitude of the people who were enfranchised 
 by our arms. It was known that some of those simple men, 
 who were our elders in liberty, desired slavery even in pref- 
 erence. Unworthy chains have charged the hands of Cham- 
 pionnet. In short, the fruits of our victories were moment- 
 arily lost for the republic. The cries of the victims immo- 
 lated by Suwarrow upon our frontiers, those of the good 
 citizens oppressed in the interior, must they always find us 
 insensible *? No, the misfortunes of the oppressed shall be 
 repaired, the shades of the victims avenged. 
 
 "A new career opens before you ; — your permanence will 
 bring a more prosperous day ; the directory of the republic 
 regenerate a more brilliant destiny; the legislative body, in 
 regaining the first place in the state, will second, with all its 
 power, the well-directed efforts of the public administration; 
 an unalterable concord will assure us new triumphs. The 
 hands of those who are accustomed to conquer, will seize 
 the sword of command, and the republican forces will re- 
 cover the strength it ought never to have lost. 
 
120 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 *' We are waiting for a message from the directory, which 
 is fortunately renewed; it will be, without doubt, conform- 
 able to the truth and the wishes of all good citizens. Let 
 all uneasiness cease from to-day; let us deliver ourselves 
 up with confidence to those great, ardent, and generous id^as 
 which caused our hearts to beat in the first days of the rev- 
 olution. Ifroyalism has conceived some hopes, they will 
 be deceptive — they will be for ever lost, at the aspect of our 
 concord and energy. The changes which you have accom- 
 plished are not very striking, but they will possess their 
 place in history, and their influence in Europe : they have 
 not cost the shedding of blood — they have not caused tears 
 to flow. The change of opinion has produced them without 
 a struggle. They will give strength to our social compact, 
 and will find their consecration in the unanimous consent of 
 all the friends of the republic. Your commission advises to 
 wait in permanence the message of the new directory." 
 
 That proposition was decreed, as well as the impression 
 of the speech, in twelve copies. The Deputy Arena desired 
 that it might be sent into all the departments and to the 
 armies : but T immediately announced to the council that my 
 report was only a preparatory work, and that the commission 
 of eleven occupied itself with an address to the French 
 people, which would not be long before it would be submit- 
 ted to them. 
 
 The first days of Messidor passed without the directory 
 sending the message that we expected. Sieyes and his two 
 new colleagues were scarcely installed. Gohier had only 
 been a few days. Barras in those first days left us to act, 
 and thought only of maintaining himself in place. A delay 
 which found its excuse under the circumstances, prolonged 
 the permanence of the councils and the duration of the com- 
 mission of eleven. The discontented, then, directed all 
 their eflbrts against the commission ; they pretended to be 
 uneasy at the extraordinary power which was confided to 
 us ; they compared us to the famous committee of public 
 safety. As nothing could be more false than those insinua- 
 tions, Frangois de Nantes was charged to submit to the coun- 
 cil several measures against the divisions of the electoral as- 
 semblies, and he announcer! that in the week the commis- 
 sion would propose a project of law and a project of address, 
 and that it •\vould itself demand its dissolution and the end 
 of the permanence. Tiie General Jourdan made a report 
 upon the recruiting of the armies. Filled with confidence 
 in the wisdom of Sieyes, we were more desirous than our 
 adversaries to see our mission terminated. The measures 
 proposed by Fran§ois de Nantes and Jourdan being threatened 
 with adjournment, I insisted, in the following terms, (sitting 
 of the 7th of Messidor,) for their prompt discussion : — 
 
 " There is not one among us but has known the crisici cf 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 121 
 
 the revolution, and who does not know how to appreciate 
 the value of an impulse, and judge how far it may be useful, 
 and where it might begin to be dnngerous. 'I'he occasion 
 of doing good, once lost, may never return. There are, in 
 the city as in the field of battle, precious nionionts which it 
 is not easy to find again. A retard is sometimes irreparable. 
 One single will animates at this moment all t!ic friends of the 
 republic. Let us beware of weakening their energy by an 
 unseasonable moderation. If you go back to find mental 
 laws ; if you want to combine all the means of execution be- 
 fore you promulgate those salutary principles which we 
 have presented, you alienate, perhaps, the public confidence, 
 without which you can do nothing. 
 
 "I do not accuse the intentions of any one ; but what is 
 there to fear from the adoption of the measures proposed? 
 Will the declaration be dangerous which informs our arenerals 
 and our soldiers that you are about to enfranchise them from 
 a tyranny even more shameful than that of the ancient 
 regime 1 Will it be dangerous to inform the republicans who 
 are peisecuted, tiiat in future they may unite and oppose 
 their imposing masses to the scattered bands of their assas- 
 sins, of those brigands, the bleeding leprosy of the depart- 
 ments of the East and the South ? Will it be dangerous to 
 suspend the erasing of those emigT-ants who enter under false 
 certificates, obtained and bought ia those municipalities 
 where the spirit of the counter revolution ferments in secret. 
 
 " What danger do you find after all — that it is no longer 
 the members of the executive power, but a solemn law, 
 which bestows arms as national recompenses l 
 
 *' We have just had a proof that opinion raises and de- 
 stroys at her will all powers. vSeize then, representatives 
 of the people, upon that all-powerful lever, and direct it to- 
 wards the public good. If the laws which we present to 
 you are still retarded for some days, the effects of the salu- 
 tary action that the state has just experienced may escaoe 
 you. I demand to move the previous question upon all tne 
 references, and the discussion instantly of the projects of the 
 commission." 
 
 The council adopted my proposition unanimously. The 
 projects were converted into laws. They confirmed even 
 an article of the law of the 19th Fructidor, which gave to 
 the executive power the right of transporting the refractory 
 
 priests Transport without judgment ! They thought 
 
 they could not yet deprive the directory of that dictature 
 without compromising the public safety. I opposed this 
 revolutionary measure extending against all the priests. It 
 was applied only to the refractory priests. 
 
 Two days afterward we at length received a message 
 from the new directory. I opposed against its being com- 
 municated to us in a secret committee. The reading of it 
 
 L 
 
122 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 in public produced an excellent effect; it was the recapitu- 
 lation of the faults of the fallen power without reserve, and 
 the inevitable demand of men and money- (9) 
 
 Jourdan, soob after the reading of the message, proposed 
 to put in activity all classes of conscripts, and to raise a loan 
 of a hundred millions for the expenses of the war. (10) 
 
 Fran9ois de Nantes presented the project of an address to 
 the French. (IL) All was unanimously approved of. The 
 commission of eleven was declared dissolved. During the 
 sitting the council of ancients confirmed all our resolutions ; 
 the permanence of the legislative body was terminated — 
 and all re-entered into constitutional order. 
 
 Such was the revolution of the 30th Praireal ; it had some 
 resemblance with that of 1830. Both of them had the same 
 result of violently changing the executive power. Both one 
 and the other were accomplished by the legislative body. 
 Neither one nor the other v^as submitted to the universal 
 voting; they had, nevertheless, the general consent. The 
 resignatio.is were given by the directors equally as freely as 
 those of Charles Dix and the Duke d'Argouleme. In short, 
 the resignation of the directory, as well as that of the elder 
 branch of the Bourbons, was incomplete. One of the five 
 directors did not renounce, and one of the princes of the 
 elder branch did not renounce, and could noL, because he 
 was a minor. But these resemblances are accompanied by 
 difltrt jjces far more remarkable, v.hich we will examine here- 
 after by comparing the revolution of Brnmaire with all those 
 which we have had precede and succeed it during half a cen- 
 tury. 
 
 What are we to conclude, in the mean time, from those 
 resemblances that we have remarked 1 
 
 1st. The 30th Praireal and the 30ih of July have produced 
 two governments without a positive right, because they were 
 not confirmed by the free and universal voting of the nation, 
 for which no right whatever can make up the deficiency en- 
 tirely. 
 
 2d. The directory elected on the 30th of Praireal, not hav- 
 ing known how to preserve its power of de facto, and not 
 having the right, its fail upon the 18th Brumaire was legiti- 
 mate, even before three millions of votes had approved of it. 
 
 3d. His majesty the King of the French can and ought to 
 terminate the revolution of July, by the free and universal 
 vote of the nation. He can, for he reigns in peace and with 
 undisputed approbation. He ought, for that popular conse- 
 cration would fortify his throne. It would be as useful to 
 his family as to France. It would cleanse the great nation 
 from the aflfront of not having been consulted upon the 
 change of her dynasty ; for if, since 1830, and notwithstand- 
 ing the excessive rigours, the present government has merited 
 the praises of every impartial man, for having known how 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 123 
 
 to preserve internal and external pe?ce, it is not the ]e*s 
 evident to every eye, that at this moment the French throne 
 is not yet seated, but between the quasi legitimacy of divine 
 right, and the quasi legitimacy of the popular right. Its 
 power has not been consecrated, either by the elevation 
 upon the shield, which was the universal suffrage of the an- 
 cient Francs — or by the hereditary coronation, th-e legiti- 
 macy of past times — or by the national vote, the legitimacy 
 of new times. 
 
 If immediately after the 30th of July they receded before 
 a universal voting — that is explained by reasons that our 
 cotemporaries know, and which are useless to mention. 
 But at this time, after five years of exterior peace and mate- 
 rial amelioration, now that the factions are vanquished or 
 rendered powerless, what is there to fear in legitimating? 
 Is France descended so low that they may always dispense 
 with her vote ? . If the new government of our fine country 
 would at length submit itself to the popular voting, it would, 
 confirm and strengthen itself; and all would then surround 
 with conviction the elect of the people. If, on the contrary, 
 he refuses to render homage to that sovereign whom in our 
 
 age it is vain to disown I wish to deceive myself — 
 
 but the abyss of a revolution is inevitably about to open 
 before us ; and the counsellors of the crown, who do not en- 
 deavour to engage it to bend before that popular sovereignty, 
 assume upon their own heads all the responsibility of the 
 struggles which threaten every government that is ill seated. 
 To persist in not consulting France, would be showing that 
 they do not regard the 30th of July as a revolution, but as a 
 personal catastrophe. p]ither the three days are really glo- 
 rious, because they overturned the government of divine 
 right, to raise in its place a government of popular right ; 
 because for a charter granted by the king, they have substi- 
 tuted a charter consented to by the king, and proposed by 
 the legislative chambers. The ordinances were only the 
 occasion of that revolution of principles ; and to make it 
 complete, it should be sanctioned by the sovereign people, 
 whose power it acknowledged in raising the banner of 1789, 
 and 1791, of the republic, of the consulate, and the empire. 
 
 In expressing myself thus, without ?ny reserve, in saying 
 all 1 think upon the actual constitution of my beloved coun- 
 try, they will perhaps ask me how, with that decided opinion, 
 I insist without ceasing upon my re-entry into France ; — 
 how I can demand to live under the charter which created the 
 throne of the King of the French ? . . . My answer will be 
 as frank as my faith in the absolute sovereignty of the uni- 
 versal voting is decided and profound. I desire to re-enter 
 France as a citizen subject to the actual laws of my country, 
 because those laws, such as they have been made by the 
 legislative assemblies, although not sanctified by the popular 
 
124 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 baptism, offer, nevertheless, a social state, which, without 
 being perfect, appears to me to be preferable to many others, 
 and above all, preferable to exile; because the present royal 
 government, created and sustained by the unanimous suf- 
 frages of several legislative chambers, possesses in conse- 
 quence the votes of the two hundred thousand electors, who 
 have at this moment in France the legal privilege of political 
 right ; because that state of things, which is neither the best 
 nor the worst, if agreeable to the French people, (as is de- 
 monstrated by the numerous adhesions and the tacit consent 
 of all,) it does not belong to a simple citizen to refuse obe- 
 dience to the laws which his country approves of, or finds 
 suitable. But that obedience does not carry with it the con- 
 viction that those laws are invested with popular legitimacy. 
 It does not oblige one to believe that the vote of the deputies 
 of two hundred thousand electors, is equal to the vote of 
 several millions of citizens. It does not in the least prevent 
 them from desiring that the universal suffrage of which those 
 laws are deficient should be given to them. Let them no 
 longer delay that national sanction ; it would, on the contrary, 
 be showing that they sincerely desire the confirmation and 
 the amelioration of those laws of the country, beneath whose 
 aegis they desire at least to take shelter, and certainly a ra- 
 tional faith, ardent and exclusive in the popular sovereignty 
 formed by the suffrage of all, maybe expressed without temer- 
 ity by hiiu, who, excluded from the empire by that same 
 universal suffrage, acknowledged and revered in former days 
 that supreme power which threw him out of his family, as he 
 acknowledges it at this moment, while he regrets that the 
 sacred dogma is still wanting to the government of his 
 country. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 125 
 
 15th Messidor, Isi Fructidnr, year 7. From the 4th of July to 
 
 the I8th of August, 1799. 
 
 Opposition against the new Directory — Decree of Accusation of the An- 
 cient Directors rejected — My speech against the Jacobin reaction — At- 
 tacks of the Jacobin Press against Sieyes and myself— Club of the 
 Manege ; its expulsion from that place — Censure of the Newspapers 
 suppressed — Excesses of the Newspapers, Pamphlets, Placards, &c. — 
 Disorders caused by the Clubs — Revolutionary Law of the Hostages — 
 Forced Loan — Speech of Sieyes against the Jacobins — I defend the 
 General Lefebvre — Answers to M. Thiers. 
 
 I. THE POWERS. 
 
 The Turkish Russian fleet attacked again the port of An- 
 cona ; but, repulsed from the shore, it continued without a 
 rival to dominate the Adriatic. 
 
 The victories of the Austrian Russians did not cease in 
 Italy. Masters of Turin, they besieged the citadel. The 
 Piedmontese artillery, soldiers whom they had enrolled 
 with our troops, hastened by their insubordination the loss 
 of that strong place. Suwarrow had, in the meantime, 
 advanced as far as the Trebbia. After three days of the 
 most obstinate and bloody battles, he forced our columns to 
 retire into Tuscany, where he was not long before he fol- 
 lowed them. He took possession of Tuscany. Mantua 
 itself capitulated. Our only compensation for so many 
 reverses was the junction of the armies of Macdonald and 
 Moreau, which, re-enforced, though too slowly, by some 
 thousands of conscripts, possessed in the Genoese states a 
 good defensive line. 
 
 A new Russian army, in the pay of England, arrived at 
 Prague. That increase of force might have proved fatal to 
 us, if the first misintelligence between Austria and Suwar- 
 row had not broken out, and if Massena had not opposed* to 
 all those attacks an impregnable barrier. 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 Our partisans diminished every day in Helvetia. En- 
 couraged by the success of the co-allies, the faction, dis- 
 contented with the reforms which we had imposed, occupied 
 itself with their revision. 
 
 The numerous friends of the house of Orange no longer 
 dissimulated their hopes. Troubles broke out in several 
 parts of the Batavian republic. The government of that 
 republic placed all its troops under the command of a 
 French general ; and Brune united thus all the means of de- 
 
 L 2 
 
126 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 fence. That unity of direction was still more necessary, as 
 the grand expedition, prepared upon the British coasts, ap- 
 peared to threaten Holland. 
 
 We had still at Rome and Naples some fortresses. The 
 republicans of Naples struggled for some days ; but soon 
 the terrible Cardinal Ruffo, the blood-stained precursor 
 of an irritated master, came to exercise his fury in the 
 beauteous Parthenope, at the head of his bands of Calabrese 
 brigands. Long will the memory be preserved of the revo- 
 lutionary vengeances of the court of Sicily. The king re- 
 turned in triumph in the English fleet, and re-entered his 
 capital in the midst of executions. 
 
 III. THE ARMIES. 
 
 The junction of our two armies of Italy was scarcely 
 completed, when Joubert arrived to command them. Cham- 
 pionnet placed himself upon the Alps at the head of a third 
 army. Moreau returned to the accustomed theatre of his 
 victories. Massena left him the army of the Danube, and 
 consecrated himself entirely to the army of Helvetia. The 
 conscripts of whom we had decreed the raising, repaired 
 from every part of the frontiers ; they replaced also, as 
 rapidly as they could, the materials which the preceding 
 administration had, without shame, caused to be sold at the 
 most scandalously low prices ; but that which is dissipated in 
 a moment cannot, unfortunately, be replaced so quickly. 
 
 The winds of Egypt for several months past had brought 
 us only the sounds of victory ; but, as if every thing at the 
 same time conspired against us, the news from Egypt 
 brought us the account of the raising of the siege of St. 
 Jean d'Acre. Never was France more in need of union 
 and firmness — never did a new government take reins in 
 the midst of so many perils. 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 We had made the revolution of the 30th Praireal to re- 
 establish the union between the powers, so necessary in 
 great dangers. In rejecting three directors before the time 
 prescribed by the law, we hoped to gather the fruit of that 
 new violation of constitutional order; yet scarcely, how- 
 ever, had some weeks elapsed but v/e found ourselves in 
 the same confusion. We had chosen two directors, Gohier 
 and Moulins, private men without reproach, but public men 
 without talent, and, what was worse than all, who had no 
 desire to second Sieyes, in whom we had placed our hopes 
 of a better government. They partook, on the contrary, of 
 the exaggerated opinion. Barras thus found himself be- 
 tween two factions equal in number and his adhesion de- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 127 
 
 cided the majority. Sieves was obliged to ally himself with 
 him in spite of his repugnance. He consented to name 
 minister of the police one of the creatures of Barras, the 
 famous Fouche de Nantes. Fortunately that ancient con- 
 ventional, who well knew the Jacobins, thought it useful to 
 bis interest at that moment to combat them. He decided 
 Barras to unite with Sieyes and Roger Duces ; but that ma- 
 jority, depending upon a man like Barras, did not prevent 
 the directory from being equally as weak as it was before the 
 last crisis. The friends of the fallen government drew 
 towards Barras, who was the last wreck of it. The two 
 oppositions, as usual, united to overturn it, and it was 
 disunited the day after the combat. The constitutionals 
 rallied round Sieyes, while the Jacobins, from the danger 
 of the state, had returned to their customary exaltation, and 
 no longer saw the welfare of the country in the executive 
 power so unfortunately regenerated. They saw it only in 
 revolutionary expedients, and in the concentration of all the 
 pohtical action in the bosom of the legislative body. They 
 had for two of their directors the minister of war, Berna- 
 -dotte, and the General Marbot, commandant of Paris. If we 
 add to those two names those of Juurdan, Augereau, and 
 Lamarque, members of our council, the Jacobins could 
 reckon in their ranks five of the best generals in the re- 
 public. 
 
 That reunion of great military renown balanced in 
 that party the inferiority of the number. Sieyes felt that 
 it was necessary to separate, as much as possible, that 
 formidable reunion ; and they resolved, therefore, to de- 
 prive Bernadotte, the minister of war, of his place. They 
 began by depriving Marbot of the command of Paris, and 
 the brave General Lefebvre, incapable of all'intrigue, was 
 his successor. The new aspect of the council was not long 
 in manifesting itself clearly ; they began by attacking the 
 ancient directors and the ex-minister Scherer. They de- 
 manded for them to be placed in accusation ; but the ad- 
 dresses were not wanting ; they poured in from all quarters. 
 In what age, and in what country, has the conqueror been 
 wanting in flatterers, and the vanquished in outrages ? The 
 accusations increased in violence one after the other. 
 Rewbell, who, for a year past, had sat with the ancients — 
 Treilhard, whom we had expelled by the chicane of an at- 
 torney — Merlin and La Reveillere, whose abdication had 
 been celebrated as a meritorious sacrifice, for which they 
 had promised to recompense them, were all four of them 
 equally pursued. Rewbell defended himself at the council 
 of ancients with a noble firmness ; this council, where the 
 Jacobin party scarcely existed, listened to Rewbell with an 
 encouraging calmness. But among us the attacks were 
 sharper ; they wanted, above all, to obtain a special com- 
 
128 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 mission to establish in the council a centre of reaction 
 against the accused. We repulsed that attempt, and had 
 all the denunciations sent back to the government ; but it is 
 so easy to persuade a numerous assembly to adopt meas- 
 ures which flatter its omnipotence, that a few days after 
 they named a commission of five members, to whom they 
 sent the account of the accusations. 
 
 Encouraged by this success against the fallen power, the 
 Jacobins tried an attack against the actual power. The 
 deputy Briot complained of the retard of the informations 
 that were demanded of the directory.—" We expect," said 
 they, " the lease of the salt-springs of the East : it requires 
 but a quarter of an hour to send it us, and we cannot obtain 
 it. Other messages have also remained without an answer. 
 I propose to name a commission to seek after all the mes- 
 sages addressed to no purpose to the executive power, and 
 those which it may be necessary still to address to it. You 
 shudder at the recital of the crimes committed in Italy. 
 You will learn that, although you pay the army entirely, 
 in the meantime the alhed republics pay the greater part 
 of that army." 
 
 All this was but too true ; but that was not a reason to 
 establish in the bosom of the council a committee of inqui- 
 ry, and to take from the directory the functions which be- 
 longed to it, to give it in charge to a committee ; it was 
 acting precisely as if we had not changed the government. 
 Notwithstanding all, however, the commission was named. 
 Some days after it made a report, in which it specified pre- 
 cisely the chief points of accusation of the ancient direc- 
 tors, and proposed to discuss it in a secret committee : that 
 discussion continued during several sittings. The second 
 chief accusation w^as written down as follows : — 
 
 " For having transported to the deserts of Arabia forty 
 thousand of the choicest men of our armies, the General 
 Bonaparte, and with him the flower of our literati, of our 
 men of letters, and our artists. "(12) 
 
 The act of accusation fell evidently upon Barras, as well 
 as upon his ancient colleagues, and it tended also to disor- 
 ganize the regenerated directory of which Barras had de- 
 termined the majority in favour of Sieyes. The friends of 
 Sieyes reunited with the partisans of the fallen govern- 
 ment ; and after three days of a secret committee, we de- 
 clared that there was no reason for accusation. In deplo- 
 ring the errors of the directors, they gave them every 
 credit for their good intentions, the difficulty of the circum- 
 stances, and, above all, the danger of a reaction. 
 
 That victory had been sufficiently disputed to give uneasi- 
 ness to Sieyes, Barras, and Roger Ducos, and they declared 
 that those daily interpellations deprived them of the public 
 confidence, and that they did not think it possible to govern, 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 129 
 
 if the majority of the council of five hundred did not pro- 
 nounce more in their favour. They requested personally 
 my concurrence, and 1 seized the occasion of the anniver- 
 sary of the 14th of July, which they celebrated by a civic 
 fete in the bosom of each council, to declare more openly 
 than 1 had done, by my silent vote against the accusation 
 of the ex-directors. After the studied speech of the presi- 
 dent, I expressed myself as follows : — 
 
 " Representatives of the people, — I seize with avidity this 
 solemn occasion, when we celebrate the taking of the 
 Bastile, to submit to you some patriotic thoughts. The 30th 
 Praireal, you reconstituted the government of the republic, 
 and promised to the French people that they should enjoy 
 your work, and behold a better future. Such is the sense 
 of all your declarations. You will, without doubt, fulfil 
 your promises ; and to fulfil them we must follow the im- 
 pulse of our consciences, and not suffer ourselves to be mis- 
 led by foreign impressions. To keep our oaths, it is ne- 
 cessary to signalize and repulse the first attempts made 
 out of the constitutional line where we have desired to re- 
 enter." 
 
 (A great number of voices : " Yes — yes !") 
 
 " If there existed projects to carry us away out of the 
 directorial system, we would repress them. The friends of 
 royalty would also mislead us, that they might see the great 
 republic perish in the convulsions of civil war and of for- 
 eign war; but we and those thirty millions of Frenchmen 
 whom we represent, we will not have any more convul- 
 sions, any more changes of system, no more scaffolds, above 
 all. . . . We will not suflTer, in short, the horrible regime of 
 '93 to be substituted for the constitutional regime." 
 
 The whole of the assembly, " No, no, never!" 
 
 " The 30th Praireal you enfranchised the constitution 
 from the chains which rendered it impotent ; but often the 
 consequences of a political day are very diflferent from those 
 that have been expected, announced, and desired. The 
 9th Thermidor, made against the tyranny of Robespierre, 
 brought with it the royalist reaction. The 18th Fructidor, 
 made against royalism, brought with it the 22d Floreal. . . . 
 Why had such a noble cause such deplorable effects ? 
 
 " Why } Our sad history teaches us. It is, that behind 
 those generous men who made the 9th Thermidor and the 
 18tli Fructidor, there pressed a crowd of party men, coura- 
 geous after the combat, and more exalted to-day, than they 
 were yesterday pusillanimous. Those men deprived the 
 conquerors of their populaiity ; precipitated themselves into 
 every evil ; flattering without shame the predominant opin- 
 ion, they appropriated to themselves the fruits of the im- 
 mortal days. 
 
 " It has often been seen that those who flatter tyrants, 
 
130 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 flatter afterward the multitude. To cause their ancient 
 baseness to be forgotten, they commit a fresh baseness. . . 
 Representatives of the people, if your attitude had only been 
 undecided, the movement of Praireal would have finished, 
 perhaps, like those which preceded it. Fortunately, experi- 
 ence has instructed all of us. As soon as the revolutionary 
 torrent growls in the distance, we know that we must form 
 a dike. ... if we delay, it is too late. . . . And the torrent 
 overturns the workmen upon the bleeding ruins of their 
 work, begun too late. 
 
 " But let the good citizens assure themselves we will not 
 turn aside from that constitution, our sole guarantee. . . . 
 That directorial charter, approved by the sovereign people, 
 shall not be placed there, in the midst of you, upon that pil- 
 lar, as upon a block where they immolate the victims. (13) 
 No, it shall not be immolated. V/e will defend it against all 
 factions. I declare it by all your oaths, and, above all, from 
 that which springs from your hearts at this moment. The 
 directory regenerated is surrounded with all the strength of 
 the law. . . . Let us not cease to surround it with all the 
 strength of opinion; and, reunited by that sacred tie, we 
 shall save the republic from the abyss into which they 
 have plunged it. 
 
 " In the first days of its administration, the executive 
 power found every thing in the most complete ruin : it still 
 works upon the wreck. Its march appears too slow in the 
 eyes of the impatient friends of the country. . . . And I also 
 partake of their impatience, and I conclude that, the sooner 
 to satisfy it, we must not be divided. The more we suffer 
 to be discovered the necessity of a change in the system, 
 and the more we weaken the government, her march will 
 be so much the less vigorous and the less rapid. 
 
 " Besides, do not forget, representatives of the people, 
 that if the equilibrium of the powers, without which there 
 is no durable constitution, exacts that the government 
 should not weigh upon the legislative body as before the 
 30th Praireal, it exacts, also, that the legislative body should 
 not weigh upon the government, without which France 
 would only have but changed her tyrants. The effect of 
 your good intentions would be lost, and the abasement of 
 the directory encourage the factions. 
 
 " To obtain that equilibrium, therefore, we must not ex- 
 act imperiously the dismission of such or such agent, be- 
 cause he had been accused by such or such a paper. In 
 short, that the directors will not condemn without hearing 
 the justification of the accused, it must not be thought tha* 
 they act like their predecessors ; for they condemned at that 
 time the people and the individuals without listening to their 
 defence. Because we have been for a long time oppressed 
 by the executive power, we must in our turn become oppres- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 131 
 
 sors ; for the constitutional equilibrium would gain nothing 
 by that change of parts. If a word said at tiiat tribunal 
 became an order for the goA'ernment and a sentence for the 
 accused, liberty would not any longer be scarcely but a 
 
 chimera, and the directory a manikin It would in 
 
 fact be exacting of our first magistrates to hold themselves 
 their necks to the bowstring of an absolute master, accord- 
 ing to an Asiatic custom, but very little republican. 
 
 " Representatives of the people, far from embarrassing 
 the actions of the directory, let us invite them to display all 
 the power which you have lately confided to them ; second 
 them without reserve. Let not the movement of Praireal, 
 made to regenerate the executive power, be directed against 
 the executive power regenerated. Let our attitude restore 
 the confidence, destroy the inquietudes, and bring calm into 
 the bosoms of the friends of the republic. Let our enemies 
 renounce the hope of seeing Frenchmen destroy each other 
 with their own hands, and thus serve as auxiliaries to the 
 coalition of kings, 
 
 " Let them hear once more, those men of blood and dis- 
 cord, the oath which we renew to defend the directorial 
 constitution for and against all the parties." 
 
 Tiie whole of the assembly rose in repeating the oath. 
 Notwithstanding that apparent unanimity, my discourse 
 was considered by the Jacobins as a culpable attack. The 
 next day their paper (Journal of Freemen) complained that 
 my declaration against the re-establishment of the revolu- 
 tionary system, and my discourse, had furnished the sub- 
 ject of a pamphlet, entitled : — No more terror, no more of 
 the regi.ne of i7J3 ; doicn ivith the Jacohins. The Journal 
 thus far spoke only the truth, but in railing against me and 
 Sieyes, it exhausted upon us its rich vocabulary of injuries. 
 T]ie censure of the journals had been taken from the gov- 
 ernment ; and while they were for the law of repression, 
 the license of the periodical press was without limits. 
 
 This journal was the echo of the popular society which 
 had opf^ned the sittings of the hall of the manege and which 
 had taken the name. They had profited by the movement 
 of Praireal to open the clubs. The law forbade those re- 
 unions to have presidents, to make collective addresses, and 
 to adopt. But they eluded the law step by step ; the Gen- 
 eral Augereau was nominated president under the name of 
 the regulator ; several deputies were named secretaries, 
 and several others had themselves registered. The audaci- 
 ty of that society increased by such a re-enforcement, and 
 Paris heard with consternation come out of that new tribune 
 the names and maxims of 1793. The number of the au- 
 ditors augmented every day, and they formed externally 
 considerable meetings. In those groups they repeated the 
 denunciations, the patriotic songs, the provocations re- 
 
132 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 sounded in the hall. They accused with emulation minis- 
 ters, generals, deputies, and our commission the eleven, 
 who had all of them the honours of the denunciation. 
 They spoke vaguely of a grand plot in the town to pro- 
 claim a constitutional king, and they directed the suspicions 
 upon the director who had resided at Berlin. They mena- 
 ced the republicans with a near danger, to excite them to 
 an emeute. " By whom are we governed V — exclaimed an 
 orator — " by perfidious and crafty ministers ; by mean ty- 
 rants without genius'? Yes, republicans, death hovers over 
 you ; and it will devour all, if your energy abates. The 
 arms of the assassins are ready ! The poniards are sharp- 
 ened ! . . . They are about to sound your last hour ! . . . 
 Will you perish thus pusillanimously ]" — " No, no !" cried 
 all the voices within and without — " Give us arms, give us 
 arms, — To arms ! To arms !" — " The republic demands our 
 solicitude ; and, on the other side, the manes of the mar- 
 tyrs of liberty call also for vengeance ! . . . Oh ! Romme ! — 
 Oh! Goujon, 8oubrary, Darthe, and Babceuf! .... You 
 shall be avenged ! — Yes, you shall be avenged ! — but by the 
 national justice, and not by assassination !" — It was impos- 
 sible that such discourses should not finish by kindling the 
 passions of the multitude. Often had the guard of the 
 council hevw obliged to interfere ; and, to stop the disorder, 
 blood had flowed more than once. That guard was charged 
 only with the police of the legislative enclosure, and the 
 hall of the manege was found to be comprised within the 
 enclosure of the council of ancients. That council, indig- 
 nant at the turbulence of the society, resolved to tak€ away 
 the place which they had given thera. Forced to quit the 
 manege, it endeavoured to take refuge in the ancient house 
 of the oratorians ; but the peaceful inhabitants of that part 
 of the town repulsed such neighbours who were so little 
 agreeable. At length the wandering society found an asy- 
 lum in the ancient hall of the Jacobins, and it was there 
 that it recommenced its tumultuous reunions. The new 
 hall appeared to have augmented the audacity of the mem- 
 bers of the society. The ancients were most particularly 
 the object of their threats. They denounced nominatively 
 the deputies Chasset, Barraillon, and Courtois. The ani- 
 mositj" towards the last was beyond all bounds. ... It was 
 him who, upon the 9th of Thermidor, had m.ade the famous 
 report against the tyranny of Robespierre. . . . All those 
 who regretted at the bottom of their heart 1793, must have 
 had the name of Courtois in horror. 
 
 The anniversary of the immortal day of Thermidor was 
 arrived. Courtois celebrated that national festival by rail- 
 ing with vehemence against the regime of terror, which 
 madmen appeared desirous to bring back again to the coun- 
 try. Sieyes, as president of the directory, pronounced at 
 
LTJCIEN BONAPARTE. 133 
 
 the Champ de Mars a discourse which was worthy of 
 his high renown. (14) The accord of the majority of the 
 directory and the council of ancients was evident ; but a 
 great part of the council of five hundred leaned towards 
 the revolutionary measures. At the sitting of the anniver- 
 sary of the 9th Thermidor, they were occupied among us 
 with the popular societies, and they proposed a law for 
 their organization, as if the question was to shelter them 
 from the hatred of the government. Each sitting traced 
 more profoundly the difference of sentiments which domi- 
 nated in the two councils. The ancients rejected in that 
 month many of our resolutions, and they were perhaps in 
 the wrong not to have rejected more of them. 
 
 In fact, our project of law upon the repression of the 
 abuses of the periodical press, rejected as being too imper- 
 fect, having been sent back to us, we replied by voting the 
 suppression of the papers ; and that resolution was approv- 
 ed by the ancients, notwithstanding their desire to augment 
 the authority of the directory. The newspapers of the roy- 
 alists and Jacobins also could deliver themselves up with- 
 out any bridle to their passions. That condescendence of 
 the ancients is explained by a desire of conciliation which 
 appeared to them to be advantageous for the public good, 
 and by their hopes of discussing shortly a new project of 
 repression : but their good intentions did not prevent the 
 evils that the license of the press produced at that epoch- 
 In several of tiie departments, at Bordeaux, at Lille, at the 
 town of Orient, at Rouen, at Amiens, serious troubles fol- 
 lowed the suppression of the censure of the nev* spapers 
 and the openings of the clubs. Those troubles were every- 
 where disadvantageous for the Jacobins ; the result showed 
 that people would not have any more of their regimf^. 
 "We have not forgotten," said they on all sides, "their 
 atrocious domination. If they were as good citizens as they 
 pretend to be, would they still be objects of anxiety for 
 all the French! Do they think that they can only do good 
 in denouncing and proscribing in a mass, in sowing every- 
 where suspicions and terror 1 People do not frighten those 
 whom they love ; but, instead of reassuring that country 
 which they pretend to love in their hearts, they chill it 
 with fear !" 
 
 Another of our resolutions, far more fatal even than the 
 license of the newspapers, was equally approved of by the 
 ancients. It was the law of the hostages, worthy sister of the 
 law of the suspected, (15) As soon as a commune was de- 
 clared in a state of trouble, the administration was authori- 
 zed to choose the hostages among the relations of the emi- 
 grants, the ci-devant nobles, and the relations of rebels who 
 made a part of the armed crowds. These hostages were to 
 be imprisoned ; those who got away were assimilated witb 
 
 M 
 
134 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the emigrants. For each republican assassinated, four of 
 the hostages were to be transported, and a sequestration 
 put upon all they possessed. The hostages in a mass were, 
 besides, submitted to a penalty of five thousand francs for 
 each individual that was assassinated. In decreeing the 
 project of law, the legislative body addressed a proclamation 
 to the people. (16) 'I'hat proclamation endeavoured in vain 
 to justify a law worthy of '93. How could the directory 
 and the two councils suffer themselves to be led away to 
 commit so great a fault "? The royalists had become threat- 
 ening in several parts of the West and vSouth : public func- 
 tionaries, the purchasers of national properties, had been 
 assassinated ; the alarm was spread from village to village. 
 At Bordeaux, the streets and the public places had been 
 covered with the proclamations of Louis XVIII. In the 
 environs of Toulouse, the armed bands had dared approach 
 near tho town, with the white flag displayed. At length the 
 daily clamours of the clubs, the violence of the public papers, 
 and the placards, had not been without influence upon the 
 best minds. Exaggeration is like calumny ; it leaves always 
 something. 
 
 The deputy Cornet, in explaining the motives of his vote 
 to the ancients, expressed thus his regrets and those of 
 many of ins colleagues : " 1 have already said that this pro- 
 ject of law appeared to me to be against the pacification 
 which was proposed. I have yielded to the first sentiment 
 that the love of my country inspired ; but when I see the 
 members of your commission demand from you the adop- 
 tion ; when our colleagues of those departments, where the 
 application of the law would be a sad necessity, look upon 
 it as the most efficacious means of preserving them from 
 the trrrible scourge of civil war which surrounds their 
 countries, and might invade the whole of France, then must 
 we lament under the extremity to which they have reduced 
 us, and at the same time resign ourselves, since it is the 
 only remedy that they think likely to assure the public 
 welfare." It was thus that the council was misled. They 
 hoped to fortify the government by a revolutionary law 
 which only weakened it, and deprived it of the public 
 esteem, for the law of the hostages was only useful to the 
 rebels, whose ranks it increased, and who took in their turn 
 hostages among the republicans. In going beyond the 
 mark, we did not obtain it, as it always happens. 
 
 A measure of the same sort as that of the hostages had 
 been decided also in our council. The project of the loan 
 of a hundred millions, voted after the 30th of Praireal, had 
 become in the discussions, preparatory to our commissions, 
 more and more revolutionary. When we voted, nothing 
 was wanting ; it was no longer a loan, but a tax upon the 
 rich. The tax was progressive ; the ex-nobles were con- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 135 
 
 demned to a triple payment. The council of ancients re- 
 pulsed our project. We were obliged to modify it, by 
 taking from it the most severe measures ; and the ancients, 
 after a very animated discussion, approved our new resolu- 
 tion, although it was little better than the first. 
 
 They rejected afterward our project of law against the 
 transported priests. 
 
 The too celebrated Barrere, as well as his accomplices, 
 Billaud, Varennes', Vadier, &c., was excluded from the am- 
 nesty of the 14th Frimaire, year 5. A speech of the Gen- 
 eral Lamarque had induced the council of five hundred to 
 revoke the exception which struck them. The ancients 
 rejected our resolution. Baraillot acquired new rights to 
 the hatred of the Jacobins. 
 
 " Was there ever," said he, at the sitting of the 6th Ther- 
 midor, " a more horrible epoch than that where virtue and 
 talent were a title of proscription ; where science was 
 obliged to conceal itself, or mount the scaffold ; where the 
 man of property was constrained to give up his place to 
 cannibals and vampires 1 
 
 " Bonaparte ! — would you have dared to signalize your- 
 self beneath that dreadful regime 1 Thou wouldst have 
 quickly partaken of the fate of the brave Vestemaz. What 
 can be the aim of the indulgence which they demand for 
 Barrere 1 Is it that they intend to recommence the work 
 of those individuals (I forbear to call them men) whom 
 they endeavoi;r to make appear innocent 1 
 
 " Pardon, legislators, pardon me these transports of in- 
 dignation I fancied myself near to the year 8 of the 
 
 republic ! But, by a rapid and retrograde movement, I find 
 
 myself brought back to '93 For I hear the virtues of 
 
 Barrere talked of. 
 
 " Indulgence for the misguided crowd, and even for the 
 guilty ; but not for the satellites of that splenetic tyraiit to 
 whom Thermidor did justice but too late, and who wanted 
 only a little genius to enslave us. How can they dare to 
 lament over those beings who have committed every ex- 
 cess, who were guilty of every crime, who exercised every 
 tyranny, and who are still disgusting with innocent blood f" 
 
 Barrere beheld, then, his exile prolonged ; it belonged 
 only to a stronger and calmer power to render, even to 
 Barrere, the soil of the country. Against all human proba- 
 bilities. Providence, in the disasters of St. Jean d'Acre, 
 prepared for France the accession of that reparatory gov- 
 ernment. But was it not very strange that those same 
 men who showed themselves so vigorous towards Rewbell 
 and La Reveillere, demanded, at the same time, the recall 
 of Barrere ! ! ! 
 
 The question of the civil oath to the national guards of- 
 fered to the Jacobins a more favourable result. This oath 
 
136 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 bore the words of hatred to royalty and anarchy. They 
 proposed to suppress the last word. Anarchy, said they, 
 is the absence of the government ; it is absurd to swear 
 hatred to that which is negative. The General Jourdan, 
 the conqueror of Fleurus, supported that suppression. A 
 middle party terminated the quarrel. The civil oath bore 
 afterwardhatr ed to royalty and all sorts of tyranny. The 
 ancients sanctioned the change that the Jacobin party cele- 
 brated as a victory. 
 
 The real victories of that party had been the laws of the 
 hostages and the forced loan. But they pretended, then, 
 that those laws fortified the government: but, above all, 
 they desired to draw the centre of action and the council 
 of five hundred ; and, to succeed, it was necessary to abase 
 and weaken the directory. It was for that purpose that 
 the paper of the freemen and the club of the Jacobins 
 were constantly working in concert. Sieyes was become 
 more than ever the object of their hatred, after he had un- 
 masked them in the solemnities of the 10th of August. 
 This passage in his discourse at the Champ de Mars had 
 torn the veil, which, upon the 9th Thermidor, he had only 
 lifted. (17) " The directory knows the aim of those men. . . 
 What they desire, is to intoxicate the public with mistrust ; 
 to carry confusion and discouragement into people's minds, 
 and to drive the French to despair ; to throw all into con- 
 fusion It is, in a word, that they may govern, at what- 
 ever price it may be. Frenchmen, you know how they 
 govern !" 
 
 Far from being discouraged, the Jacobin journal con- 
 tinued to express itself with so much audacity that it ap- 
 peared as if certain of a near triumph. " The directory," 
 said they, " have raised the mask, and ostensibly sanctioned 
 the massacre of the republicans. The horrible discourse 
 of its president, upon the 10th of August, is an inconceiv- 
 able augmentation of the counter-revolutionary audacity 
 compared with its preceding discourse. The directory 
 dares to affirm that we have violated the constitution. . . . It 
 has lied, — it is an odious calumniator." 
 
 The violence of this newspaper was less dangerous than 
 the mancEuvres employed at the same time in all parts of 
 the republic. In the clubs of the departments, they propa- 
 gated the most infamous calumnies against the three direc- 
 tors who formed the majority. Commissions sent from 
 Paris hawked about accusatory addresses, and by their 
 means the affiliation of many of the clubs with that of Paris 
 was already assured. The club of Grenoble offered the 
 scandal of a panegyric upon Robespierre, pronounced at the 
 tribune ; the re-establishment of the regime of '93 was 
 highly extolled, and a new convention was demanded as the 
 sole means of salvation. At the door even of the legislative 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 137 
 
 body, placards were posted up to excite agitation and insur- 
 rection. It was no longer time to hesitate. The commis- 
 sion of inspectors of the council of ancients, in rendering 
 an account of those placards, proposed to send them to the 
 directory, and to demand why they did not cause the arti- 
 cles of the constitution to be executed which forbade all 
 collective acts lo the societies. The directory replied to 
 this cry of alarm by calling upon the minister of the police ; 
 and that minister did not hesitate to accuse the excesses of 
 the clubs, and to demand repressive measures. (18) His re- 
 port was sent back to us by the ancients, and it excited 
 among us a very violent discussion that was without any 
 result, but in which they succeeded to have it passed to the 
 order of the day upon the impression of the report. The 
 directory, however, still pursued the accomplishment of its 
 duty ; it ordained the society of the Jacobhis to be closed, 
 and informed us of that great measure by a message, in 
 which the firm tone and evident reasons' reduced for a mo- 
 ment its adversaries to silence. (19) We ordained that the 
 project of law upon the organization and the limits of the 
 political societies should be immediately submitted to dis- 
 cussion. A second message upon the troubles of the South 
 was read in a secret committee, and we accorded to the di- 
 rectory for a month the riglit of making domiciliary visits. 
 That extraordinary authority, given to those who had just 
 put an end to the Jacobins, appeared to indicate that the 
 two councils felt the necessity of not weakening the gov- 
 ernment. Yet, notwithstanding, in the same sitting, they 
 obtained from us a measure that was entirely contrary, 
 the formation of a commission of seven members to present 
 measures of public welfare. . . . The closing of the Jaco- 
 bins, and the troubles in the South, purposely exaggerated, 
 operated differently upon people's minds. Tormented with 
 inquietude, attacked by several excellent orators, and filled 
 with a contagious conviction, like Enchasserieux, Briot, and 
 Lamarque, we could no longer prevent the formation of that 
 commission which we had repulsed several times, because 
 it divided the public authority at the precise moment when 
 it ought to have been concentrated in a single point. But 
 such are too often the consequences of a numerous assem- 
 bly, moved by a crisis unexpected by some, and skilfully 
 prepared by others. In vain several deputies represented 
 that a committee for measures of public welfare was a rev- 
 olutionary authority; that we had an executive power 
 whom we had just invested with the right of domiciliary 
 visits ; that there were no new measures to decree, but that 
 it was necessary to execute those that were already taken, 
 and that, in acting thus, we overturned with one hand what 
 the other had raised. . . . All was in vain : they replied by 
 showing the letters wliich they had received from the South 
 
 M2 
 
138 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and the West, and in crying : " They murdered the repuUi- 
 cans ! The ivhite flag ! The royalists lend the hand to Suwar- 
 roio /" All that we could obtain was to repulse the per- 
 manence, which was also proposed in that stormy sitting, 
 and to cause the commission of seven to be named, not by 
 the president, according to custom, but by a secret scrutiny. 
 That form of election was extremely important, because the 
 president Juviot, who belonged to the exalted party, had 
 probably formed a committee of persons who thought like 
 him. The scrutiny was extracted during the sitting, and I 
 wsT proclaimed member of the commission of seven, as 
 well as Chenier, Danou, Lamarque, Enchasserieux, Berber, 
 and Boulaye de la Meurthe ; the friends of the government 
 had thus the majority. 
 
 In the state of irritation in which the council of five hun- 
 dred found itself, the most insignificant circumstance ap- 
 peared serious. The General Lefebvre, who commanded 
 Paris, had written to the president Juviot, to announce to 
 him that the grenadiers of the legislative body, placed at his 
 disposal, not being necessary in the quiet situation of Paris, 
 he sent them to their quarters. A thousand conjectures were 
 raised upon that letter : was it not an indication of a plot 1 
 — Who had dared to place the guard of the legislative body 
 under the orders of General Lefebvre ? They accused the 
 general, by saying that most probably he had lost his sen- 
 ses ! They challenged the inspectors of the council. I was 
 obhged, in that quality, to answer the challenge ; and as I 
 felt for the commandant of Paris as much esteem as friend- 
 ship, I replied as follows to what they had said against 
 him : — " I can assure one of the best speakers upon the fear 
 which he expressed, with regard to the subject of the com- 
 mandant of Paris, the brave Lefebvre has too wise a head 
 to lose his senses so easily. It would be more natural 
 to demand informations from him, than to i^ijure hiai at the 
 tribune. Member of your commission of mspectors, I de- 
 clare that I am completely ignorant of the point in ques- 
 tion ; it is either equivocal, or the order which disposed of 
 our guard came from another authority than the commission 
 of the inspectors of your council. It is what should be 
 sought after with calmness, and known with ' certainty !' " 
 The informations that were received the next day caused all 
 the inquietudes to vanish. The inspectors of the ancients, 
 fearing that the closing of the Jacobins might bring about 
 some troubles, had charged the chief of the guard of the 
 legislative body to augment with a hundred men the post of 
 service, and to come to an understanding with the com- 
 mandant of Paris. But the letter of General Lefebvre, in- 
 stead of being addressed to the president of the council of 
 agents, had been addressed, through an error, to our presi- 
 dent. He had reason, however, to be alarmed since the 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 139 
 
 question was to dispose of our constitutional guard, who 
 had no other superiors than the inspectors of the two 
 councils. 
 
 We discovered very soon how much they had exagger- 
 ated the troubles in the West and the South. The Chouans 
 had been beaten in every part and dispersed. On the other 
 side, the threats of the society of Jacobins dissipated, in 
 smoke. The commission of seven, animated by better sen- 
 timents, sought only to second the efforts of the executive 
 power, to re-establish in the interior order, peace, and pub- 
 lic confidence, sole end that we had hoped to obtain in fla- 
 king the revolution of Praireal. 
 
 In the history of M. Thiers, except the exclusive applica- 
 tion of the title of patriots to the Jacobins (a grave error, 
 which cannot be too much condemned), the author traces a 
 brilliant picture of the directory at that period, true upon 
 the whole; but several of the figures in the first plan re- 
 semble it very little. It is in describing that which we 
 have not seen ourselves ; the truth of the details is dif- 
 ficult to be laid hold of. How did M. Thiers learn that 
 Sieves, infatuated v/ith Avhat he had seen in Prussia, tired 
 his colleagues by repeating constantly, " It is not thus that 
 they do at Berlin V Those informations were furnished 
 him, without doubt, by interested contemporaries, who were 
 not too faithful. I saw Sieyes every day, and, if he had 
 vaunted Berlin in that stupid manner to us, we should have 
 smiled with contempt ; notwithstanding our ancient esteem 
 for the orator of the tiers etat, we should have said that he 
 was in his dotage, and, far from listening to him with re- 
 spect, we should have quickly sought another chief. No 
 minister was ever less infatuated with a court. Surrounded 
 with the most fatal prejudices, our ambassador had learned 
 how to conquer them by a simpUcity worthy of the grand 
 republic- He had placed himself far above the pitiful in- 
 trigues of a court. The day upon which, by means of some 
 little stratagems, they succeeded in making the ambassador 
 of another power take for a moment the first place, Sieyes 
 sat down quietly, and said only with a loud voice, "It is of 
 little consequence where I am : the place luhich is occupied 
 by the amhassador of the French people always hecomes the 
 first.'''' If they choose to find infatuation in this great citi- 
 zen, let it not be at least the ridiculous infatuation of being 
 a courtier at Berlin. It is true that Sieyes always had nu- 
 merous detractors ; he was not gifted with the genius of 
 intrigue, without which we are rarely appreciated at a just 
 value. Many of his rivals thought themselves equal to him, 
 or at least pretended to have it thought so. They succeed- 
 ed sometimes in making others believe it, and in putting 
 his superiority in doubt. They repeated everywhere the 
 «rords of Talleyrand, the inexhaustible author of piquant 
 
140 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 sallies : " I hear for ever talked of the 'profound head of the 
 director Sieyes \ ... It is hollow, they mean to say, 
 without doubt." The witty author of that epigram possessed 
 too solid a wisdom not to find very hollow a politic of which 
 the best legislation of the republic was the only principle. 
 We all laughed at his hon 7not ; which did not prevent, not- 
 withstanding that the heads which were really hollow were 
 those who took a pun for reasons. 
 
 The historian Thiers was equally deceived when he trans- 
 mitted this pretended dis(fourse of the director La Reveil- 
 lere — " Barras is duped by Sieyes ; Sieyes is duped by Bar- 
 ras, . . . and both of them are duped by the Bo7iapartes." 
 The Bonapartes ! Napoleon was at that time beneath the 
 walls of that town where his fortune failed him, as he said 
 in laughing once at the Tuileries. From his camp of St. 
 Jean d'Acre, he dreamed of Damascus, Aleppo, Bagdad, and 
 Constantinople, and thought little of duping Sieyes or Bar- 
 ras. As for the brothers of Napoleon, they must have been 
 gifted with a most miraculous spirit of divination, if they 
 could have thought at that period of the first of those two 
 returns which struck Europe with amazement. Such re- 
 turns are not to be counselled, are not to be prepared, are 
 not to be plotted. The frigate of Egypt, the brig of the 
 Elbe, the bark of Cesar, are only to be moved by the in- 
 spired breath of genius. Those events of a superior order 
 must not be measured by the common measure. For my 
 part, I affirm that the return from Egypt, as well as that 
 from Elba, surprised us as much as anybody. It is puerile 
 to believe and insinuate that I intrigued at Paris for Napo- 
 leon to return from the plains of the East just at the mo- 
 ment of the catastrophe. The Deus ex machina is no longer 
 good, even for the theatre, and it should not be introduced 
 into history ; in a revolution, above all, it would be a poor 
 machine to set to work. La Reveillere, notwithstanding 
 his theophilanthropy, had too much good sense to believe 
 and say such absurdities. 
 
 But let us admit for a moment that supposition. . . It 
 was not necessary then to endeavour to fortify the new di- 
 rectory ; it was not necessary to appeal to the most re- 
 nowned political man, and the most celebrated for his legis- 
 lative wisdom, and for his antipathy against military su- 
 premacy. In seconding Sieyes with all my youthful efforts, 
 I did what was necessary to preserve the directorial govern- 
 ment. If that administration could have been saved, it 
 would have been by Sieyes, and those who were ranged 
 around him. And it migut have been saved ! . . . Yes, 
 if the council of five hundred had possessed as much confi- 
 dence as the ancients in the wisdom of Sieyes in the month 
 of Thermidor, we should have recalled to life that constitu- 
 tion of the year 3, which, since the 18th of Fructidor and 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 141 
 
 the 30th Praireal, and notwithstanding two coups cTetat^ wa-s 
 nothing more than a corpse. And Napoleon would not 
 have found the republic almost at dissolution. Yes, another 
 Sieyes would have been the republican legislator of his 
 country. But where was his strength 1 Where was his 
 cunning? And without cunning, without the sword, how 
 could he govern, in an age of progression and universal 
 pretensions ? 
 
 Month of Fructidor, year 7. From the ISth of August to th€ 
 
 22d of September, 1799. 
 
 Reactions in Italy — English invasion in Holland — Defection of the Dutch 
 Fleet — Battle ofNovi and death of Joubert — The Jacobins accuse Sieyes 
 — Garat and Chenier defend him — Pamphleteers and the Journal of 
 Freemen — Decree of Accusation against both of them — My report in the 
 name of the Commission of Seven — The two Jourdans — Several of the 
 Journalists are arrested — Projects of changes decreed m the two parties 
 — Jourdan proposes the Permanence, and the Declaration that the Coun- 
 try is in danger — I defend, it— His Propositions are Repulsed — The 
 Views of Sieyes for reforming the Constitution were entirely Republi- 
 can—Concentration of the Executive Power — Division of the Powers 
 — Universal Suifrage — Conservative Senate electing among the Can- 
 didates named by the People — Perfection of the Ostracism of the An- 
 cient Republics — The Consular Reform prepared without the Return 
 of Napoleon being thought of — The Men of Brumaire are no more the 
 Authors of the Imperial Monarchy, than the constitutions of 1789 are 
 the Authors uf the Republic of '93 — But for the unexpected return of 
 Napoleon, the Jacobins would probably have triumphed — Personal Aris- 
 tocracy — Answer to the Detractors of Napoleon — The Example of Eng- 
 land proves that a Monarchy really Constitutional may be the best of 
 Republics. 
 
 I. THE POWERS. 
 
 The probability of a rupture among our enemies appeared 
 to shine upon our horizon. The Russians manifested the 
 intention of recalling the King of Sardinia to his provinces 
 of Piedmont, and that project was repulsed by Austria, who 
 aimed at plantiuf^ their standards in the Piedmontese towns, 
 instead of raising the colours of the house of Savoy. That 
 cupidity had been very useful to us in the war of the first 
 coalition ; and we hoped that it would serve us a second 
 time. 
 
 The constancy of Prussia in her neutrality raised also 
 some clouds between that power and the coalesced. The 
 ministers of London and Petersburgh left Berlin. We at- 
 tached too much importance to those departures ; but it left 
 no doubt upon the actual intentions of Prussia, whose ex- 
 ample decided Saxony and Denmark to keep entirely out of 
 the way of the coalition. 
 
142 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Our terrible enemy, Pitt, become more powerful than ever, 
 was no longer satisfied with scattering floods of gold over 
 the continent. He prepared for several months a powerful 
 armament. Ireland, Holland, Egypt, Italy, thought them- 
 selves menaced. The storm fell at length upon the coast of 
 Holland ; ten thousand English, commanded by the General 
 Abercromby, bathed with their blood the downs of the Hel- 
 der. . The resistance of the General Daendels was sharp but 
 useless. The Duke of York, followed by a second expedi- 
 tion, went to place himself at the head of the army ; and 
 Brune, who commanded the French and the Batavians, sur- 
 rounded the invaders with his formidable columns. 
 
 II. THE ALLIED REPUBLICS. 
 
 The most cruel reaction desolated the Italian republics. 
 Naples, above all, was by turns a prey to the ferocious bri- 
 gands of Calabria, commanded by the Cardinal Ruffo, and to 
 the scaffolds raised by the order of the king. The armistice 
 promised was not sanctioned. Nelson suffered one of his 
 masts to become the gallows of the brave Admiral Carac- 
 ciola. The fraternity of arms and glory was powerless 
 (for the first time) upon the soul of a British commander 
 and conqueror. Naples, during several weeks, swam with 
 blood, and the court returned triumphant. 
 
 Switzerland was no longer but a field of battle. The 
 Austrian, Russian, and French camps covered her narrow 
 valleys and her high mountains. The authorities of the 
 country were for us or against us, according to the marches 
 or the countermarches of the armies. 
 
 Holland, invaded by the Duke of York, appeared desi- 
 rous of defending herself by sea and land ; but the procla- 
 mations of the Prince of Orange had penetrated amid all 
 the vessels. That house, whose name is inseparable from 
 the glory and the liberty of the Batavian power, was not 
 forgotten. The sailors of the fleet refused to fight the pro- 
 tectors of their ancient stadtholder ; they thought, when 
 they surrendered themselves, of passing to the flag of Or- 
 ange. . . . But the point in question was twenty-five ves- 
 sels of the line. . . The British lion thought proper to ad- 
 judge to himself so fine a prey ! . . The Dutch fleet ceased 
 to exist. Aristides would, without doubt, have struck with 
 an anathema such a victory. . . . But Themistocles would 
 not perhaps have neglected so useful a result. The party 
 of the stadtholder was awakened also in several provinces. 
 Brune had at the same time Ins enemies to repulse, and 
 some of his allies to satisfy. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 143 
 
 III, THE ARMIES. 
 
 Our army of Italy was reorganized with haste. It then 
 gave us a spectacle worthy of the brightest days of the an- 
 cient republics. The young lieutenant of Napoleon, Jou- 
 bert, on receiving the command from the hands of General 
 Moreau, nobly demanded the assistance of him whom he 
 came to replace ; and Moreau, whose glory was then so 
 brilliant and so pure, yielded to the prayers of his succes- 
 sors, and remained to aid him in the approaching battle. 
 Both of them merited that the crown of oak should be 
 mingled on their forehead with the laurels of battle. They 
 commanded together a general attack against the Austrian- 
 Russians ; but fortune would not that time range itself on 
 the side of all the civic virtues. The plain of Novi was the 
 tomb of Joubert. Moreau saved the remains of our army, 
 which the superiority of numbers had vanquisiied, notwith- 
 standing the most noble efforts, and the names of Joubert 
 and of Novi traversed France amid a funeral concert. 
 
 The child of victory, the invincible Massena, maintained 
 himself alone with advant^^ge, notwithstanding^ his inferior- 
 ity : he attacked even the enemies at the passage of the Aar, 
 and beat them com.pleiely ; but that advantage was not of a 
 nature to balance the catastrophe of Novi. 
 
 IV. THE INTERIOR. 
 
 From the commencement of the month the progress of 
 Svnvarrovv struck a fatal blow upon the directory. The 
 parties, suppressed for a moment, revived with Twey. 
 The Jacobins and the royalists, far from being coalesced, 
 were very frank enemies ; but the impatience of the first, 
 and the hatred of the -second, tended equally to overthrow 
 the government. The interior, in this month of reverses, 
 oifered everywhere an obstinate and bitter struggle. The 
 Jacobin new"sp:ipers repeated the gross contradiction which 
 they had given to the directory. " Ii there could be found," 
 said they, " in our language a word more expressive, we 
 should make it our duty to employ it. Sieyes is more cul- 
 pable than was Carnot and Merlin. If he does not change 
 his system, there must be made another 18th Fructidor or 
 30th Praireal for him." I was not spared by those indefati- 
 gable denunciators. They reproached me for having been 
 a member of a revolutionary committee (singular accusa- 
 tion in their mouths), of having been named deputy at 
 twenty-three years gS age, in a department that had no 
 right to name that year — of being the brother-in-law of an 
 emigrant, and, what was still more extraordinary, of having 
 endeavoured to assassinate some merchants of Morocco, to 
 
144 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 obtain possession of their vessel, &c. Since we had de- 
 clared our horror for 1793, we had become conspirators, 
 traitors, assassins! The authors of those poisonous wri- 
 tings caused at the same time the most imprudent pam- 
 phlets to be distributed : one of those pamphlets, entitled 
 " Change of Residence," placing the council of ancients at 
 Montmartre, (where the gallows had formerly stood !) The 
 ancients lost patience, and they denounced to the executive 
 power the pamphlet and the Journal of Freemen. In com- 
 municating to us their decree, they made no doubt of our 
 consent. But they were deceived in their expectations ; 
 notwithstanding the speech, full of high thoughts of our col- 
 league Cabanis, the council of five hundred passed to the 
 order of the day. The directory, however, caused the 
 journalist and the pamphleteer to be prosecuted before the 
 tribunals. 
 
 The law of the hostages had been applied to twelve de- 
 partments of the West, and to that of the high Garonne ; far 
 from having calmed them, those immoderate measures had 
 increased the evil and propagated the alarms. " They want to 
 bring us back to the government of '93," they cried on all 
 sides ; " we will not suffer it." The agents of royahsni 
 took advantage very actively of that unfortunate law : the 
 bands of insurgents reunited in crowds, and defended them- 
 selves, near Toulouse, in several combats against the regu- 
 lar troops. In the departments of La Charente, the royal- 
 ist proclamations and the white flags seriously alarmed the 
 magistrates , and the national guards united to defend them- 
 selves. 
 
 The condemnation of the Jacobin newspaper did not put 
 a stop to the manceuvres of the party. Sieyes was de- 
 nounced at the council of five hundred, as having been 
 elected before the year was accomj iished. Chenier, in re- 
 pulsing that calumny, deplored the blindness of those who 
 sought to sow division among the authorities ; he made an 
 eloquent eulogy of the accused director. Garat had spoken 
 in the same sense to the council of ancients. We rejected 
 the accusation as a calumny. To put an end to that rage of 
 aenunciation against the directors and the representatives 
 of the people, Chenier, in a motion of order, proposed to us 
 to submit to severe rules the denunciators of the members 
 of the directory and the councils. " We must," said they, 
 " fix the conditions where such conditions may be read at 
 our tribune. Is it not necessary to ascertain the existence 
 and the civil state, of the informer 1 Ought a denunciation, 
 signed by an emigrant, to be read ! There no longer exists 
 any strength for us but in union. Those who would divide 
 us are then the enemies of France. Does not the coalition 
 hide the guilty hand which ferments our discords'? We 
 must not acknowledge the republicans in that handful of 
 
LtCIEN BONAPARTE. 145 
 
 strangers, of new and unknown men in the revolution, 
 which was made without them. It is they who dare accuse 
 the civilians who overthrew the throne and founded the re- 
 public. The good sense of the people, the wisdom of the 
 ancients, the firmness of the directory, and yours, will baffle 
 all their plots." 
 
 The proposition of Chenier was adopted without opposi- 
 tion. 
 
 The commission of the seven, named in the preceding 
 month to present measures for the public safety, had net 
 yet made any report. 
 
 Out of seven members, there were four of us very little 
 disposed for extraordinary measures. Wc thought the 
 government ought not to be embarrassed, and that it was 
 better to let it act in liberty/ ; but the impatient accused our 
 idleness. 
 
 Their arguments and the gravity of the circumstances de- 
 cided us to unite. Enchasserieux and myself were named 
 reporters. Enchasserieux caused several measures to be 
 voted to accelerate the raising of the conscripts. I was 
 charged to propose the project of lav/ and the following 
 considerations : 
 
 " Representatives of the people, To fulfil its mandate and 
 obtain a useful result, your commission of seven have been 
 under the necessity of examining the situation of the re- 
 public. 
 
 " Its attention has been directed upon our frontiers, and 
 upon the troubles in the interior. It submits to you the 
 ideas which that examination has suggested, and a project 
 of the resolution in consequence. 
 
 " Joubert has taken the command of the army of Italy : 
 the hopes of the Piedmontese and Cisalpine patriots are 
 raised ; the confidence of our troops surrounds them. In a 
 few days, perhaps at this moment, Joubert conducts to vic- 
 tory ; the brave impatient reseize it. The passage of the 
 Bormida, and the occupation of the town of Acqui, the an- 
 cient general masters of Beaulieu, are satisfactory presages. 
 The army of Switzerland, commanded by Massena, quits a 
 glorious defensive, necessitated by distress. You have 
 learned his successes ; you know that the mount St. Gothard 
 beheld again our phalanxes, and you learn to-day that the 
 Valais is reconquered. Numerous battalions crowded upon 
 the Rhine ; an army already organized marched towards the 
 Alps. Championnet and Moreau directed them : the first 
 may conquer to-day with impunity ; the second return upon 
 the shore_s of the great river, so many times the witness of 
 its glory. The combined fleets of France and Spain await 
 the expedition prepared in the Enghsh ports at a great ex- 
 pense ; the reunion of those fleets proves that we have sin- 
 cere allies, and that their interest and royalty may be a re- 
 
 N 
 
146 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 pr&ach to governments whose principles differ. On the 
 other side, the abuses of administration are corrected in 
 silence ; the fatal inaptitude, which seconded three months 
 ago the efforts of the coalition, is replaced by an indefatiga- 
 ble zeal. All is in motion and reparation; this general 
 movement, wliich succeeds a calm of too long a duration, 
 is in a republic the only guarantee of the victory. 
 
 " Here, then, representatives of the people, are the fruits 
 which we gather from the events of Praireal. Let tlie de- 
 tractors of that day, the more glorious that it never cost a 
 drop of blood, judge and condemn it at least in silence. 
 
 " Your commission is far from finding the position of our 
 armies as alarming as it has been enJeavoui'ed to be repre- 
 sented ; it believes, however, that it is right that you should 
 provide against reverses. Excessive security might become 
 fatal, 
 
 " We have been struck, therefore, with the necessity of 
 uniting new forces to guaranty our frontiers ; and although 
 the probabihty of the danger is further removed every day, 
 we have resolved to propose to you the formation of an 
 army of a second line, ready to march upon every point 
 directed by the executive power. 
 
 "As for the interior, your commission cannot dissimulate 
 to you the painful state. From the first days of Thermidor, 
 royalism, at the aspect of an active and regenerated direc- 
 tory, trembled for the coalition; royalism, implacable in 
 her hatred, and accustomed to find resources in her de- 
 feats, calls again discord to her aid, and replies by civil 
 war to the call of strangers. Faithful to its A'ightful sys- 
 tem, it takes all masks and all forms to excite troubles. It 
 arms in La Vendee. . . . Assassinates in the West and South. 
 .... It recruits in the towns, and laments in the country 
 
 upon the fate of the conscripts There it advances 
 
 with the menacing eye of a tiger Here, not yet dar- 
 ing to show itself openly, it creeps and crawls like a rep- 
 tile. ^ 
 
 " Our troops, it is true, make everywhere the royal troops 
 bite the dust. You know the patriotic conduct of the 
 functionaries and the citizens of the high Garonne. At 
 Montauban, in the interval of three hours, several companies 
 of cavaliers have formed themselves against the revolted. 
 But it is already a great deal to have dared to combat with 
 us; those attempts faihng are ready to be renewed, and 
 proves the hopes and the audacity of royahsm Fa- 
 thers of the country ! you can no longer shut your eyes upon 
 the abysses that are open at a time in several parts of the 
 republic. 
 
 "Your commission has felt that the sword is, for the 
 future, the only law that ought to be opposed to the parti- 
 
 fqn-, r.^ .v.^.oiH. It hns fpH that thev nijght. to pnbji'^b all 
 
LTJCIEN BONAPARTE. 147 
 
 their attacks, that the general indignation may be raised 
 against them. It thinks that at the present moment the 
 second measure of pubhc safety is to create a force partic- 
 ularly destined to repress the troubles of the interior, and 
 we have adopted the formation of an army in the depart- 
 ments. 
 
 " Your commission having decided unanimously the crea- 
 tion of those two new armies — its attention is drawn upon 
 the means of execution. 
 
 " The raising of the auxiliary battalions, decreed by the 
 law of the 10th Messidor, offers resources sufficient for the 
 completion of the actual regiments, and for the armies of 
 the second and departmental line. The affirmative'has been 
 proved to us ; after having filled the ancient regiments, the 
 auxiliary battalions still ofler a surplus of a hundred thou- 
 sand men, sufficient for the two new corps. Our enemies 
 ought to know, however, that to augment our levies we 
 only need a signal. The ardour of our youth is equalled 
 only by the zeal of the citizens of every age. What French- 
 man but would prefer to perish, rather than drag on without 
 honour a miserable life beneath the yoke of a barbarian ? 
 Who could support the idea of becoming the conquest of a 
 Cossack, and to see the great people, conquerors of so 
 
 many kings, reduced to become the slave of slaves? 
 
 Oh ! my country ! Notwithstanding the perfidious asser- 
 tions and the hatred of the counter-revolutionists, thy no- 
 ble bosom is ready to open again for liberty. That bosom 
 ■was, it is true, torn by parricide children. It is still ! . . . . 
 but all thy blood has not yet been shed! There yet re- 
 mains for independence and glory ! Before strangers, every 
 Frenchman cries. Fidelity to the republic ! no more divis- 
 ions, no more interior struggles, no more unjust suspi- 
 cions ! . . . . The constitution and victory ! The first is 
 confided to us, the second is for our armies, and we and the 
 armies will fulfil our duties, or we wiU perish at the post 
 which is assigned for us. 
 
 " Your commission proposes to you to demand an account, 
 every ten days, of the directory, of the levy, and of the arm- 
 ing of the auxiliary battalions ; it proposes also to you to 
 proclaim at the national tribune the names of the zealous 
 departments, and the names of the negligent departments. 
 The honourable naming awaits them, and without doubt the 
 Cote-d'or and La Meurthe, where the levy is accomplished ; 
 the high and lower Rhine, where they act with zeal, shall be 
 the first to obtain that recompense which our warriors gain 
 almost every day. 
 
 " A last observation has struck us : — -The plots of our ene- 
 mies are prepared in silence ; their bands are organized in 
 darkness ; they are scattered, and will fight like the Arabs 
 of the desert ; they piUage, assassinate, separate^ and unite 
 
148 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 to pillage and assassinate again Such is the seal of 
 
 reprobation, the seal of the stranger, that, for six years 
 past, has been stamped upon their foreheads. But we ! — It 
 is the publicity, the splendour, the imposing reunions that 
 are alone worthy of the national grandeur. The troops 
 that are dissesninated are sometimes useful; but too often 
 they are the prey of brigands, who surprise them unawares. 
 Those brigands watch the insulated gendarmes, the small 
 detachments, and the cash-chests ill-escorted. . . When they 
 see a departmental army organized ; when that army covers 
 several points, and tliat in the south, as in the north, those 
 standards tioat upon immense camps ; when those camps, 
 in case of necessity, become the point of reunion of the 
 neighbouring national guards, concentrating in their bosom 
 the republican thunder, then doubt not tliat fear will dis- 
 perse the conspirators, and the stipendiaries of Pitt will 
 tremi)le — the mint of gold will give w^ay in their souls be- 
 fore the fear of death ; upon tlie first rum.our of a revolt an 
 avenging legion wili fly to the spot Vviiere they attempt it. 
 .... Wo, t]ien, wo to the rebellious commune, if there is 
 one that dares to raise the banner of royalism ! The fol- 
 lowing is the project of your commission. 
 
 " 1st. The executive directory will render an account, 
 every ten days, to the legislative body, of the levy of the 
 auxiliary battalions, and their equipment, and their arma- 
 ment. 
 
 " 2d. The directory will indicate the departments which 
 display the greatest activity in the execution of the law of 
 the 10th of Messidor, as well as all of those whose tardiness 
 is remarkable. The names of those departments shall be 
 solemnly proclaimed by Vae president of each council. 
 
 " 3d. When the auxiliary battalions shall have completed 
 the regim.ents of the active army, the remaining force sliall 
 be divided into two bodies. 
 
 " 4th. The first shall be united as an army of the second 
 line upon the points fixed by the directory. 
 
 " 5th. The second shall be formed by the departmental 
 army particularly destined to repress the troubles in the in- 
 terior." 
 
 The propositions for those two new armies, of which one 
 was to act in the interior, had greatly augmented the power 
 of the government ; for it was for a contrary end that the 
 commission of seven had been formed. It was not measures 
 of strength and concord that they expected from us. Our 
 project was attacked without circumspection ; it was ad- 
 journed, then put aside. They had concluded that to have 
 propositions of law for public safety, as ihey expected, it was 
 necessary to have another commission. They reproached 
 Jourdan for having given his vote to my report, which they 
 found insignificant and favourable to the directorial despo- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 149 
 
 tism. That general was surrounded with a well-merited 
 esteem ; he was equally beloved at the council as in the 
 armies. Sieyes anxiously desired to reconcile him with the 
 government, and I took him several times to the Luxem- 
 bourg. In the reunions of the commission of seven, we 
 had frequent occasion to exchange amicably our reciprocal 
 convictions. I had succeeded, with the aid of Boulai de la 
 Meurthe and Chenier, to modify the opposition of that pure 
 soul, sufficiently exasperated only by the reverses of our 
 armies, to recur to conventional measures as necessary for 
 pubhc safety. After one of our reunions in committee, the 
 discussion between us having been raised to a degree of un- 
 expected violence, I retraced the inevitable excesses of the 
 system to which his friends misled him, and in the midst of 
 several warm speeches I made use of an interpellation which 
 would have appeared an outrage to a less virtuous man : 
 " Ah ! Jourdan de Fleurus !" I exclaimed ; " Jourdan de Fleu- 
 rus ! wouldst thou then become ' Juurdan coupe V " T6tes. 
 
 (20) Our excellent colleague, confused a moment, advan- 
 ced immediately towards me, and, holding out his hand to 
 me in a friendly manner, his friendship was assured to me 
 from that day. He had sufficiently coincided with us to 
 place a departmental army at the disposition of the govern- 
 ment. Unfortunately, the catastrophe of Novi had renewed 
 his patriotic inquietudes ; he again placed himself at the 
 head of the Jacobin party, where we had to combat him till 
 the 18th Brumaire. 
 
 The rigour of the ancients and the directory against the 
 newspapers and pamphlets, had not repressed their licen- 
 tious excesses. Upon the news of the disaster of Novi, and 
 of the defection of the Batavian fleet, they no longer knew 
 any limits ; Moreau and Macdonald had delivered up the 
 army of Italy to the Russians ! ! ! The directors had deliver- 
 ed up the fleet of the Texel to the Enghsh ! They called 
 upon the people to save themselves. The directory deter- 
 mined all at once upon a vigorous measure; the 17th Fruc- 
 tidor they caused eleven journalists to be arrested, and 
 placed seals upon their presses. They informed us of it im- 
 mediately by a message. (21) They addressed, at the same 
 time, a proclamation to the French. (-22) The directory 
 thought to have the right to act thus after the article 145 of 
 the constitution, of which the following is the text : 
 
 " If the directory is informed that any plot or conspire 
 against the safety of the exterior and interior of the state, 
 they may decree mandates to appear, and mandates of ar- 
 rest, against those who are supposed to be the authors and 
 accomplices." 
 
 The next day was the anniversary of the 18th Fructidor. 
 Sieyes alluded, in his speech, to the rigorous act exercised 
 against the periodical papers. (23) The opinion which he 
 
 N 2 
 
150 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 demanded with so much frankness, was favourable to him, 
 not unanimous, but in great majority. The council of an- 
 cients, who had provoked it, approved of it highly ; they ex- 
 pressed a lively regret at having revoked the law of censure 
 of Fructidor, before they had promulgated a law of repres- 
 sion. But the council of five hundred heard the directorial 
 message with less favour. Bxiot accused the directory with 
 the most scandalous tyranny. " I declare to France," said 
 he, " that a coup d'etat is in preparation. Perhaps the di- 
 rectors have a treaty of peace in one pocket, and a constitu- 
 tion in the other, for the pubhc calamities. If the act which 
 I have just denounced is consummated, it is necessary that 
 the people should come to our aid ; and when we have no 
 longer liberty or independence, they must rise and save 
 themselves," These v/ords v/ere not wanting of echoes in 
 the council, but they remained without any other result 
 than to cause them to put immediately the penal law in de- 
 liberation against the abuses of the press ; every sensible 
 nimd felt that to deprive the government of the censure 
 and the penal law, and deliver it up to the unpunished rage 
 of the contrary parties, was to reduce it to impotence. The 
 application to the journalists of a constitutional article di- 
 rected against the cases of confiscation, was, without doubt, 
 forced ; but there was less inconvenience in forcing the ap- 
 plication of an article, than to leave the power at the mer- 
 cy of the royalists and Jacobins. Sieyes, by his firmness, 
 acquired new rights to the national confidence. 
 
 The arrestation of so niany journalists appeared, to a 
 great part of the five hundred, to announce a coup d'etat ; 
 they thought themselves menaced ; they united around the 
 directors Gohier and Moulins. Jourdan, Augereau, and La- 
 marque, convinced that the danger was real, put them- 
 selves in defence, and, as in a revolution, the better to be 
 able to defend one's self, it is wisest to attack, it was soon 
 resolved among the Jacobins to cause the country to be 
 declared in danger, and to decree the permanence. 
 
 I ought not to dissemble here that, for several months 
 past, many of the deputies of our party, frightened at the 
 state of afl'airs, had thought of the means of ameliorating 
 them. The Jacobins not only thought, but they endeavour- 
 ed with constancy to bring us back to the conventional 
 measures. Jjooking upon the safety of the republic pre- 
 cisely in an inverse sense from the Jacobins, we thought 
 with Sieyes, that we ought to concentrate, more than ever, 
 the power in the government, as long as foreign invasion 
 menaced us. The ideas of 1793, which appeared salutary 
 to our adversaries, appeared mortal and impracticable to us. 
 Each party made its plans. " What shall ive do if ive are 
 attacJcedV This was what they said on both sides. To 
 neutralize the influence of the generals, Sieyes and his two 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 151 
 
 colleagues had placed their hopes upon the youthful con- 
 queror of the Tyrol, the brave and unfortunate Joubert, 
 Overtures were made to him ; he modestly replied that he 
 was not yet suiTiciently known by victoiy to repose upon 
 his laurels ; they gave him the command of the army of 
 Italy. If, instead of falling at Novi, Joubert had vanquish- 
 ed Suwarrovv, his glory would have sufficed to balance that 
 of his rivals. I so little expected the return of Napoleon, 
 that I had embraced with ardour the hope that Sieyes had 
 placed in the victories and virtues of Joubert. His early 
 loss appeared to us a public calamity. 
 
 After that loss, Sieyes was fearful that the struggle, 
 thanks to the influence of the generals of the council, might 
 finish against the directory. I believe, though unable to 
 say positively, that the overtures made to Macdonald and 
 Moreau were received with coldness. I had been ignorant 
 of the communications which might have existed between 
 Sieyes and those two generals. It was the union of Jour- 
 dan that I had preferred, and Sieyes engaged me to make 
 some attempts. I believe that no one would have been 
 more calculated than the citizen hero of Fleurus to cause 
 the project of the republican form to succeed, sole aim of 
 our hopes. I spoke to Jourdan on the part of Sieyes, but 
 it was in vain. It was not in concentrating the directorial 
 power, but in concentrating the authority in the council of 
 five hundred, that Jourdan desired to save the repubUc. 
 Sieyes, alarmed by the report of a reunion held at Berna- 
 dotte's, said to me one da}'', with a sigh — "We have no longer, 
 then, a sword for us : ah ! why is not your brother here '?" 
 He must have thought the danger very pressing to have let 
 that wish escape him ; and, in fact, all the probabilities, in 
 case of a violent struggle, appeared to be in favour of the 
 Jacobins. 
 
 Of all the generals, the minister of war, Bernadotte, was 
 the most suspected by Sieyes for his ambition and auda- 
 city ; the resolution had been taken, for several days past, 
 to take the ministry from him — Sieyes and Roger Duces 
 wanted to replace him after the arrestation of the journal- 
 ists ; the incertitude of Barras alone retarded that vigorous 
 act. Barras, according to his custom, had opened negotia- 
 tions with everybody. Bernadotte retained Barras, and 
 excited Jourdan. It was after a nocturnal conference held 
 by the minister of v/ar, that Jourdan, having united the com- 
 mission of seven, invited us, in a rude and peremptory tone, 
 to propose to the council the permanence, and to declare 
 the country in danger. The commission having rejected 
 his invitation, he hastened to the council, surrounded by all 
 those who thought like him, and he pronounced a written 
 speech, (24) in which the following passages were, above all, 
 remarkable. 
 
152 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " The dangers of the country are so imminent, that it is 
 no longer permitted to keep silence. He who persists in 
 not speaking, renders himself guilty of complicity in the 
 evils which weigh upon the republic, and those which 
 menace it. 
 
 " Yes, the country is in danger ! — To delay any longer in 
 proclaiming that afflicting truth, would be to repulse the 
 means of saving it — if, after that proclamation, a special 
 commission is charged to present us the measures of public 
 safety. 
 
 " Let us cease to walk in the dark : let us advance with 
 quick steps in the vast career ivhich ive have to run. The 
 safety of the people is the supreme law^ 
 
 'I'hese passages, more particularly applauded by a for- 
 midable mass of the deputies, were also by the galleries in 
 the most lively manner. 
 
 Jourdan finished by proposing the formation of a commis- 
 sion of nine members. It was that which they had deter- 
 mined upon obtaining at any price. Scarcely had the ora- 
 tor finished, when they decreed the impression of his speech 
 in twelve copies, and demanded on all sides, with loud cries, 
 a vote of urgency. Chenier appeared at the tribune, where 
 at first he could not make himself heard. The deputies and 
 the spectators had never evinced so much exultation. Un- 
 usual clamours, personal provocations, resounded on aU 
 sides. One half of the assembly cried, with furious gestic- 
 ulations, Put it to the vote : save the counti-y. — The other 
 half cried with not less force, altogether. Let Chenier speak. 
 Augereau sprang to the tribune, and endeavoured to support 
 the motion of Jourdan ; but he could not find words prompt 
 enough, and the tumult increased to such a point, that the 
 president covered his head to establish tranquillity. It was 
 Boulai de la Meurthe. . . . He was one of those men who 
 are not to be frightened ; he had voted in the commission 
 of seven with Chenier, Daunou, and myself, against Jour- 
 dan, and he maintained with firmness the liberty of discus- 
 sion, that they wanted to stitle by cries and menaces. 
 After a quarter of an hour of disorder, Chenier replied to 
 Jourdan. 
 
 " The proposition that is made to you," said he, " is of 
 so much importance, that it demands the most profound at- 
 tention. I am about to combat it, and I shall support my- 
 self upon the authority of the past, upon the conduct even 
 of our predecessors. It was the legislative assembly which, 
 in 1792, declared the country in danger. What was then 
 our position ■? There existed a conspiring throne to destroy ! 
 Our armies, feeble and ill-exercised, were commanded by 
 generals named in the centre even of the conspiration. I ap- 
 peal to the sincerity of all my colleagues — what comparison 
 can be established between our situation in June, 1793, and 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 15^ 
 
 that in which we are at this time 1 An evil too real exists 
 at this moment. It is the want of confidence and the pow- 
 er of calumny. I know that they talk of a treaty concluded 
 with the king, of a project to re-establish a monarchical con- 
 stitution ! But, like me, without doubt, you will not put any 
 faith in such reports : you will not pronounce so lightly 
 against the veterans of 1789, in favour of those modern en- 
 thusiasts. No, it is not upon the evidence of such men that 
 you will give way to unjust suspicions." 
 
 They interrupted the orator with murmurs, and by recall- 
 ing the question. 
 
 " I am in the question," he rephed, with more warmth 
 than ever — " The measure taken in 1792 is not applicable 
 to our epoch, because the dangers are not the same ; because 
 then a just mistrusr was a duty, and at this moment confi- 
 dence is a necessary virtue ; because at that time a perjured 
 king conspired, and that to-day the republican magistrates 
 hold by your sufirnges the reins of the executive power." 
 
 Upon this short and feeble discourse of Chenier, Lamarque 
 replied by an harangue, prepared like that of Jourdan, and 
 in which the vehemence did not exclude the adroitness. 
 The proclamation of tJie dangers of the country, and the 
 nomination of a commission of public safety, bring only, 
 according to him, but auxiliary means to aid the government. 
 He terminated by crying out, " Liberty cr Death .'" The 
 assembly, electrified, rose altogether in repeating this cry. 
 The effect produced by Lamarque had alarmed us, and I 
 spoke in the follow ing terms : 
 
 " In terminating his discourse, the last speaker calls for 
 Liberty or Death. A movement of unanimous approbation 
 has been manifested among us. I will also repeat those ad- 
 mirable words. Liberty or Death ! It is here that liberty would 
 find, if required, her last asylum. . . Here the suffrages and 
 the opinions are free ; and whatever may be your deliber- 
 ation, no one will suppose that the violence of which this 
 place has been the theatre, would give to your vote a con- 
 trary direction to your real sentiments. No, the excesses 
 to which they have abandoned themselves have not influ- 
 enced you in any way — fear and weakness are far from our 
 arms. He who could yield to those vulgar sentiments, 
 would be unworthy to sit here." 
 
 (A crowd of the deputies cried : " Yes, yes ; speak — 
 speak.") 
 
 " The motion of our colleague Jourdan has been present- 
 ed to the commission of seven. I combated it at that com- 
 mission. 1 ought and I will combat it at this tribune. 
 
 " Representatives of the people, at the crisis in which we 
 find ourselves, there is no longer any thing to dissimulate. 
 It is necessary to explain ourselves with frankness ; this 
 sitting must show what you desire." 
 
154 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 (Fresh interruptions from our adversaries informed me 
 that 1 was in the right road.) 
 
 " Our intentions are the same without doubt : we all de- 
 sire to save the republic ; but we differ in the means of sa- 
 ving it. To find the best, we must seek after them with 
 calmness — we must regulate the discussion, instead of en- 
 deavouring to stifle it. We must enlighten ourselves by a 
 mutual tolerance. We must renounce on both sides, ima- 
 ginary inquietudes. What union can 5''0U hope for among 
 the people, when their representatives give them such an 
 example ] But I come to the point. 
 
 " You want to save the republic — two means are offered 
 to you. 
 
 " Some desire the declaration that the country is in dan- 
 ger, the permanence of the councils, the call for a new fed- 
 eration, and, above all, a commission of public safety more 
 active. Others, under the circumstances in which we find 
 ourselves, fear that all extraordinary measures may be fa- 
 tal. I think like the last. I declare that I see to-day no 
 safety for France, but in an intimate union between the 
 first authorities. A state that is sharply menaced at the 
 exterior, and torn in the interior by armed factions, cannot 
 be saved but by an energetic power, to which all constitu- 
 tional latitude is assured. 
 
 " Yes, in our position, we must augment the strength of 
 the executive power, or we must change it. There is no me- 
 dium : out of one or the other of these two parties, you 
 would have nothing left to do, but to accumulate to your- 
 selves all the powers. . . . Is it there that the safety of 
 the repubhc is to be seenf 
 
 (At these words a violent agitation manifested itself in 
 the council. I had put my finger in the wound.) 
 
 " Despotism, say you ! . . . . The dictatorship ! Who 
 would offer it ! Wlio would dare to accept it ? There ex- 
 ists then among us very cruel mistrusts. The shame of 
 that proposition, the infamy of that yoke, would they find 
 here one single man who would not arm against them with 
 the sword of Brutus "? But I have only spoken of the dicta- 
 torship to reply to those who made use of that word to in- 
 terrupt me. It is in vain that they would put me aside 
 from the question ; I despise the clamours, and I do not fear 
 menaces. I shall say all I think. 
 
 " I will say, that when the enemy is at the gates, if there 
 is an imperious necessity for the true friends of the coun- 
 try, it is that of union. Shall I recall to you the example 
 of the ancient republics ] In the common danger the re- 
 sentments were suspended. In England — (must that nation 
 be cited to the French to seek examples of wisdom ?) — in 
 England there is no longer any discord when the land is 
 menaced by the enemy-^parties are then at an end. Par- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 155 
 
 liamentary opposition sustained the principles of our revolu- 
 tion against a dominating ministry. We threaten Ireland, 
 and suddenly Pitt and Fox are of accord. They are no 
 longer rivals, but fellow-citizens marching against the inva- 
 ders of their country. Well, then, representatives, with us 
 also safety is in the union. Instead of thinking of chang- 
 ing the system, we ought to-day to concentrate all the means 
 of strength in the government ; we should lavish all upon it. 
 
 "There is but one case where we must follow another 
 road. If the government appears to you to be guilty of trea- 
 son, or you think it unqualified, then there is nothing to be 
 done but to judge and punish it, and above all replace it. But, 
 indeed, I do not see with what serious reproach you can 
 accuse the executive power. I have not disguised my opin- 
 ion against the ex-directors — I have contributed to their fall. 
 .... I should act in the same manner, if they deserved it, 
 against their successors. 
 
 " Permit me to inform you, that there is in the republic 
 an authority, which, to save the state, we ought to imitate — 
 the calm, energetic, and constitutional attitude. If we had 
 followed the example of the council of ancients, our dangers 
 would have perhaps been less great. 
 
 "As for the reaction which they talk of, the director}'- has 
 taken every means to repress it. Jt is far from my intention 
 to justify any reaction; all are culpable and fatal, but with- 
 out action there is no reaction .... and it is the action 
 which in the first place it would have been wise to prevent. 
 
 " The necessity of giving a great latitude to the executive 
 power, m the public dangers, is so evident, that those who 
 would themselves to-day overturn the directory, would be 
 obliged to-morrow to re-estabhsh one stronger. Ought not 
 our predecessors to have obeyed that necessity"? Was it 
 not to that to which the committee of the convention owed 
 its power, famous for so many prodigies and so many horri- 
 ble evils 1 Of what use, in fact, would a government be that 
 was powerless? What good would an authority be to which 
 contempt was attached, and that they could dare insult with 
 impunity, even beneath the walls of its palace." (Murmurs.) 
 
 " Those murmurs which interrupt me again, strike agreeably 
 my ear. No one, they tell me, will overturn the directory / . . . 
 I trust that no person has such an intention. . . But, repre- 
 sentatives of the people, do you not see that the system 
 which they propose to you, would soon mislead you, in spite 
 of yourselves, beyond all constitutional limits I The meas- 
 ures of permanence, of federation, of dangers proclaimed, of 
 commissions of public safety — are good, excellent, when 
 they want to destroy that which exists, overturn a power of 
 which they despair. No one will pretend that they are the 
 means of union and concord ; and it is concord and union 
 of which we are in need. 
 
156 MEMOIRS 0.F 
 
 " With an executive power like ours, (I demand of all my 
 colleagues — ought it to expose us to the terrible chances of 
 a revolutionary authori*:y, rather than unite around the con- 
 stitutional authority.) what have we to fear from the direc- 
 tory 1 It represses with a firm hand the royalists and the 
 men of the Rue du Bac .... Well, then, far from accu- 
 sing it, let us return it our thanks. In putting a stop to the 
 reunion which served as a den for the factious, it has done 
 its duty ; for the deposite of the constitution is also confided 
 to the government. I do not mean in expressing myself 
 thus, to condemn political societies ; but I approve of them 
 only contained within the limits of the 1-iw, and submitted 
 to the inspection of the government. Let us beware more 
 than ever to-day of yieldmg to the revolutionary temptation. 
 Since no one will, as in Praireal, overturn the dire "tory, let 
 us fortify it b}^ our confidence, and cease to listen to the fa- 
 bles of royal treason, attributed to the most illustrious re- 
 publicans. It is after the consi.ier;.tions which I have sub- 
 mitted to yon, that your commission of seven has rejected 
 the propositions of our colleague Jourdan. If they confine 
 themselves to the declaration that the country is in danger 
 that declaration alone would produce nothing. If it was the 
 prelude to extraordinary measures, it would only increase 
 our dangers. I demand to move the previous question." 
 
 The marks of approbation triven to niy speech appeared to 
 presage us a victory. The Deputies Quirot and Lamarque 
 supported the motion of Jourdan. Daunon and the President 
 Boulai de la Meurthe combated it. The Jacobin party be- 
 held the hope vanish which to them had appeared certain; 
 and notwithstanding those new violences, the discussion was 
 adjourned to the next day. 
 
 Barras perceived at length that he had nothing to hope, and 
 that he had been wrong in retarding the deposing of the min- 
 ister of war. He united with Sieyes and Roger Ducos ; they 
 addressed to Bernadotte a dismission that he had not asked 
 for, and replaced him by the General Millet Mureau. They 
 changed also the central adnnnistration of Paris, and held 
 themselves in readiness for the events of the next day. 
 
 The news of these deposings troubled the Jacobins. The 
 crowds assembled round our palace, which, although com- 
 posed of the men of the manege and the Fauxbourgs. had not 
 that assurance which the sentiment of superiority gives. . . 
 In going to the assembly we traversed those disconcerted 
 groups, and several among us reproached them severely for 
 their temerity, and recommended them to disperse : some 
 threats, notwithstanding, were uttered, and some deputies 
 were insulted. " We will save the country/ in spite of you^'* 
 they cried on all sides upon our passage. Applauses un- 
 worthy of him broke out at the sight of Jourdan, whom the 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 157 
 
 deposing of Bernadotte had exasperated. Renouncing all 
 moderation with them, and scarcely in his place, he cried, 
 
 " While you deliberate, they depose Bernadotte and Le 
 Febvre : (the last was not true.) I wish to believe that these 
 changes are not the prelude of a coup d'etat. If that was 
 true, let us swear that they should never take us from our 
 curule chairs till after they had given us death." 
 
 This oath whs pronounced by the whole assembly stand- 
 ing. Jourdan was desirous of taking advantage of this move- 
 ment, and he again proposed the permanence. The pubhc 
 galleries resounded with the most violent acclamations. 
 The president called to order with severity. Augereau then 
 made himself heard to pronounce a eulogy upon the 18th 
 Fructidor, which he had directed, and to declare that the 
 actual situation not being the same, the national represen- 
 tation was inviolable. I repeated the declaration of Auge- 
 reau, and I recalled the council to the question — " We must 
 be also inviolable against a coup d'etat, as against the crowds 
 whose unworthy clamours we hear from here. As far as 
 these, we are all of accord ; and this unanimous sentiment 
 ought not to influence in the least our decision Let the 
 proposition of Jourdan be put to the vote." The council 
 closed the discussion ; and after two trials, they proceeded 
 in the most profound silence to the nominal call. — 171 dep- 
 uties voted for Jordan; 245 voted against him. We had 
 the advantage of them thus by 74 voices. The propositions 
 were rejected, and the assembly rose. On quitting the hall, 
 we again found crowds of the men of the manege, but the 
 chiefs had disappeared. 
 
 That day, the 28th Fructidor, proved that new revolu- 
 tionary experiments were odious to the majority of the di- 
 rectory, and to almost the whole of the council of ancients. 
 It proved also that the population of Paris did not care to 
 see the authority pass to the Luxemburg to the legislative 
 palace. Sieyes, strong in the approbation of the people and 
 their representatives, could give himself up to the hope of 
 snatching the republic from the evils which oppressed it. 
 Our success, however, had only defended upon a few votes. 
 It was not sufficient to have av(,^at c the abyss ; it was ne- 
 cessary also to secure ourselve.^**""! \" the future. W'e felt 
 that inevitable necessity. The Jacetins had not concealed 
 from us that they intended saving tl. a republic without us 
 and in spite of us. Every night there were secret reunions 
 of the party whose exaltation wjs fearful. " If you are not 
 beforehand with our adversaries," said they, " an insurrec- 
 tion in the Fauxbourgs will overthrow it. Although every- 
 body talks about the constitution, no one has any longer the 
 slightest confidence in it." 
 
 The question reduced, by the force of circumstances, to 
 this dilemma — either let the Jacobins accomplish the change 
 
 O 
 
158 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 or act against them : on both sides the conviction was pro- 
 found. Jourdan and his friends thought they acted like good 
 citizens, in concentrating the power in the council of five 
 hundred, and in foUov^ing the revolutionary route open al- 
 ready by the laws of the hostages and the forced loan. 
 Their error was deplorable, but they had no more secret in- 
 tentions or personal motives than we had ; they did not con- 
 sider that the measures which had succeeded in 1793 were 
 impracticable at that moment, because the mass of the people 
 held those measures in horror. They did not see that the 
 resources of the national domains no longer existed, and that 
 in the impossibility of creating new assignats, it was ne- 
 cessary to have recourse to credit, to the public confidence, 
 which trembled at the clamours of the manege, and at the 
 idea even of the discussion of the permanence. They did 
 not see, Jourdan above all, that to advance in that terrible 
 route, notwithstanding the general animadversion, it was 
 necessary to have recourse to terror, and that his probity 
 condemned him beforehand to the scaffold, which would be 
 set up in spite of him by the forced results of those princi- 
 ples to which he abandoned himself with the most fatal con- 
 fidence. I renewed my efforts with Jourdan. If we could 
 have united him with us, with several of his friends, I am 
 convinced that the reform obtained without violence would 
 for a long time have consolidated the republic. We offiered 
 freely to Jourdan for him to form a part of the new govern- 
 ment; a firmness of character, united to great gentleness of 
 manners, rendered him more proper than any one to enter 
 into the supreme magistrature. 
 
 But there was no concihation possible. The division 
 was complete; the menaces of the Jacobins determined us 
 to break with them ; the triumph of their opinions appeared 
 to us to be the greatest danger of the country. The revo- 
 lutionary exaggerations are in fact the most ordinary causes 
 of the fall of republics. 
 
 An excess occassions a contrary excess. The Jacobins 
 have almost always been the most useful promoters of 
 royalty, as the flattererfj of kings hrive been also often the 
 bhnd promoters of thepos^iublic. This comparison is per- 
 fectly simple, since thjV demagogues are the flatterers of the 
 multitude. But ami^ those flatterers of the multitude, 
 many of them are [ rfectly sincere. Without doubt they 
 are equally as sincere as many courtiers, who, accustomed 
 to contemplate their master through the prism of absolute 
 power, finish by really admiring him, by almost even adoring 
 him as a being of a superior nature. In the same manner, 
 fascinated and intoxicated by the popular favour, many of 
 the democrats, sincere at first, finish by suff'ering themselves 
 to be carried away to commit crimes, even to murder. All 
 fanatics resemble each other : those of the Jacobin sect, 
 
 i 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. .159 
 
 those of the St. Barthelemy, those of the old man of the 
 mountain, were all equally the prey of a moral phrensy. 
 The most sincere are the most dangerous ; they are infi- 
 nitely more so than the troop of s'atellites who, without 
 conviction to find food, hover like the crows over all the 
 battle fields. When those wretches behold the victims fall 
 on either side, whatever they may be, they precipitate upon 
 them. One may neglect a moment those v^lrts of all the 
 powers, but as for the men of heart and faith, it is to them 
 we should attach ourselves ; and if we cannot convince and 
 enlighten them, we must combat them without intermission 
 when their fanaticism threatens to overturn society. 
 
 Penetrated with these truths, we decided on being before- 
 hand with the Jacobins. We resolved upon changing to 
 open hostilities our former circumspection, and to make the 
 reform succeed at any price, of which they had spoken 
 vaguely for some time past ; and we exacted at length that 
 Sieyes should no longer retard submitting to us the develop- 
 ment of his constitutional ameliorations. It was then that 
 he must have thought that the moment was arrived for his 
 wise theories to be adopted. But France, although a republic 
 for seven years past, was she really ripe for political liberty ? 
 The future has answered in the negative. But not one of 
 us at that time — not one of us — foresaw the answer of the 
 future. 
 
 The accusations of royalism, launched without ceasing 
 against Sieyes, were complete calumnies. That statesman 
 had only republican views. 1 think it my duty to pause here 
 upon his project of reform, which belongs far more to him 
 than the charter preferred by Napoleon, and voted by the 
 French people. I shall terminate this first volume in point- 
 ing out the basis of that project of reform. I will show, in 
 the second volume, how, upon the miraculous arrival of the 
 hero, the national enthusiasm was entirely submitted to his 
 magical influence ; how that torrent, (too often without ob- 
 stacle with a generous, warm-hearted, but changeable peo- 
 ple,) after having carried away with it existing laws, projects 
 of changes, even sanitary precautions, precipitated itself 
 towards the dictatorship ; how that dictatorship, the necessity 
 of which was but too evident, but which ought at least to 
 have been temporary, and placed out of the permanent law, 
 was unfortunately incorporated in that law ; how, at length, 
 a conception sublime in the whole having been mutilated, 
 was transformed, in spite of us, into an incomplete code, 
 incoherentand very different from what Sieyes had proposed. 
 ... To each and every one his ideas and his work. Saum 
 cuique. 
 
 Sieyes, from the moment of the establishment of the di- 
 rectorial charter, was persuaded that it was not likely to 
 live : he did not partake of our illusions. We have already 
 
160 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 said that he was so deeply penetrated with the faults of that 
 charter that he would not accept of a place in the directory. 
 He yielded afterwards to our entreaties, (in the year 7,) but 
 in the hope of a legislative reform, desired by many of the 
 deputies, all disposed to second it. These luminous coni- 
 niunications made every day fresh adepts; and I glory in 
 having been one of the most ardent. They estabhshed be- 
 fore ail, the necessity of concentrating the executive power, 
 of replacing the five directors, elected for five years, and not 
 re-elective — by three consuls elected for ten years, and re- 
 elective. At that epoch there was no question of a great 
 elector of the republic. It was after the return from Egypt 
 and for Napoleon, that the supreme magistrature was pro- 
 posed and so ill received. I find nothing in my notes rela- 
 tive to it, before the year 8. The three consuls of Sieyes 
 were to be equal in rights ; and the annual presidence to be 
 exercised in turn by each of them. There was no question 
 then, either of a tribunal or, above all, of a mute legislative 
 body ! ! ! But let us proceed in order in exposing the basis 
 of the primitive project of Brumaire. 
 
 1st. The Division of the three Powers. 
 
 The legislative powers, executive and judicial, should be, 
 as far as possible, independent of each other, and always 
 serve reciprocally as a barrier ; without the division of 
 those powers there is no political liberty. Their re-union 
 constitutes despotism. In this sense the conventional gov- 
 ernment was of the same sort as that of Louis IV, and the 
 republican government was the most despotic of the two, 
 since the powers were more concentrated in the great 
 assembly, than in the great king. The parliaments, the 
 clergy, the provincial states, were poor barriers for him 
 
 who said — / am the state But the convention had. 
 
 no barriers of any sort. 
 
 2d. Division of the Legislative Power. 
 
 The division of three powers is then to assure our liberty. 
 Let us apply that theory, and seek for the equilibrium of 
 those powers. We shall find ourselves stopped by the im- 
 mense preponderance of one of the two. What equilibrium 
 can be established between him who makes the laws, and 
 those who execute them. That which is out of all propor- 
 tion, can never be put in proportion, except in being weak- 
 ened ; that is to say, by being divided. It is then the great 
 power, the sole, which vigorously merits the name. It is 
 the legislative power which should be divided to avoid 
 despotism, and here we are brought by the application to 
 separate the formation of the laws of their sanction. Here 
 we are brought to the necessity of two chambers. 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 161 
 
 3d. Elective Chamber — Universal Suffrage — Direct and 
 Indirect Popular Censure. 
 
 All society is composed of individuals who are proprie- 
 tors, and others who are not. It carries, then, with itself 
 two opposite wants, that of movement and that of stability. 
 Those who find themselves well off, desire to remain as they 
 are ; those who are bad off, desire to change their position. 
 That double state of human society, such as God has made 
 it, exacts imperiously the same state in the legislation. One 
 of the two chambers, representative of the movement, ought 
 to be elective and frequently renewed. The other cham- 
 ber, representative of stability, ought to be immoveable. 
 To the first belongs the proposition and the compiling of 
 the projects of law ; to the second belongs the sanction or 
 the rejection of those projects. These two chambers, to 
 constitute a good government, should be equally powerful ; 
 and each of them to be powerful, should lean upon its prin- 
 ciple, and be endowed with all the strength derived from it. 
 
 The -elective principle being that of the chamber of the 
 movement, let us examine this principle. The exercise of 
 the rights of each ought not to be limited but for the general 
 interest ; and all the members of a society possess in prin- 
 ciple the same rights. The universal suffrage is then the 
 rule, and the restriction to that rule can only be the excep- 
 tion. That exception would be then tyrannical, if it is not 
 indispensable. For every man may usefully, without incon- 
 venience and without difficulty, vote in his primary assem- 
 bly to choose the public functionaries of his commune. 
 Those functions touch very nearly the interests, the wel- 
 fare, and the safety of each inhabitant, rich or poor. Those 
 inhabitants all know one another ; they are then capable of 
 choosing amongst them, those who merit their confidence. 
 They should all then co-operate in this choice. The uni- 
 versal suffrage, direct in the commune, is then just and 
 suitable ; and there is no reasonable motive for depriving 
 any one whatever. 
 
 Besides that justice of universal suffrage is felt by all, 
 since the periodical papers have carried the declarations of 
 the rights of man and of the citizen, even to the lowest 
 ranks of the non-proprietors. In our social state, many 
 then may still be in want of bread ; but no one can be in 
 want of political aliment to irritate his hunger . . . The 
 accession, therefore, to the affairs of the country is become 
 a necessity of our epoch ; and as long as that necessity is 
 not satisfied, the revolution will not be appeased. The 
 human mind marches towards this end, and it will attain it 
 in spite of all the obstacles. That consideration of the fact, 
 is still more decisive for the legislator than the evidence of 
 the right. The political emancipation having become an 
 
162 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 universal instinct, if they feel a repugnance for it, they must 
 resig^n themselves if they wish to re-constitute something 
 durable ... If not to the irresistible interrogation, of what 
 is the third estate ? — will soon succeed the interrogation, n©t 
 less irresistible, what is the non-proprietor ? 
 
 And indeed, if v/e study the annals of the European civi- 
 lization, we shall read upon the brightest page of ancient 
 history, that inscription of christianism — Liberty of the 
 slaves ! The brightest page of intermediate history offers 
 that inscription of philosophy, enfranchisement of the serfs ! — 
 and at the end of the last century, the contemporary history 
 inscribed in its turn upon the brightest page, emancipation of 
 the non-'proprietors ! That third idea, emitted without a pal- 
 liative in the code of Condorcet, but immediately effaced 
 under the blood and the dirt of 1793, was revived, and 
 wisely put in practice by the legislators of Brumaire. It 
 traversed in silence the empire and the restoration. It 
 arises to-day more powerful and more ripe .... Glory 
 to the government sufficiently enhghtened to preside with 
 courage over this third development of religion and philo- 
 sophy. I will here treat of that great question of the politi- 
 cal rights to be accorded to the non-proprietors, and refute, 
 article by article, the 9th and 10th Chapters of a work enti- 
 tled " The two Years Reign," by Alphonse Pepin. But I 
 will refer that refutation to my second volume, where it 
 will naturally be brought by my legislative discussions, upon 
 the lists of notability. Let us be contented in observing to- 
 day that until Brumaire, notwithstanding all the declarations 
 of the rights they had been fearful of granting, the right of 
 titizenship to the poorest and most numerous classes, they 
 fiad confined themselves to enfranchising the burghers of 
 file town and country in exacting a quit-rent of several 
 days' work, or revenue of several hundreds of pounds. 
 Instead of equally fortifying the two chambers, they had 
 equally weakened them, in admitting to the democratic 
 election but a minority of the society, and in leaving the 
 conservative chamber without means of resistance against 
 that bastard democracy. Our divers essays of electoral 
 cense, renewed since, and more or less enlarged, are equal- 
 ly insufficient ; for the question is not the imitating the 
 emancipation of such or such a class ; but to dare to gene- 
 ralize it, and to know how to do it, without overturning. It 
 is in that view, that after having consecrated the direct ex- 
 ercise of the universal suffrage in the commune, we submit- 
 ted that exercise out of the commune to several degrees of 
 delegation. As soon as it was necessary to name them to 
 functions that included a district, a department, the whole 
 republic, we established the necessity of modifying the 
 principle. How, in that case, could they, without inconve- 
 nience, apply the universal, direct suffrage 1 How should 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 163 
 
 five or six millions of men understand one another suffi- 
 ciently to exercise this right without intermediates ] How- 
 should citizens, the greatest part of whom have never been 
 out of their district, make a good choice beyond the limits 
 where their habitudes retain them! Can they know the 
 aptness of such or such a citizen for the high places of the 
 administration, of the judicature, of the elected chamber! 
 . . . The greatest part of those voters have, most probably, 
 never seen the candidates, and perhaps scarcely heard 
 speak of them .... Experience as well as reflection 
 shows that direct voting in such a case would be difficult 
 and dangerous. Here the exception becomes applicable. 
 Society will find the utility and convenience of delegating 
 its power to electors ; and the universal suffrage, direct in 
 the commune, would be indirect (more or less) for the high 
 functions. 
 
 Indirect for the high functions, 1 grant it. But all the 
 citizens, without exception, should delegate this right of 
 suffrage, and all can receive the delegation .... all .. . 
 admitting the smallest cense, is to acknowledge two nations 
 in one nation. When two people, enemies, the Franks and 
 the Gauls, inhabited Gaul, the feodal legislation only con- 
 firmed the existing fact. But to-day, that the existing fact 
 is the unity, is it not absurd to seek to destroy that unity by 
 the legislation of the electoral cense 1 
 
 The indirect suffrage is the more perfect, being nearer to 
 the direct suffrage from whence it springs. If the electors 
 are constrained to choose the high functionaries among 
 themselves, it is evident that the delegation would be less 
 absolute. For that restriction, the electors chosen by all, 
 and amongst them, would be at the same time the delegates 
 and the candidates of the direct universal suffrage. After 
 these popular considerations, Sieyes established ; 
 
 1st. That each primary assembly, composed of every 
 Frenchman that was of age, should choose in its bosom a 
 tenth of its number as notables of the commune. It should 
 then choose, amidst those notables, the public functionaries 
 of that commune. 
 
 2d. The notables of all the communes of a district, united 
 in the chief place of the under-prefecture, should name the 
 tenths amongst them as notables of the district ; they should 
 afterward choose in this tenth the public functionaries of 
 that district. 
 
 3d. The notables of all the districts of a department united 
 in the chief place of the prefecture, should name amongst 
 them the tenth of their number as notables of the depart- 
 ment. They should then choose in this tenth the public 
 functionaries of the department. 
 
 4th. The re-union of all the lists of notables of the depart- 
 ments (arising to nearly six thousand names) would form 
 
164 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the great national list, in which they should choose the 
 members of the tribunal of cassation, the deputies, the 
 senators, and the consuls. 
 
 Here, then, is the system which they have denied, calum- 
 niated and misconstrued ! That was, they said, very com- 
 plicated. Without doubt, nothing is more comphcated than 
 real liberty in a great society accustomed to servitude. 
 P-ut, in requital, nothing is more simple than the despotism 
 of a man, or of an assembly. 
 
 Have they at least established some better system than 
 our universal suffrage, direct and indirect 1 What have they 
 discovered after thirty-six years of experience, of criti- 
 cisms, of doctrines and polished pleadings? They have 
 found a cense to be eligible, and a cense to be an elector ! 
 That is to say, to combine the interests of the proprietors 
 and the non-proprietors ! ! ! And they flatter themselves, 
 that in excluding from the forum the majority of the nation, 
 to have triumphed over the difficulty . . . They have done 
 nothing but thus perpetuate the trouble and discontentment, 
 and that state of sickly transition has no other term possible 
 than the electoral reform. 
 
 Some adversaries of the lists of notables of Brumaire, 
 have said that these lists disinherited the people. But six 
 millions of men voted them in the primary assemblies, and 
 they delegated only, but in a limited manner, a part of their 
 right of suffrage to six hundred thousand notables, electors 
 and candidates of the universahty of the French people ; 
 and now it is not the universality, but only a part of the 
 population, which scarcely names two hundred thousand 
 electors ! Our system of notability was then far more 
 popular than all your electoral systems. The senate, they 
 say, chose the high functionaries and the deputies .... 
 That prerogative was but momentary ; it was to diminish 
 and expire as soon as the people were accustomed, and had 
 an affection for the exercise of those rights of election. 
 Such was the plan of Sieyes. The universal suffrage direct 
 was to extend with favorable circumstances ; in short, that 
 the republican manners taken root amongst us, the primary 
 assemblies, or at least the notables of the communes, could 
 have named progressively the functionaries of the district 
 and the department. As for the deputies, Ave left, for a 
 time, their choice to the senate, that the legislative author- 
 ity, in the first age of the consular charter, was reserved for 
 the men equally opposed to royahsm and democracy. The 
 choice of the senate could not, moreover, fall but upon the 
 notables of the department ; that is to say, upon the candi- 
 dates of the people. But with time the right of electing the 
 deputies might pass successively from the senate to the six 
 thousand notables of the departments, and then to the sixty 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 166 
 
 thousand notables of the districts ; then at length to the six 
 hundred thousand notables of the communes. 
 
 The people, moreover, even at the beginning of the 
 organization, exercised really an universal censure upon 
 all the public functionaries, which modified wisely the right 
 of delegation of the divers degrees of notability, as well as 
 the temporary prerogative of the senate, an important con- 
 sideration, which has passed away amidst us almost unper- 
 ceived. In effect, every three years the primary assemblies 
 renewed the lists of six hundred thousand communal nota- 
 bles. The public functions could only be filled by those 
 who were maintained upon those lists ; it followed that 
 every Frenchman had not only the right of direct suffrage 
 in his commune, but that he had also, every three years, 
 the right of direct censure upon the public men of all de- 
 grees. We have already said that the great concessions 
 made to the democracy would be progressively increased ; 
 but such as they were, it was still an immense progress ; 
 it was a political liberty superior to that of the constitution 
 of the year 3, and many other constitutions. 
 
 Thus, (if I may be permitted to repeat it,) six millions 
 of citizens, naming in a direct manner the functionaries of 
 their conmiunes, choosing six hundred thousand notables, 
 all, at the same time, electors and candidates for the other 
 functions ; and every Frenchman, whose name was not 
 preserved upon those triennial lists of popular candidates, 
 became ineligible for all magistrature. Thus the question 
 of the universal suffrage applied to a great and old society, 
 was decided in the most satisfactory manner. I hope that 
 the constitutional future, which approaches for all the peo- 
 ple, will appreciate better than our contemporaries have 
 done, that wise institution of our great civilian. In France, 
 above all, the political education has made too great a pro- 
 gress, for some years past, for the electoral reform not to 
 bring about very shortly the universal voting of several 
 degrees. 
 
 Ath. — Unremovable Chamber — Personal Aristocracy — Sen- 
 atorial Absorption. 
 
 The chamber w^hich represents the necessity of stability, 
 should be unremovable. The maintenance of the existing 
 order being especially confided, it must be at all times poAv- 
 erful, and more powerful after a popular revolution, w^here 
 the opinions, having impetuously wandered even to the end 
 of the democratical descent, have far outmarched the point 
 where they should have stopped. Immediately after these 
 profound struggles, the legislator, to reorganize society, 
 should give a motion to the conservative power, an action 
 SO much the greater, the power being in momentary dis- 
 
166 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 credit. That action can only spring from the attribution 
 given it by the constitution, or from great riches, the influ- 
 ence of which may, to a certain point, make up for the law. 
 We are not ignorant, that a magistrature of great proprie- 
 tors, (without being hereditary, as it ought to be in a mod- 
 erate monarchy,) but only during life, and seated upon a 
 very high raised cense, would have been a good combina- 
 tion for the high chamber of our republic ; there were no 
 longer in France but very few great proprietors, and they 
 were almost all of them hostile to the new regime. That 
 element of order, not being at our disposal, we could not 
 supply it but in augmenting the attributions of the conserv- 
 ative body. This is the reason why Sieyes proposed to 
 confide so much power to the senate. The sanction of the 
 laws, the nomination of the senators and consuls, and the 
 supreme right of absorbing the consuls, was to form the 
 permanent attribution of the unremovable chamber, the 
 election of the deputies and the high functionaries was its 
 provisory attribution. So much authority was not more 
 than was requisite for this patriciate of the republic during 
 life, which might resist the executive power always inva- 
 ding, and to the democratic chamber still very unquiet. 
 Nevertheless, that patrician magistrature sprang also from 
 the popular election, sole source of legitimate powers, since 
 its members, like the consuls, were taken exclusively in 
 the list of the six thousand notables of the departments, to 
 which every Frenchman might arrive by the confidence 
 alone of his fellow-citizens. The senators were also ineli- 
 gible for every other public function, that they might not 
 have any personal advantage to expect from the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Notwithstanding so many attributions, was the senate in a 
 condition to guarantee the republic from the ambition of the 
 executive power ] . . . A govern»nent of three magistrates, 
 re-eligible every ten years, substituted for five magistrates 
 elected only for five years, who could not be re-elected, 
 appeared still to be a great deal too strong for many suspi- 
 cious minds. Sieyes hesitated whether or not to limit the 
 authority of the consuls to five years ; but it appeared pre- 
 ferable to him, not to limit too much the time, and to estab- 
 lish a repression always existing for cases of public danger. 
 Although the consulate; totally a stranger to the legislative 
 and judiciary powers, had only the number three, in com- 
 mon with the Roman triumvirate, it was quite evident that it 
 was there that most probably some day might spring forth 
 tyranny. It was then against that probability, above all, that 
 the legislator was right in directing the conservative power. 
 
 In some ancient states, and in the middle age, they ban- 
 ished the citizens whose power they feared. — Ostracism, 
 exile ob nimiam potestatem, had appeared the sole remedy 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 167 
 
 against that mortal malady of the republics ; but ostracism 
 had two faults, which balanced the advantages. 1st, It was 
 in the highest degree unjust, since it punished an influence 
 acquired perhaps by civic virtues. Not only did it deprive 
 the state of Aristides and Themistocles, but it inflicted on 
 Aristides and Themistocles the most cruel and the longest 
 torture of human life. . . . Exile. . . . Exile . . . without a 
 term . . . far from one's country. The fear of suffering that 
 horrible torment, might it not precipitate a feeble mind into 
 the career of usurpation? ... If any thing could ever excuse 
 tyranny and civil war, was it not the terrible sword of exile, 
 suspended over the head of a citizen sufliciently illustrious 
 to excite envy. The injustice of ostracism went evidently 
 in that respect against the aim of the legislator. 
 
 2d, Ostracism, punishment imposed without judgment, 
 was it at least imposed by an authority calm, enlightened 
 and deliberate ? On the contrary, it was the crowd who 
 pronounced in the agitation of the forum, alwa37S open to 
 the poison of hatred, to the prejudices of the moment, to 
 the seductions of intrigue. The multitude condemned with- 
 out appeal — the areopagus was powerless. 
 
 How, then, ameliorate ostracism 1 How preserve this 
 heroic remedy of the republics in stripping it of its injus- 
 tice, and in giving to those victims of glory a guarantee 
 against the caprices of envy] Sieyes proposed confiding 
 the right of absorption to the same body who sanctioned 
 the laws, and whose unremovability, high position, and in- 
 terest of conservation, rendered more useful and less dan- 
 gerous the exercise of an extraordinary censure. By this 
 right of absorption the senate could absorb ; that is to say, 
 call into its own bosom the consul who appeared danger-^ 
 ous to the liberty of the republic. The consul absorbed, 
 ceased at the same moment his functions, and became ipso 
 facto member of the senate. The statesman suspected was 
 not thus condemned to drag on the remainder of his life 
 far from his countrymen ; he was only reduced to yield 
 to another the post he occupied. He had not to choose 
 between revolt and torment, of which the ministers and 
 deputies, quietly seated at their domestic hearths, do not 
 all appear to understand the cruelty. If the suspicions of 
 
 the senate were just the absorption saved the state, 
 
 and preserved from crime him who was about to commit it. 
 If the suspicions were unjust . . . the absorbed quitted only 
 his place for another, and he found himself seated for the 
 rest of his days upon the curule chair. Certainly such an 
 ostracism had no longer any thing odious in it. Sieyes had 
 completely, admirably resolved the problem. 
 
 But the absorption could deprive the repubhc of the ser- 
 vices of a great citizen in the government : a republic does 
 not know any necessary man. 
 
168 MEMOIRS Of 
 
 It is, without doubt, superfluous to repeat here, that I 
 speak of the project of reform that Sieyes had meditated, 
 that we had approved of with a profound enthusiasm, and 
 that he would have given to France if -he had been suffi- 
 ciently powerful to have done it, A part of these ideas 
 were preserved in the constitution of the year 8 ; but what 
 is a system disjointed and divided on all sides 1 It is suffi- 
 cient for one single article to be omitted or added to spoil 
 the whole. The conservative senate, deprived of its right 
 of absorption, was only able to preserve itself. What shall 
 we say of the senators called, against the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of their institution, to all the first employments of the 
 governments ... I will only speak here, then, of the primi- 
 tive project ; the modification of that project will occupy us 
 hereafter. 
 
 Without the return of Napoleon, would our republican 
 reform have succeeded ] . . . Probably we should have been 
 overcome by the party of Jourdan. I think that this unex- 
 pected return preserved France from a repetition of the 
 terror, which Jourdan and several of his friends would have 
 in vain attempted to moderate. There were more chances 
 against us than for us ; but the fear of a new revolutionary 
 government merited that we should expose our heads .... 
 We should only have kept them a few days longer if the 
 times of 1793 liad returned ! 
 
 It is very probable that our reform would not have suc- 
 ceeded, precisely in consequence of what was the best of it 
 — the senatorial supremac)'". A body clothed with so much 
 power, was too repugnant to the prevailing opinion, to that 
 vague and exaggerated horror of the aristocracy — miserable 
 prejudice which opposed, as it opposes still, to the amelior- 
 ation of our political institutions. They dared then, still 
 less than they dare now, brave the unpopularity which is 
 attached to the idea of a patrician. But let not good citi- 
 zens persist in confounding, in one common reprobation, the 
 feodal aristocracy and the patrician magistrature. When a 
 conquering people, despoilers of a conquered people, organ- 
 ize a feodality, which, separating the two races in masters 
 and slaves, assure to one all the rights, and to the other all 
 the servitudes, such a regime, terrible abuse of strength, 
 profound line of demarcation, dug by the sword between 
 two people, is an odious tyranny, against which the op- 
 pressed cannot lance too many maledictions. That here- 
 ditary aristocracy, born of the violences of the conquest, 
 even was it modified as in England, was it even with time 
 sufficiently identified with the pubhc liberties to have be- 
 come their most solid guarantee, it is natural to suppose, 
 notwithstanding that transformation, that a republican state 
 would repulse all hereditary privileges of tribes and fami- 
 lies. But a patrician and personal magistrature is quite of 
 
ItJCIEN BONAPARTE. 169 
 
 another nature ; it is indispensable, as an intermediate and 
 conservative body, to every liberal government ; without 
 that magistrature, equally placed out of the movement of 
 the administration, and out of the movement of popular 
 election, the government would soon become absolute, 
 whetlicr it was in the democratic body or not. Besides, 
 without repeating here what the civilians of all times have 
 said, in all langunges, let us content ourselves with observ- 
 ing the contradictions which those demagogical theories 
 present, and their application. The progress, they say, 
 consists in the absence of all aristocrat] cal principles in 
 political equality ! . . . . But where is, then, that society 
 without aristocracy, without political inequalities 1 Be- 
 tween the chief and the crowd there must be necessarily 
 secondary chiefs. What that reunion of secondary chiefs 
 receives of power, is favorable to the public liberties, since 
 that power is detached from those of the government. If 
 it is not a senate which you place between the chief and 
 the people, you will have a camarilla of courtiers who will 
 place themselves. You may prefer the aristocracy of the 
 valets to that of the political magistrates ; you may confide 
 the choice to a bureaucratic, ever servile, (the most hideous 
 of all intermediate authorities,) sooner than to an unremov- 
 able body of independent men. But notwithstanding all, at 
 length an pristocracy, hereditary or personal, independent 
 or servile, has governed, governs, and will govern human 
 socitties. Among the savages, the strongest, those who 
 have killed the most enemies, and the oldest of the tribe, 
 are they not the aristocrats oi the desert 1 In the United 
 States, do not the elective privileges consecrate the aristo- 
 cracy of money ] And is it not also by the most hideous 
 irregularity, that in several states of that fine country they 
 do not yet treat as their fellow-beings the fellow-citizen, 
 the Christian in whom there remains the smallest trace of 
 the proscribed color ? And with us, those who pay the 
 cense of elector and eligibility, do not they belong to the 
 
 privileged classes'? Is it equality for tw^o hundred 
 
 thousand citizens to be over six millions of Frenchmen ! 
 And can they, in such a state, vaunt of having known how 
 to conciliate the monarchy with liberty and equality, with- 
 out resembling those Roman Augurs, whose greatest merit 
 consisted when they encountered each other in public, was 
 the being able to keep a serious countenance. 
 
 In the project of Sieyes, the aristocratic element had been 
 reduced to its best republican expression; it had been pop- 
 ularized; it neither supported itself entirely upon great 
 property still hostile, nor upon industry exposed to too 
 many chances to be a solid basis ; nor even upon know- 
 ledge, which is not always the friend of order : but it sup- 
 ported itself upon a strength to which knowledge, industry, 
 
170 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and propertj^ contributed at the same time. It was supported 
 upon the general confidence manifested at several periods. 
 To arrive at their high positions, the great notables of the 
 departments were to exhaust all the degrees of election ; a.ad 
 that new basis of influence was more solid, and, above all, 
 more liberal, than all the rest, since it did not admit of the 
 privileges of the burghers ; a larger privilege, and, in conse- 
 quence, less odious, than that of the ancient noblesse, but 
 which, however, does not accord any better with the decla- 
 ration of the rights. Even in the constitution of Brumaire, 
 such as it was modified and voted, there, were six millions 
 of citizens over six millions of Frenchmen; for, rich or 
 poor, all had the right of suffrage. If since, by successive 
 pebliscites, (decrees of the people,) they have perverted all, 
 who is to blame 1 You and your fathers, who would have 
 it so ; but not to those who desired other things, nor to those 
 to whom you reproach the imperial monarchy with as much 
 injustice as if you reproached the constitution of '93 to the 
 constituents of 1789 ; not to those who renounced not their 
 dream of a wise, senatorial, and consular republic, until after 
 the repeated expression of the national will, really and sin- 
 cerely manifested. That will, precipitating itself afresh 
 toward the hereditary system, and precipitating solely from 
 horror of Jacobinism, left to sensible minds no other aim to 
 obtain but intermediate institutions proportionate to royalty, 
 and sufficiently strong to moderate it. Every Frenchman, 
 in resigning himself to the sovereign vote of France, accom- 
 plishes a sacred duty. Some men of Brumaire had, without 
 doubt, more than resignation .... But honour to those 
 who have retired or resigned without baseness. 
 
 But might it not be sni;;... upon hearmg some pamphleteers, 
 that amongst our ad\'3rs:iries of St. Cloud, amongst tiie 
 most ardent Jacobins, tliere was not one who had rallied 
 around the monarchy I . . . But not to speak except of the 
 most illustrious, Jourdan de Fleurus was subject of the em- 
 peror and marshal of the empire ! Bernadotte did not with- 
 draw either before the name of subject in France, anymore 
 than before a foreign sceptre ! . . . . And Lafayette ! . . . 
 Is it a republic or a monarchy which sprung from the dicta- 
 ture of July, 1830 ? . . . It is true, that, notwithstanding the 
 contrary opinion of Manuel and Benjamin Constant, they 
 hastened to render the peerage durinf^ for life, without doubt 
 to make it more on a par with hereditary royalty, in order 
 to enable it more capable of resisting the executive power. 
 And it is thus only that they have arrived at transforming 
 that high chamber into provostal commissions, to the great 
 scandal of the French and other nations. . . . The theories 
 of Brumaire, I honestly confess, were progressive in another 
 sense. Mirabeau, whose opinions were become conserva- 
 tive the day after the storm, said, that the silence of Sieyes 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 171 
 
 was a public calamity . . . We could have said with as 
 much truth, that it was an irreparable calamity for the repub- 
 licans, that the inability to which Sieyes was reduced to 
 cause his senatorial reform to be adopted in the majority of 
 the council of five hundred, as he had done in the council 
 of ancients. 
 
 What books, notwithstanding the works of falsehood, of 
 hatred, or frivolity, calumniate the intentions, confound the 
 epochs, and disfigure the history! — "Look," they say, "at 
 the despotism of the empire, the wars without end, the inva- 
 sion of France. It is Sieyes, it is the men of Brumaire, 
 who are responsible for all that." But if you will attribute 
 to us the fault of the empire, notwithstanding our absence, 
 is it not just, by way of compensation, to attribute to us also 
 a part of its glory] Ah! who, in that case, would refuse 
 being bound ! Tlie empire ! . . . But in what century, under 
 what regime, was France greater, more glorious, more pros- 
 perous ] Who is the Frenchman, liberal or Carlist, blue or 
 Vendean, who would efface from our history the glorious 
 records of the empire ] Where is there, amidst the thirty 
 millions of French hearts, that which does not beat with 
 patriotic pride in thinking of the days of the empire ^ He 
 must be seized with a vertigo, who would attempt to appro- 
 priate to himself the least in the world so many wonders to 
 which he had not the happiness of contributing ; but it would 
 be rather too philosophical to suffer the errors or the wrongs 
 to be imputed to which one had not contributed. 
 
 Besides, although a stranger to the good or ill of the em- 
 pire, may I not be permitted to reply to him who finds the 
 ashes of Napoleon very loell placed at St. Helena, and to those 
 who, like him, like to see only spots in the sun 1 Napoleon, 
 without doubt, was not infallible. Spain and Russia attacked 
 at the same time ; Poland and Italy awaiting in vain their 
 deliverance ; the chief of religion persecuted, after having 
 crowned the elect of the people — have not drawn reproaches 
 without some appearance of truth. And yet, what a series 
 of adverse combinations there needed to change into disas- 
 ter the victorious campaign of Russia ! If the inconceivable 
 peace of Bucharest — that fault so capital and so improbable, 
 from which the Porte will never again, perhaps, arise — liad 
 not sent behind us a new Russian army, or that the allied 
 corps of Austria had held it in respect ; if a Norman prince, 
 born a Frenchman, after having at first defended with justice 
 the interests of his adoptive country, had stopped at the cries 
 of distress of three hundred thousand Frenchmen, struck 
 with the most dreadful scourge ; if Jie freezing cold had not 
 commenced a month sooner than ordinary ; if the flames, 
 kindled by hands patriotically, heroically, barbarous, had not 
 devoured Moscow conquered . . . and Napoleon had found 
 general peace, maritime peace, in those deserts of disastrous 
 
172 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 memory . . . then France — Europe — posterity — would not 
 have found sufficient languages to celebrate the Russian war 
 . . . and the powers of the continent and England would 
 not at this moment look at Greece, Egypt, and the Bospho- 
 rus, with so much anxiety. 
 
 As for Spain, after twenty years of wars and discord, 
 where is she now I She is agitated by the convulsions of 
 the most barbarous reprisals. She struggles in blood and 
 tears to obtain that which the convention of Bayonne assured 
 her, whatever might have been the means employed on an- 
 other account to unite her. The equality of civil rights, the 
 reform of the convents, the suppression of the inquisition, 
 our civil code, our admirable administrative system, our 
 liberal institutions, our public instruction, all that Spain still 
 seeks, — all was in the laws of Bayonne; all was guarantied 
 by the accepted king, acknowledged by the convention, by 
 a just king, enlightened, and a philosopher. I have seen 
 many Spanish statesmen in my sad travels, far from my 
 country ; and how many I have heard bitterly deplore that 
 the throne of the King Joseph had not been consolidated ! 
 Nothing, without doubt, can justify violence. Liberty itself, 
 at the point of the foreign sword, would become hateful . . . 
 But, after all, the torrent of invasion w^ould have retired ; 
 and the fertile earth, deposed by its waves, would have 
 rendered the peninsula fruitful, since txoenty years ! 
 
 Poland I — could it be constituted when Austria and Prus- 
 sia, in arms, were at the head of our allies 1 Moreover, that 
 nation, whom all generous men bear in their heart : did she, 
 during the Russian campaign, do all that she could have 
 done to hasten the hour of her independence 1 Has she not 
 had in her own bosom partisans of Alexander? Did Poland, 
 in fine, demonstrate that intense degree of universal energy, 
 that wonderful enthusiasm, displayed by Spain and Russia? 
 The Emperor Napoleon, in the second Polish w^ar, ought he 
 to have done more ? Could he do more, without impru- 
 dence? If he had done it, would they not have accused 
 him with having provoked, like a madman, in the middle of 
 a mortal crisis, the defection of Vienna and Berlin ? 
 
 Italy ! — the Pope ! — Napoleon himself expressed his tar- 
 dive regrets. He was very far from believing himself to be 
 perfect. Have we not heard him at Paris talk of his limited 
 faculties ? The wisest of the ancients said, " / know that I 
 knoio nothing.'''' The greatest of moderns said, " Do you be- 
 lieve me to be more than a man?" ... It is the same cry, 
 precious emanation of the same soul, although uttered by 
 two men, at two thousand years of distance. 
 
 Before this avowal so ingenuously sublime of human im- 
 perfection, how wretched is the pride of those state sophists, 
 whose superb theory, without ceasing to think itself infalli- 
 ble, terminates with the most sad results ! No : the emperor 
 
LTJCIEN BONAPARTE. 173 
 
 was ;iot, and did not believe himself to be, above the com- 
 mon errors of humanity : and yet none ever abused less an 
 absolute power; none had a more prodigious genius than 
 he ; none ever accomplished such vast deeds in so short a 
 space of time; none, above all, ever better loved his country. 
 
 As for the reproaches of despotism and usurpation, France 
 and its government have made the most glorious of answers, 
 an answer without reply. They have inaugurated the statue 
 of the emperor. His detractors do not see how far their 
 accusations are contradicted by public opinion. Let them 
 endeavour to explain to us — to explain to themselves, how a 
 great nation (without it w^as senseless) could have raised a 
 triumphant monument to a despot— to a usurper— fifteen years 
 after his death ! ! ! It is that France does not confound, like 
 them, a popular dictature with despotism. It is because 
 France knows too well her rights, to be ignorant that the 
 temporary consul, the consul for hfe, the emperor named 
 three times by the universal voting, was the most legitimate 
 chief of all times and all countries. 
 
 Can they think that, since the inauguration of the imperial 
 statue, the opinion of France has changed] But the repre- 
 sentative chamber has just confirmed that opinion by her 
 last vote. Would it reclaim from the other end of the world 
 the ashes of a despot ... of a usurper .... fifteen years 
 after his death! It is true that they still persist in proscrib- 
 ing the family of the hero whose remains they claim ! May 
 the vote, at least, not be disdained in that which it possesses 
 of favourable ! May its prompt accomplishment console us 
 in our exile, wiiere the winds of France sometimes bring us 
 some accents of sympathy ! General Pelet, the worthy his- 
 torian of the campaigns of Napoleon, has refuted the 
 reproach of an immeasurable ambition. Monsieur de Gol- 
 bery has signalized, amidst the petitioners who have not 
 forgotten us, the illustrious names of Massena, of Lannes, 
 of Ney, that recall so many victories! M. de Brecqueville 
 has declared that it was not the emperor who betrayed the 
 country in the hundred days. Monsieur Manguin has cele- 
 brated the hero of national independence, whose wandering 
 family is a living trophy of our disasters ! General Larabit 
 nobly replied to those who have the courage to affirm that 
 there are no more proscribed ! So many eloquent voices, 
 the wishes of the citizens of Paris, of Toulouse, and La Cha- 
 rente, those great names, dear to France, — will all be pow- 
 erless to repair injustice 1 . . . Let us leave to the country 
 the care of our return. When she desires it, her will will 
 be expressed in a suitable manner. Paris, Toulouse, and 
 La Charente will find echoes in every part where the mem- 
 ory of Napoleon is honoured. The names of Moskova, of 
 Montebello, of Esling, are not the only illustrious names of 
 the ancient companions, the friends of Napoleon; and the 
 
 H* 
 
174 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 government, which has already repaired in part the iniquity, 
 will abase without difficulty the odious barrier, out of which 
 they keep citizens proscribed upon account of their name, 
 and who will never cease, till their last sigh, to stretch out 
 their arms towards their country. 
 
 In terminating this first volume, and in returning to our 
 political views of 1800, I ask myself what influence the ex- 
 perience of so many j^ears has liad upon our sentiments of 
 that epoch. Has that experience modified the opinions of 
 Sieyes? Have those opinions remained stationary] or, on 
 the other hand, returning to the ancient recollections of the 
 constituent assembly, have they passed from our consular 
 republic to the constitutional monarchy] The authentic 
 memoirs of that venerable man can alone resolve that ques- 
 tion. I hope and trust that he will not deprive the country 
 of his last thoughts. As for m3^self, my regrets for the 
 senatorial republic have remained a very long time. Adver 
 sity, which is not very good for softening the humor, has 
 struggled in my mind for a long time against the evidence 
 of the universal voting in favor of the monarchy, and against 
 my conviction of the genius and patriotism of Napoleon. 
 In fine, although in my conference at Mantua with my bro- 
 ther, my refusal had no other motive than the political re- 
 strictions to which I did not think proper to submit; but it 
 is not less true, that until my residence in England, there 
 still remained in me a great deal of the old republican, and 
 public liberty appeared to me to be almost incompatible 
 with royalty. 
 
 But in England I have been convinced that a monarchy 
 really constitutional is requisite for a great people, as much, 
 and more, perhaps, than any other form of government. 
 We see here the best of republics, not in a programme, but 
 in facts and manners. The legislative power w isely divided 
 amongst three authorities, who exercise without obstacle 
 their own prerogatives : — the executive power having all 
 the authority to do good, and not having, and not seeking 
 to do evil. Tlie judiciary power is so completely indepen- 
 dent, that the most obscure individual, as well as the richest 
 lord, as the most ilkistrious or the most humble exile of the 
 continent, reposes equally in security, beneath the guaran- 
 tee of the jury, that no sacrilegious attack can tarnish, and 
 beneath the inviolability of the domicile, that no wretch can 
 violate. The elective chamber, named by eight hundred 
 thousand electors over a population of twenty-five millions, 
 which, without being the universal suff'rage, approaches five 
 times nearer to it than we do, since we ought to have in that 
 proportion more than a million of electors! The chamber 
 of peers, in fine, is accessible to every citizen, and too pow- 
 erful and too enlightened to yield to the seductions of courts, 
 or the clamors of the multitude. These hereditary magis- 
 
LUCIEN BONAPARTE, 175 
 
 trates have been for above a century and a half the defend- 
 ers of the charter, the immortal work of their ancestors, 
 their tutelary supremacy will long continue to be the pal- 
 ladium of British liberties. Provided they never cease to 
 oppose an immoveable resistance to the overflowing torrent 
 of demagogical opinions, that a social overthrow can alone 
 satisfy. Provided they do not abandon their ground to 
 defend themselves feebly against that of their adversaries. 
 Provided they follow always the high state reason, which 
 judges, in the first place, of the effect of a new law upon 
 the whole of the constitution, instead of considering solely 
 that absolute perfection of theory, illusory enough some- 
 times to insinuate into the political body a mortal germ of 
 dissolution, seductive appearance of a salutary amelioration. 
 Provided, above all, that they do not arrive, some day^ even 
 to suffer them to drag in the dirt the patrician toga, or at least 
 cease to have the same respect for it as for the royal mantle 
 and the elective chamber; for, {if by timidity,) by indifference, 
 or by a false popularity, to provoke or contribute to the 
 profanation of one of the three fundamental authorities, 
 would that be walking in the road to a wise reform ? . . . 
 Would it not rather be completely turning the back upon old 
 England to follow the errors of a democracy without con- 
 trol ! . . . Would it not be denying that charter, as yet 
 without a rival in the ancient world, and whose vital 
 strength resides in the equal independence, the equal re- 
 spectability, the equal inviolability of the king, the lords and 
 commons. 
 
 Nothing is perfect upon earth, either in men or in the 
 laws . . . Byt where, when shall we approach nearer 
 to perfection ? 
 
 We thought on the 18th Brumaire to approach nearer, in 
 founding simultaneously a large democracy, and an aristo- 
 cracy during life, upon one sole and same basis, the uni- 
 versal suffrage of several degrees. 
 
 But France willed that the consular republic was but a 
 bright dream of a few days .... 
 
 May she at least perfect her monarchy, by recon- 
 ciling herself with the system of an hereditary body patri- 
 otically organized. That legislative combination is the 
 most liberal of all under a monarchy, because it is alone 
 capable of serving as a balance to a royal hereditary power, 
 and to a representative popular power, as it is against her 
 own nature to transform it into a privilege of burghership, 
 and which, very shortly, it will be no longer possible to 
 disinherit any one amongst us. 
 
 It is then only that we shall have a throne surrounded 
 with republican institutions. That is to say, with democratic 
 and aristocratic institutions, wisely balanced . . . It is 
 then, that after fifty years of incomplete and glorious essays, 
 
176 MEMOIRS OF LUCIEN BONAPARTE. 
 
 we shall rest at once upon an elective representation, frank 
 and universal, and upon an hereditary magistrature, power- 
 fully conservative. We may then equal and surpass, per- 
 haps, that liberal nation, once our enemy, v^^hose fortunate 
 alliance, (strong- barrier raised against despotism, individual 
 or collective,) appears to promise to the people of Europe 
 the pacific and progressive triumph of the mixed govern- 
 ments, the only ones where the constitutional liberties, 
 precious fruits of our civilization, can live and prosper in 
 the midst of the inequalities and passions inseparable from 
 humanity. 
 
 i 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (1) The able Fesch is now Cardinal and Archbishop of Lyons, 
 although removed from his see by the persecution which has not 
 yet ceased to strike the family of Napoleon. 
 
 (2) Address of Raynal, read at the bar of the National Conven- 
 tion. Sitting of the 31st of May, 1791. 
 
 " On arriving in this capital, after a long absence, my heart and 
 my affections are turned towards you — ready to descend into the 
 night of the tomb* * * What do I see around mel Religiou.s 
 troubles, civil dissentions, the consternation of some, the boldnes? 
 and the rage of others ; a government, the slave of popular tyranny, 
 the sanctuary of the laws surrounded by licentious men, who wish 
 alternately to dictate or to brave them ; soldiers without discipline; 
 chiefs without authority, magistrates without courage, minister? 
 without means; a king, the first friend of his people, plunged in 
 grief, outraged, menaced, stripped of all authority, and the sover- 
 eign power existing only in clubs, where ignorant and violent meu 
 dare to pronounce upon all political questions. Such is, gentlemen, 
 doubt it not, such is the true state of France. 
 
 " I was full of hope and joy when I saw you lay the foundations 
 of public happiness, pursue all abuses, proclaim all just rights, sub- 
 mit to the same laws, and a uniform administration in all the dif^ 
 ferent parts of this empire. My eyes were filled with tears when 
 ?aw the most vile, the most wicked of men, employed as the instru- 
 ments of a necessary revolution ; when I saw the holy name cf pat- 
 riotism, prostituted to villany and licentiousness, march in triumph 
 nnder the ensigns of liberty ! Terror was mingled with sincere 
 grief, when I saw all the springs of government broken, and power- 
 less barriers substituted to the necessity of an active and repressive 
 force. How I suffer when in the midst of the capital and the focus 
 of knowledge, I see this people seduced to receive, with a ferocious 
 joy, the most culpable propositions, to smile at the relation of 
 assassinations, to sing of their crimes as of conquests, to appeal 
 stupidly to the enemies of the revolution, to defile it with complai- 
 cence, to shut their eyes to all the evils with which they are op- 
 pressed. Called to regenerate France, you ought first to consider 
 what you can usefully preserve of the ancient order, and still more, 
 what you cannot abandon of it, France was a monarchy: its ex- 
 tent, its wants, its manners, its national character, are invincibly 
 opposed to that which can ever admit of republican institutions 
 without working a total dissolution of it. The monarchical powr 
 was vitiated by two causes: the foundations of it were surrounded 
 by prejudices, and its limits were only marked by partial resist- 
 ances. To purify the principles, in fixing the throne upon its true 
 basis, the sovereignty of the nation ; to set the bounds in placing 
 them in the national representation, was what you had to do. And 
 
2 NOTES. 
 
 you think to liave done it! — But in regulating the two powers, the 
 strength and the success of the constitution depend upon the equili- 
 brium, and you had to defend yourself against the real inclination 
 of ideas, you ought to see that in opinion the power of kings de- 
 clines, and that the rights of the people increase; so that in weak- 
 ening without measure, that which tends naturally to efface itself, 
 in strengthening without proportion that which tends naturally to 
 augment, you arrived forcibly to this sad result — a king without 
 auSiority, a people without restraint. How can you suffer, after 
 having consecrated the principle of individual liberty, that there 
 should exist in your bosom an inquisition, which serves as a model 
 and a pretext for all the inferior inquisitions, which a factious rest- 
 lessness has spread in all parts of the empire. You have laid the 
 foundations of liberty — of every rational constitution, in assuring 
 to the people the right of making laws, and to decree taxes. An- 
 archy will even swallow up these important rights, if you do not 
 place them under the care of an active and vigorous government; 
 despotism awaits us, if you always repel the tutelary protection of 
 royal authority." 
 
 (3) Report on the election of Lucien Bonaparte — sitting of the 
 29th of Floreal, 6th year. Malikan reporter. 
 
 Representatives of the people, said he, the 20th Germinal last, 
 the electoral assembly of the department of the Liamone, assembled 
 in the place appointed by the central administration, has proceed- 
 ed to the nomination of a deputy to the legislative body, conforma- 
 bly to the dispositions of the law of the 27th Pluviose, the 5th year, 
 arid the citizen Lucien Bonaparte has been elected by unanimous 
 suffrages, member of the council of five hundred, for three years, i 
 
 The process verbal of this assembly presents a picture of the de- 
 corum, calmness, and harmony amongst the citizens who composed 
 it ; all the dispositions of the laws have been respected, and all the 
 formalities exactly observed. 
 
 A single difficulty presents itself; I submit it to the council ac- 
 cording to the description which was decreed for ten years the27lh 
 Pluviose of the year 5, the department of the Liamone proceeded, 
 in the year 6, to name a deputy for the council of five hundred; 
 but by a subsequent law you have decided, the 12lh Pluviose last, 
 that for the present year the department of the Liamone should not 
 nominate a deputy to the legislative body. 
 
 If this last law had been promulgated in the department of the 
 Liamone before the holding of the electoral assembly, there is no 
 doubt that the election would be void ; but your commission has 
 considered that the law of the 12th Praireal of the year 6, not hav- 
 ing then arrived in the department of the Liamone, the electoral 
 assembly fulfilled its duly in conforming to the existing law in 
 nominating a deputy to the council of five hundred. It has con- 
 sidered that in the actual circumstances of the case, being much 
 below the full number, there was no inconvenience in declaring 
 the election made by the department of the Liamone valid. This 
 is the project : 
 
 Article 1st, The proceedings of the electoral assembly of the 
 department of the Liamone, relative to the nomination of a deputy 
 by the said department to the legislative body, are declared valid. 
 Therefore the citizen Lucien Bonaparte shall be admitted the 1st 
 Praireal next to the council of five hundred for three years. 
 
NOTES. 3 
 
 2d. The dispositions of the law of the 27th Pluviose, relative to 
 the elections of the department of the Liamone, are repealed in that 
 which would be contrary to the present resolution. The council 
 declares the urgency, adopts the project, and in consequence re- 
 ceives into its bosom for three years the citizen Lucien Bonaparte. 
 
 Observations submitted on this subject in favor of the project, ob- 
 servations which the council interrupted the reading of by demand- 
 ing to go to the vote, will be given in the impression. 
 
 (4) Sitting of the 29ih Messidor, the year 6. I come to recall 
 eternal principles, which cannot be unknown in this circle. I come 
 to support the opinion of our collegiate Creuze Latouche. I ought 
 to make a distinction between the propc-itions which are made to 
 you. The decades, you say, are the only fete, yes, the only nation- 
 al fete, the only republican feie; we have the right to consecrate it 
 by a law, but we have not the right to hinder a citizen from cele- 
 brating the fete, which his own religion appoints him. Can we 
 order a freeman to work on such a day 1 Can we say to a republi- 
 can on such a day, whatever may be his religion, thou shalt workl 
 Repiesentatives, tolerance is the sister of liberty — persecution is the 
 daughter of tyranny. At Rome, even under the papal domination, 
 have you ever heard tell that it forced a sect you will easily call to 
 mind, to work on the Saturday 1 And we, the representatives of a 
 free people, shall we give less latitude in the exercise of religious 
 worship than the Roman pontiff? 
 
 Sitting of the 19th Thermidor, year 6. The reporter read the 
 article relative to the opening of shops and warehouses, on the fete 
 days of the ancient calendar. 
 
 Lucien Bonaparte — You have declared, some days since, that the 
 decades and the days of national fetes were those of rest throughout 
 the republic; a measure is again presented to you to-day, already 
 combatted and already repelled. Penetrated as you are, with the 
 deepe-^t hatred against fanaticism and blind sectaries, I contend 
 against the proposition which is made to you. 
 
 Several voices — Adjournment to Primedi. 
 
 The President to Lucien Bonaparte — You are the speaker—^ 
 go on. 
 
 A^ , Maintain the question.— President, I demand a reply to 
 
 the question. 
 
 Bonaparte — Three different propositions have been made. The 
 first declared that the days of the decades were the only days of re- 
 pose. The second applied the measure only to traders ; at last it is 
 restricted to ordain the opening of shops, only on fair and market 
 days. I will examine these different propositions — ihey all deserve 
 your attention, not as concerning their object in themselves, but as 
 concerning the general good, and as to the circumstances and tran- 
 quillity of the whole republic. The first amendment declared the 
 day of decade the only day of rest. In this I see nothing more than 
 an inquisitorial measure without a parallel. I open the codes of 
 all the tyrannies ; I retrace the acts of all usurpers, and I do not 
 find an example of such a violation of individual liberty. 
 
 The President. — I interrupt the speaker to intimate to him that 
 the resolution upon the decades has been adopted by the council of 
 the ancients, and that this amendment is no longer the question, 
 
 Lucien Bonaparte. — I can speak to all the amendments which 
 have been made, show the danger of them when they have been 
 
4 NOTES. 
 
 supported at this tribunal in full liberty. They relate to individula 
 liberty, and I think they are of sufficient importance to be discussed 
 with deep consideration. What has been said in their favor has 
 been heard ; the privilege of combatting them should also be allow- 
 ed. I continue — the adjournment to Primedi is again demanded. 
 The adjournment is declared 
 
 (5) The silting of the 27ih Thermidor of the year 6. 
 
 The President. — Lucien Bonaparte has demanded to speak on 
 this question. 
 
 Liicien Bonaparte. — I have asked to speak but for the purpose of 
 opposing the custom of injurious reaoncilements, a custom which 
 has become too much the fashion. 
 
 Several voices. — That is true. Supported. 
 
 Bonaparte. — What means this affectation of always recalling 
 Gibert Desmolieres, and of receiving his name in preference to that 
 of members who appear at the tribune'? We have not here to do 
 with Gibert Desmolieres; it is not a question as to what has been 
 done, said or proposed, by the conspirators ; no doubt, to attain 
 their ends, they have thought it their duty to employ sometimes pop- 
 ular forms, and to publish notions which approached to the general 
 good ; but because such or such an expedient has been theirs, is it 
 to be said that this expedient shall be interdicted to a republican 1 
 If they have put forth a constitutional opinion; if they have held 
 republican language, I declare that I will hold forth alike opinion, 
 and will maintain the same language with the single difference of 
 intention. 
 
 I have thought it necessary to say these few words, in order that 
 these descriptions of reconcilement may not in future be permitted, 
 as they only embarrass a discussion, and give the opinion of the 
 council a false direction. I was desirous to warn the council of the 
 use of a similar expedient. 
 
 (6) Sitting of the 16th Thermidor, year 6. 
 
 The order of the day calls for the debate on the project of Lucien 
 Bonaparte, relative to the relief to be afforded to the widows and 
 children of soldiers. 
 
 This is the report with which the reading of the project had been 
 preceded. 
 
 The 18ih Praireal, said the reporter, you made a resolution rel- 
 ative to the relief lobe afforded to the widows and children of the 
 defenders of their country. The 18th Messidor the council of the 
 ancients declared they could not adopt it. If the council of the an- 
 cients has not approved at length of your dispositions of the 18th 
 Praireal, it is because it has considered them incomplete for the 
 land forces, and inapplicable to the seamen. If, however, the land 
 forces have a thousand times well deserved of their countrj'', the 
 navel forces, held back unto this day, in spite of them, begin to press 
 forward in their career, and their firstsfep announces that they are 
 also the favored sons of victory — yes, if forests of laurels do not 
 yet overshadow the genius of our marine, it is because it has been 
 to this day in its infancy, from causes which I shall not recall to 
 your mind. Vivacity and courage may be the portion of a noble 
 child; but vigor can only be acquired by the development of the 
 physical faculties, and nature prescribes for this development a 
 fixed period. 
 
 In those isolated battles of vessel to vessel, of frigaie to frigate, 
 
NOTES. 5 
 
 where the English have always had the superiority in numhers, has 
 not oar marine proved that the enthusiasm of liberty can overcome 
 the coolness of art 1 In those isolated battles of the ocean and the 
 Mediterranean, have not traits of valor been exhibited which claim, 
 immortalit}^ and which the burine ofhistory will trace in characters 
 of gold? 
 
 These first exploits were the sure guarantee of victory, as soon 
 as a French fleet should appear upon the bosom of the ocean. Our 
 marine emerges from infancy, and exhibits itself in all the lustre 
 of youth. Yesterday Malta became its first conquest ; to-day it is 
 forgotten in search of nobler victories. The destinies of the repub- 
 lic will surely guide it to accomplish great things. What is there 
 impossible ta soldiers covered with laurels, to sailors impatient to 
 do the same 1 Glory unites the army and the navy ; let not the na- 
 tional beneficence separate them. The widows, the children of 
 these warriors, shall be equally the objects of our paternal solici- 
 tude. 
 
 The commission thinks it ought to unite in the same project sol- 
 diers and sailors. 
 
 Your commission is of opinion that it is proper to ordain a mode 
 of payment in each department every month, and to simplify it as 
 much as possible, without compellmg the pensioners to apply to 
 the treasury. Representatives of the people, the widows, the 
 children of our warriors, speak a language which many clerks do 
 not understand. These respectable families have no intrigues, no 
 gold ; they have only tears, and tears so touching to sensible rainds, 
 affect but lightly the invulnerable hearts of certain beings. No, 
 you will not confide to these men the carrying in'o eiiect a national 
 reward — a reward so noble in its origin, becomes iu their hands a 
 source of incalculable ignominy. Yea must cringe before two, 
 three, or perhaps twenty clerl..-. and before you have completed 
 the half of this career of humiliation, the mind is so abased, that 
 to have the strength to finish it, you must more than once feel the 
 cravings of hunger. 
 
 Your resolution ordains that the reduction or augmentation of 
 pensions shall be made inthe margin of the commission of pen- 
 sioners, by the authority which would have originally paid the 
 penston. By this article all pensioners were obliged to strip them- 
 selves of their' titles, and to send them to Paris. It has appeared 
 more simple that the ministers of war and of marine, who have 
 in their bureaux the titles of all the pensions already granted, 
 should prepare each for their department a general table of these 
 pensions, reduced or augmented according to the present arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 A third observation is also here suggested. The pensions grant- 
 ed for the future, and those which are going to be reduced or aug- 
 mented according to the rate marked out in the present law, shall 
 they be susceptible of reduction to a third part, prescribed by the 
 law of 9th Vendemiaire last 1 
 
 Our opinion upon this question cannot*be for a moment doubtful, 
 since in the present law you reconcile as much as possible, econo- 
 my with national justice; it is plain that these are the sums fixed 
 by the law, and not the third part of these sums, that you intend to 
 grant to the relations of the defenders of our countjty. We have 
 sufficiently rambled over the words, both politically and financially ; 
 
 a 
 
6 N»TES. 
 
 it is lime that every thing should resume the signification and the 
 value which is appropriate to it. The commission, therefore, pro- 
 poses to you to declare, by an additional article, that these pensions 
 shall not be subject to any reduction. 
 
 The 6lh article of your resolution of the 18th Praireal, fixes the 
 pensions to be granted to the widows of general officers of every 
 grade, from four to six hundred franks. The commission has con- 
 sidered this sum too small, and that it was not in the proportioa 
 ;which exists between the appointments of a general officer, and 
 those of subalterns ; nor in those which exist between the appoint- 
 ments of a general officer and a general-in-chief ; it has, therefore, 
 carried these pensions up to from six to nine hundred franks for 
 general officers, and for the same reason it has thought it desirable 
 to fix at from twelve to fifteen hundred franks, the pensions of 
 widows of commanders in chief of the land and of sea forces; it 
 is unnecessary to develop to you further the motives of the com- 
 mission on this subject. The 12th article fixed at fourteen years 
 the relief to be granted to orphans. The commission thinks that 
 the republic ought not to abandon these orphans until they can be- 
 bome soldiers. 
 
 What ! — representatives of the people, would you abandon the 
 children of those brave men, before the age that the laws opens to 
 them the career of glory"? What then would become of these un- 
 fortunate children 1 Deprived of their parents, abandoned by the 
 republic, which had promised to take care of their youth, repelled 
 from the army, where the law does not yet permit them to be en- 
 rolled, there only remains to them despair or the debasing resource 
 of devoting themselves to servile employments, or to implore the 
 pity of the traveller ! The livery of misery or of servitude would 
 cover the sons of our warriors! — and the incorrigible royalist, see- 
 ing them with complaisance would smile with pleasure,' and would 
 say to the citizens — go; pour out yonr blood for this republic fer- 
 tile in promises. Your children, succored for some years will end 
 in asking charity. — No, representatives of the people, you cannot 
 thus forsake the orphams at fourteen years. It is at this age, in 
 which misery brings after it all the vices, when the character is 
 forming, and the passions develop themselves, that you ought to 
 watch, with paternal care, over the children of our country, until 
 they can follow the impulse of their generous hearts, and render 
 themselves worthy of the name they bear with pride. 
 
 The republic ought to take them by the hand from the field of 
 battle, and from the field of battle to the tomb ; the lives of these 
 noble children would be but a succession of services rendered to 
 that country v.^hich has been a mother to them. Then the dying 
 warrior will close his eyes without uneasiness for the fate of his 
 son ; he will know that his country adopts him, and that it will 
 take care of him until he can be enrolled. He will die in the hope 
 that his son will soon follow in his steps, and perhaps surpass him ; 
 and his name repeated a thousand times by fame, will soon be re- 
 vived still more glorious ! 
 
 Sublime sentiment of glory, emanation of the divinity, thou shalt 
 console the dying warrior in the field of honor, who without dis- 
 quiet for his family, and uneasiness for his country, will ask in his 
 last momants if victory has continued faithful to the colors of the 
 
NOTES. 7 
 
 republic. Lucien Bonaparte presents a project conformable to these 
 
 dispositions. 
 
 I, (7) Sitting of the 29th Thermidor, year 6. 
 
 The President. — The debate ought to open upon a project rela- 
 tive to the recruiting of the army; but Lucien Bonaparte demands 
 to speak upon a motion of order. 
 
 LMcien Bonaparte. — Representatives of the people, amongst the 
 counter-revolutionary factions, there are none more dangerous, 
 more tolerated, more spread than those of the diiapidaiors; each 
 of us have declared war to the death of this liberticide faction ; 
 and our session will be useful and celebrated in the annals of this 
 ^reat nation, by the suppression of ;;*)bberies and the punishment 
 of robbers. Such are the justly cherished hopes of our constitu- 
 ents — such are the unshaken and courageous intentions of each of 
 us. You have already manifested these restorative intentions with 
 a force which has carried a cold sweat to the front of crime; al- 
 ready commissions are formed for the accounts to be rendered by 
 the ministers, for the publicity of markets, and for infamous games 
 which make a branch of commerce slill more infamous. You 
 desired that a special commission should occupy itself with the 
 means of reaching the dilapidators, and to prevent dilapidations 
 hereafter. It is in the name of this commission, composed of your 
 colleagues, Duplautier, Destrem, Gourlay, Marquezy and myself, 
 that I come this day to lay before you the first page of its labors, 
 and to propose to you the means for making use of it. 
 
 Your commission has at first been struck with a reconcilement 
 which should offer a mournful subject to the friends of their coun- 
 try. Several times the legislative body has testified its hatred 
 against the dilapidators ; it has charged special commissions seve- 
 ral times to present to it the means of repression and punishment. 
 Well ! these commissions have never fulfilled their instructions ; 
 the magic force circumstances have always substituted silence for 
 •ourage ; the abyss has been approached without daring to look at 
 it, or if a glance has been thrown at its depth, it seems that they 
 have trembled to say what they have discovered. 
 
 We turn aside our eyes from the causes which have hindered the 
 commissions that have preceded us to fulfil their instructions, but 
 we promise our colleagues to fufil our own. We will fathom the 
 abyss, we will march to our aim, and nothing shall turn us aside 
 from the career you have opened to us, and where we shall press 
 forward with an entire devotion. 
 
 To stop the dilapidations, to reach the dilapidators, whatever 
 may be the mantles which cover them, without doubt ihis task will 
 not be fulfilled without obstacles; but the representatives of the 
 people, to do good, have only to will it strongly. It is with them 
 to promote the public good without regarding those who surround 
 them ; as the warrior rushes on to victory without calculating the 
 dangers. No doubt the blood-suckers of the people pursued by you, 
 will dart upon your their poisons ; they possess gold, boldness, and 
 the tact for seduction, and proud of these advantages, will perhaps 
 think themselves strong enough to encounter the struggle; but we 
 will oppose to them the force of the law, the good of the people, 
 the will of the sovereign, and they will be overthrown, and their 
 punishment will serve as an example and a lesson. The execu- 
 tive directory will be eager, no doubt, to unite its efibrts with those 
 
8 NOTES. 
 
 of the legislative body to reach the dilapidators ; it will feel as we 
 do, that the time for half measures against rogues is passed, and 
 that to bear with them much longer would be to let slide into their 
 hands the remainder of the national fortune, and render new 
 taxes necessary. It is not enough for the purposes of justice, and 
 the interests of the people, that we represent, that the cowardly 
 agents of its ruin, bow down before us iheir timid faces to raise 
 them again shortly charged with boldness and eagerness ; their 
 drooping faces must not be allowed to raise themselves again. 
 The commission is already occupied with several important ob- 
 jects; it will examine in succession the different parts of the pub- 
 lic expenses, and will present to you, in some degree, the means 
 of extirpating these abuses. Its labors require this mode of pro- 
 ceeding, because it tends to prevent dilapidations of every kind ; 
 and from that time it is not a complete plan, but a thousand partial 
 measures that it will and should submit lo your examination ; it 
 was already prepared to propose to you several of them ; but far- 
 ther reflection has stopped it. In the firm resolution we have 
 taken to tear aside every veil of intrigue, would it not be neces- 
 sary and prudent that we were heard only by our colleagues 7 
 Since we must speak out, malevolence, always on the watch, might 
 it not profit by our solemn discussion 1 None of us, representa- 
 tives of the people, are ignorant of it ; the hydra of faction watches 
 around this palace ; she spies us without ceasing, and she often 
 translates into her own infernal idiom what is said at this tri- 
 bune ; she will hear you, and will be eager to comment on our 
 speeches, and to envenom our intentions, that she maybe able to 
 seize upon a generous movement which was certainly not made 
 for her. 
 
 The commi.*;sion has considered that in order to avoid evil, it 
 should propose to the council to form itself into a general com- 
 mittee when it could deal with the projects that would be presented 
 to it. By these means the faction would be baffled, we should n9 
 longer be impeded by the patriotic fear of giving a hold to male- 
 volence, in spite of us; we shall give ourselves up entirely to the 
 holy occupation you have committed to us, and we shall present 
 to you, with still more confidence and pleasure, the result of our 
 labors. The commission has, therefore, charged me to ask for a 
 general committee in order that it may submit for your discussion 
 several projects of law which tend to the salutary design of ame- 
 lioration. 
 
 These reflections have naturally brought us to examine if it 
 would not be advantageous to the public, that every important dis- 
 cussion on the finances were made in a general committee. In 
 suppressing this publicity, you would already weaken this vile 
 species of dilapidators of the public wealth, who could not exist 
 by their own strength^ if they were not supported and directed by 
 guilty chiefs who hide themselves in vain in the shadow of crime. 
 How many times have not these miserable swindlers waited for 
 the effect of a report on finances, in order to calculate upon this 
 basis their infamous speculations! How many times immense 
 products, torn from the fortune of the people, have they not en- 
 ''iched all that was most vile amongst men 7 The wretches! — 
 they dared to employ the words of the legislator as the text for 
 their plundering. They follow, they watch, often even endowed 
 
NOTES. 9 
 
 with the sinister gift of Cassandra, they foretel the financial 
 operations. 
 
 Representatives of the people, hasten to put an end to this pro- 
 fligacy of dilapidators and their enormities; your commission is 
 occupied with this object with great solicitude, and it considers 
 that it ought to propose to you, as a first expedient, no longer to 
 employ yourselves with the finances but in secret committee. This 
 measure was called for by the wish of the greater part of our col- 
 leagues; we thought that it came within our instructions, and we 
 hasten to propose it to you in the following decree : — 
 
 The council decrees, that it will form itself hereafter in a gene- 
 ral committee whenever the reporters of this commission, or of 
 the commission of finances, shall have the right of speaking. 
 
 Whatever may be your decision, representatives of the people, 
 I am charged to ask of you for Primedi a general committee, in 
 order to hear the different reports in the name of your commis- 
 sion. I announce to you that there is one of them ready, if you 
 desire at this moment to form a general committee. To the vote, 
 is demanded from all parts. The project of Bonaparte upon the 
 debate on finances is unanimously and immediately adopted. 
 
 (8) Sittting of the 22d Vendemiaire. year 7. 
 
 General Gmirdan, actual President, addresses the following 
 letter : — 
 
 Citizen representatives, called to the legislative body by the con- 
 fidence of my fellow citizens, I was not long in perceiving that I 
 was very incapable of fulfilling all the obligai.ons which I had 
 contracted in accepting functions-so august. However, encouraged 
 by your kindness, and the expressions of esteem with which you 
 have several times honored me, I should have continued my legis- 
 lative career — I should have endeavored to make up for the feeble- 
 ness of ray talents by my application and my ardent love of liberty ; 
 for the constitution of the year 3, and from the government which 
 has emanated from it. But, citizen representatives, the executive 
 directory has informed you of the political situation of the repub- 
 lic; you are impressed with the necessity of preparing to make 
 war, in order at length to force your enemies to make peace; you 
 have ordered an extraordinary levy of two hundred thousand con- 
 scripts, and you are occupied in preparing the funds requisite for 
 their maintenan^'e. 
 
 In circumstances where our country calls her children to its de- 
 fence, I have thought that I should serve it more usefully in the army 
 than in the senate. I resign then in the midst of you, legislators, the 
 character of representative of the people — I beg of you to accept my 
 resignation. 
 
 I desire. Citizen representatives, that this step on my part maybe 
 to you a. fresh proof of my sincere attachment to the republic, and 
 of my devotion to its service. Health and regard. 
 
 Signed, Jourdan. 
 
 lAicien Bonaparte. We are about to lose an estimable colleague. 
 Our first sentiment is regret ; but to these regrets will soon succeed 
 a more sublime sentiment : it is for the eamp that Jourdan quits the 
 tribune. The author of the law on military conscription should 
 give place to the General of Fleurus. Well !— let him depart sur- 
 
10 NOTES. 
 
 rounded by the esteem of his colleagues, and followed with the con- 
 lidence of the republic. 
 
 Enemies, insatiate at their defeats, would they reckon upon in- 
 testine divisions'? — the fools !— do they not know that at their ap- 
 pearance every shade of opinion disappears 1 With one word you 
 nave dissipated this miserable hope, and new armies with new re- 
 sources are cwrganized : — Irom your bosom departs one who will lead 
 to victory, and that not for the first time, the children of France. 
 Representatives of the people, whilst our brethren in arms shall run 
 over their list of combats, we will defend here the constitution of 
 the year 3, and we will cultivate the salutary union of those powers 
 which constitute the strength of states. Certain that I explain but 
 your sentiments, I venture at this moment to become your organ, 
 and to render in your nam^e a brilliant testimony of esteem and 
 confidence to the colleague who is about to leave us. 
 
 The council orders the impression of six copies of the letter and 
 the speech and their insertion in the process verbal. 
 
 (9l) Setting of the 9th Messidor, year 7. 
 
 Texier Olivier^ Secretary. Here is a second message from the 
 directory relative to the situation of the republic and the informa- 
 tion required. Perhaps you will decide to have it read in a secret 
 committee. 
 
 Several members supported this opinion. 
 
 JLiLcien Bonaparte. — This message either refers to diplomatic 
 subjects, or it is an answer to the information you have asked for. 
 In the first case I am for the formation of a committee ; in the sec- 
 ond I claim publicity. The people and the army expect a reply 
 relative to the condition and wants of the republic — both must be 
 made known to them. 
 
 I demand that the message be read in public. 
 
 A croiod of Members. Supported, — supported. 
 
 Portiez de Voisc. In the first message the directory announced 
 to you that a second would contain details which it would be im- 
 portant not to make public. 
 
 I demand the formation of a general committee. 
 
 It is required that the bureau take cognizance of the message. 
 
 Grandvialson. A wise and prudent intention has dictated the mo- 
 tion of our colleague Texier ; but the people have been led to the 
 brink of destruction. No doubt the mes'vage of the directory indi- 
 cates dangers, their causes, the source of the evil, and the remedy. 
 These objects require the greatest publicity. 
 
 Texier read the following message : — 
 Citizen Representatives — 
 
 The executive directory is about to render you an account of 
 the state in which it finds France. 
 
 The wounds of the republic are deep ; and great danger surrounds 
 it. — (at these words the speaker is interrupted by the renewed de- 
 mand for a general committee.) 
 
 Jourdan. — I demand that the reading be continued in public, 
 "our commission has its labors to present to you after the reading 
 of the message. You are going to ask of the people of France men 
 and money; the people must know what are its wants. 
 
 The secretary continues the reading of the me.ssage. 
 
 The directory, it is there said, cannot dissemble to you the dan- 
 gers which surround the republic, because from their imminent na- 
 
NOTES. 11 
 
 ture only will y.ou be able to obtain those resources which can save 
 it, those powerful measures which ought to secure its greatness, 
 and which even the efforts of our enemies, at the present day, at-' 
 lest the wonder which has struck them. 
 
 It is too true that a fatal system, than an unjust prepossession, has 
 removed from functions and places citizens the most capable of 
 maintaining the spirit of the nation up to the elevation of its des- 
 tinies, that almost every where the administrations are formed of 
 weak and careless men, or of the enemies of the republican regime, 
 and require to be entirely reorganized; public spirit, the support 
 or depression of which depends principally on the good or bad for- 
 mation of the constituted authorities, is deteriorated and corrupted : 
 an unhappy influence has produced alike a reaction ^ipon the tribu- 
 nals, and the temple of justice has too often become the unhallowed 
 asylum of robbers, covered with the blood of republicans. 
 
 It is too true, that ceasing to be impressed with the salutary ter- 
 ror of the laws, without which there is no government ; that em- 
 boldened by the weakness or collusion of the public functionaries 
 who ought to watch them, robbers that infest the interior of the re- 
 public have re-appeared with fresh boldness ; that at the signal 
 given by the assassins of Rastadt, they have raised again the bloody 
 banner of revolt. United at present in bands, they infest and desolate 
 several departments of the West and of the South; the purchasers 
 of the national wealth are attacked, as are also travellers, and pub- 
 lic carriages upon the high roads; the proceeds of the taxes are 
 plundered in the chests upon the roads, and citizens distinguisheil 
 for their attachment to the republic are massacred in their own 
 houses. And all these crimes are committed in the name of the 
 altar and the throne. A civil war is ready to be kindled up at 
 several points, to aid by its diversions and its plagues the external 
 war. 
 
 And a blind want of foresight has given time to our enemies to 
 embolden themselves by a new coalition, which has enabled this 
 impious coalition to recruit itself from all the parts with fresh 
 hordes, and has left our triumphant armies to be dissolved even on 
 the field of victory. Whilst they were left to be amused with hopes 
 at Rastadt, they neglected the only means of securing peace, that 
 by being actively prepared for war — which they should have fore- 
 seen, and which we must carry on. 
 
 We will maintain this odious war, and the incoherent assemblage 
 of our actual enemies shall meet the fate of the first coalition. 
 
 But to the extraordinary eflforts of our enemies we must hasten to 
 oppose the all-powerful efforts of the friends of liberty. 
 
 Citizen representatives, our frontiers are menaced ; we must de- 
 fend them; we must secure the subsistence of armies exposed for 
 too long a time ; we must arm new battalions ; we must restore the 
 means of offensive operations to our brave legions, and make our 
 enemies respect even the soil of our allies. 
 
 We must encourage the interior by the organization of an im- 
 posing force, and terminate this war of assassinations, which stains 
 the land of liberty with the blood of the friends of the republic. 
 The insufficiency and inadequacy of the coming in of the taxes, is 
 felt in the most painful manner, throwing every department of the 
 public service into a state of disorganization, the disastrous results 
 of which are incalculable, and however imperious the circum- 
 
12 NOTES. 
 
 Stances in which we find ourselves placed may demand extraordina- 
 ry supplies, you already feel the necessity for them. 
 
 In fact, representatives of the people, the directory ought to say 
 to you, to the nation at large, that the political body is menaced 
 with a total dissolution, if you do not hasten to re-temper all the 
 springs of its organization and of its movement. 
 
 Our evils are great, no doubt, but our resources are those of a 
 generous people, whose misfortunes augment in strength, and 
 whose reverses only fortify their courage — a people worthy of lib- 
 erty; and who are never more powerful, more terrible to their 
 enemies, than when they dare to flatter themselves that they have 
 conquered. 
 
 Our misfo''tunes originate principally from the bad use or the 
 abandonment of our means. 
 
 The means of the French republic are always thesame, they are 
 those with which it has hitherto conquered the most numerous ene- 
 mies. The first of all these means, the most powerful, that which 
 gives a value to others, is the energy of the people, their devotion 
 to the sacred cause of liberty, to that cause for which they have 
 made so many sacrifices. 
 
 At your voice, representatives of the people, at that of the direc- 
 tory, which has with you but the same mind, the same soul, Eu- 
 rope will see this energy exhibit itself more terrible, more heroic 
 than ever. The coalition with which we have to contend, is the 
 last effort of our combined enemies. They shall be the last; the 
 efl^orts which the republic is going to put forth to throw down this 
 menacing coalition will force the powers which compose it to sub- 
 mit to the laws of justice and peace. 
 
 The directory adds to this message, citizen representatives, the 
 reports of the ministers on the different subjects to which your at- 
 tention has been called. You will there find the detail of the facts 
 of which it presents to you the results ; you will there see the wants 
 of the republic, and some indications of the means by which they 
 may be attained. 
 
 The council orders the impression of twelve copies. 
 
 (10) Sitting of the 9th Messidor, year 7. 
 
 First project of the decree. 
 
 The council of five hundred charges its commission "named toin- 
 sure the service of the years 7 and 8, to present tridi next a project 
 of resolution on the means of realizing a loan of one hundred mil- 
 lions, and to insure the re-payment of it. 
 
 Second project of the decree. 
 
 The council of five hundred charges its military commission to 
 present to it dnodi next, a report on the organization of the battal- 
 ions and companies whose formation is ordered by the resolution 
 of this day. 
 
 The projects of resolution and of decrees are adopted. 
 
 The council adopts unanimously the project presented, and 
 hears immediately the second reading of it. 
 
 It charges it special commissioners to present to it Primedi the 
 means for carrying into effect this project. 
 
 (11) Sitting of the 9th Messidor, year 7. 
 
 Francais De Nantes. — Your commission has charged me to lay 
 before you the following project of an address to the French na- 
 tion :— 
 
; NOTES. 13 
 
 The legislative body to the French nation — 
 Frenchmen — A system, followed by the majority of the execu- 
 tive directory, sad and deplorable fruit of the want of foresight, of 
 error, of ignorance, which the treason of several agents, and which 
 the corruption of a great number of others, would have made still 
 worse, compromised the safety of the republic within and without; 
 the existence of the purest republicans, and the sacred principles of 
 the revolution. 
 
 In this great danger of the state, without considering that of our 
 personal situation, placed in the first degree of the political order, 
 stipulating for the interest of the greatest people in the world, and 
 those of the allied republics; in the emotions with which such 
 great objects struck us on all sides, we thought only of the great 
 and sublime cause which your confidence has charged us to defend, 
 and we swear to you, by our address of the 22d Praireal last, to 
 save you or to perish. We have kept our oath to you. The events 
 of the 28th, 29th and SOth Praireal last are known to you. The 
 French people and the legislative body have triumphed with the 
 constitution without occasioning any shock. - 
 
 A new directory filled with. this patriotic couragc^which was al- 
 ways the presage of victory, has issued from this political crisis. — 
 The reins of government are in firm republican hands — rely with 
 confidence on the first authorities. They will always respect the 
 constitution which you have given to yourselves. 
 
 Frenchmen ! — your frontiers are menanced with a neighboring 
 invasion — men, money and arms ; this is what is required — this is 
 indispensable to your safety. 
 
 It is to you, republicans that we address ourselves ! When you 
 were compressed by an absurd and tyranical regime, by which the 
 shoots of the purest republicanism were treated as anarchical con- 
 spiracy, you feared to give yourselves up to your zeal ; but when 
 we swore fidelity to you, it is for you to swear to us the victory. Go 
 and reinforce our armies which wait for you, and associate your- 
 selves with their immortal renown. 
 
 Sing the hymns of liberty from you battalions in accordance witn 
 the law, and let a happy movement, directed upon our frontiers, 
 destroy this impious coalition, and avenge the blood of our pleni- 
 potentiaries. 
 
 Employ with zeal and wisdom the right which the constitution 
 assures to j'^ou, to unite youselves. Be on your guard against stran- 
 gers, who would endeavor to carry you beyond jthe line of the 
 laws, and the respect due to public authority. Do not suffer your 
 constitutional charter to be outraged or violated ; it is our safe- 
 guard and our rallyingpoint. Invigorate our republican institutions; 
 they give force and grandeur to the state ; they disengage minds 
 by little and little from the hideous swaddling clothes of supersti- 
 tion, elevate them to those liberal principles which redouble ener- 
 gy, and re-animate courage; they are most guilty who insult these 
 peaceable societies, who profess the most pure morality, and scat- 
 ter forth the most happy seeds of a fraternal reconciliation and of' 
 a universal benevolence. 
 
 Wo to those who would conspire against the state, who would 
 urge the citizens to a rebellion, to the violation of the laws by what- 
 ever means they are able ! Wo to those who practic<? re-actions — 
 no more revenge, no mt)re terror, no more arbitrary regime, no 
 3 
 
14 NOTES. 
 
 more tyranny — liberty and the constitution, this is our duty to 
 all. 
 
 Republicans, we fulfil ours with zeal and firmness ; it is for your 
 courage to ensure the triumph of the republic without, and the 
 reign of a wise liberty within. 
 
 The council adopts the digest. 
 
 Lucien Bonaparte. — I demand that the council make a resolution 
 to send the message of the directory and this address to all the de- 
 partments and to the army. 
 
 It is right that they should know the truth, and the causes of 
 their reverses — that they should know that they have not ceased to 
 conquer for a moment, but from the most profound folly or the 
 blackest treason, which left them to fail of the most necessary ob- 
 jects, because they had not at their head generals to whom multi- 
 plied victories had created a right to the confidence of the soldier. 
 It is essential to the army that this state of things exist no longer ; 
 that the authorities march together in concert with redoubled 
 zeal; that the nation responds to this appeal, and that victory will 
 then be always certain under the colors of the republic. 
 
 The proposition of Lucien Bonaparte is adopted. 
 
 (12) Sitting of the 24th Messidor, year 7. 
 
 Montellier then presents himself to the tribune to make the re- 
 port upon the measures necessary to reach the dilapidators of the 
 public wealth, and the means whereby conspirators may be seized, 
 their abettors and accomplices. 
 
 It ^ives an account at first of the deep impression which the reso- 
 lution of the 30th Praireal has made upon the people. It was the 
 result of opinion, that immortal power which is sometimes quenched, 
 but which strikes always in a bold manner. It abandoned by little 
 and little the iriumvers, and delivered them up alone and without 
 defence to the movement which has overthrown them ; but it is of 
 consequence that the results of these movements be prompt, were 
 it only to keep off" those political oscillations and stragglings always 
 dangerous. The commission hastens, therefore, to submit its de- 
 terminations. The reporter makes here the analysis of the peti- 
 tions which have been referred to the commission. Grave impu- 
 tations result from them, if they are well founded, against the ex- 
 members of the directory, Rewbell, Merlin, Treilhard, Reveilliere, 
 Scherer, who are there designated as the authors or accomplices 
 of a conspiracy which has brought the republic to the brink of de- 
 struction. 
 
 They are denounced — 1st. As the authors and accomplices of a 
 conspiracy which has placed the republic in the greatest danger. 
 
 2d. As having transported to the deserts of Arabia forty thou- 
 sand men forming the elite of our armies, the General Bonaparte, 
 and with him the flower of our Savans, and our men of letters, and 
 our artists. 
 
 3d. As having pillaged the arsenals and sold at a low price arms 
 and military stores. 
 
 4th. As having, by force of arms, overturned the Cisalpine con- 
 stitution, which had been guaranteed by the legislative body. 
 
 5th. As guilty of an outrage against the sovereignty of the peo- 
 ple in endeavoring to influence the elections by intrigue, menaces 
 and force ; and in leaving unpunished the directorial commissioners 
 denounced by tha legislative body, ani especially that of the Sarthe, 
 
NOTES. 15 
 
 After having signalized the guilty, the commission has sought 
 the means of reaching them through the constitutional dis^positions. 
 The chain of proof may require the accusationof individuals, with 
 respect to whom there exists a particular legislation, but a special 
 commission being charged to examine the law of the 10th Vende- 
 miaire, year 4, it will not be a -question in this report, it will only 
 present to the council the following question to be resolved: The 
 article 3 of the constitution which does not deliver up legislators 
 to the ordinary tribunals until thirty days after their functions have 
 ceased, ought it to be limited to them alone, or applied to the ex- 
 members of the directory 1 As for the rest, it is acknowledged by 
 a legislative enactment, in the affair of Baboeuf, that when an ac- 
 cused is juslic'able to a particular tribunal, he takes with him his 
 co-accused — thus there is less difhculiy. We must again examine 
 if the addresses may be considered as denunciations against a 
 member of the legislative body, which according to the terms of 
 the 116th article of the constitution, should be written and signed. 
 The commission has thought that the affirmative could not make 
 any difficulty, since the addresses are written and signed individual- 
 ly. From that time its attributions have ceased; there has only re- 
 mained to propose to the council to form itself in a general com- 
 mittee to examine if the denunciation made against one of its mem- 
 bers shall be rejected or admitted. 
 
 Representatives of the people, continues the reporter, in conclu- 
 sion, opinion has been struck by the revolution of the 30th Praire- 
 al ; patriotism has exalted herself at the voice of the legislative 
 body ; let it not wander without a guide, — let the directory speak — 
 let it act, that it may declare its character. In political crises, iti« 
 towards those who have authority in their hands that all eyes ars 
 turned; it is for them to respond to the general expectation, t» 
 choose well their co-operators, for the public safety is especially 
 in the'r hands; to grasp, in fact, the helm with a firm hand, ani 
 to march boldly. You, representatives, will not leave them iso- 
 lated. 
 
 Men whose conceptions embrace all the aspects of our situation, 
 must mature, put in motion, and dispose in order, all those legisla- 
 tive measures which circumstances may render necessary, that 
 patriotism may have a focus, as well as royalism a centre, and 
 then we shall be conquerors as soon as we show ourselves. 
 
 The commission announces that it will forthwith present mea- 
 sures in order to reach the dilapidators, and proposes to the coun- 
 cil to form itself into a committee to deliberate upon the denunci- 
 ations which have been presented to it. 
 
 This proposition is adopted, and the committee is immediately 
 formed. 
 
 (13) In the centre of the hall of the sittings of the council of five 
 hundred, facing the tribune, there was a column supporting the 
 book of the constitution of the year 3. This book in marble, was 
 surrounded by garlands of oak and laurel. 
 
 (14) Speech delivered by the citizen Sieves, president of the ex- 
 ecuiive directory, at the Champ de Mars, the 10th Thermidor. 
 
 We celebrate to-day the fete of liberty. All that has been ima- 
 gined and executed for it, ousht at this moment to be recalled to our 
 remembrance ; the precursory labors of philosophy which struggled 
 with so much constancy against a multitude of prejudices j the 
 
16 NOTES. 
 
 more immediate labors of some citizens before even they had a 
 country, who, towards the epoch of 1789, awakened in the hearts 
 of Frenchmen the sentiment, almost extinguished, of the rights of 
 the nation ; the genero/iis efforts, the creative conceptions of this first 
 national assembly whose errors cannot obliterate their important 
 services, and by which has been insured for ever the wrath of all 
 the enemies of the revolution ; the ardent energy, so prolific in 
 successive assemblies which profitmg by the impulsion given of a 
 new civic force; the faults, virtues, misfortunes, lights, founded at 
 length the republican constitution, where French liberties have 
 taken refuge. The devotion was the more meritorious, as it was 
 the most obscure of the great number of good citizens who were 
 always ready at the call of their country, and who have constantly 
 made for it the greatest sacrifices, without considering themselves 
 entitled to occupy the public with it, and more especially to menace 
 it with their civism. This glory without a cloud of the French 
 armies, which, always great, always indefatigable, have extorted 
 admiration, even in their reverses, from all the powers of Europe: 
 so many deeds, so many prodigies, so many events unheard of un- 
 til these latter times, will live eternally in the memory of mankind. 
 The victory gained over a long and bloody tyranny will also live — 
 the downfall of which we this day more particularly call to mind, 
 I will not re-produce here an afflicting picture, traced so often with 
 intentions to opposite. After six years it still oppresses the soul 
 and distracts the thoughts. What a lesson I — men without genius, 
 but not without boldness, drew from the name of liberty, which 
 they profaned, an incomprehensible force, a monstrous power of 
 which there has been no example, and which I swear by the re- 
 public shall never return. 
 
 Always jealous, always cruel, they could only see in the talents, 
 generous virtues, and ail the natural affections, but crimes worthy 
 of death. Not less stupid than ferocious, they created obstacles, 
 destroyed means, provoked at length resistance, and punished 
 France with their incapacity to govern. Formidable, especially, 
 to the tried friends of liberty, they caused to perish under the iron 
 of the executioner, or to sink under their own misfortunes, m.any 
 republicans so pure, so enlightened, so magnanimous, whose irre- 
 parable loss we still weep over, and whose country ought ever to 
 mourn for. They were thus the scourges, the unfeeling devasta- 
 tors of the republic of which they dared to proclaim themselves the 
 sai^ours. 
 
 These tyrants were overthrown the 9th Thermidor. Honor 
 them to this memorable day. No Frenchman can abjure it with- 
 out shame. Honor to the national convention, which breaking at 
 once its chains, revived liberty for all ! — Honor to the epoch, 
 when that numerous portion of our fellow-citizens was at length 
 disabused, upon whom they had spread the darkness of error and 
 ignorance, and who by an effect, even of the natural love of jus- 
 tice and liberty, could not bring themselves to believe that in the 
 name of these virtues, Frenchmen were become assassins and ty- 
 rants. But as an indellible disgrace to these men, who cruelly 
 abusing a victory sufficiently unnatural, they hasten to persecute 
 those even, who, at the peril of their lives, had restored life and 
 liberty. Ignominy upon those cowardly persecutors, who, by the 
 aid of some words exchanged in the terrible vocabulary of calum- 
 
NOTES. 17 
 
 ny, substituted with a facility so dreadful, a new tyranny upon the 
 one which had just been cast down. There are then men whom 
 no law will touch, no favor soften, no indulgence disarm — men, 
 who hardly raised from the oppression under which ihey groaned, 
 hasten to arm their tongues with calumny, and their hands wiih a 
 poniard, against those whom they invoked but the other day as 
 liberators ! May this unhappy reflection apply but to times which 
 are gone by ! 
 
 Thus we have seen tarnished the lustre of the brightest days of 
 the revolution, and the friends of liberty have been constantly 
 bruised between contending factions. 
 
 Citizens, these calamitous times will not occur again. Your re- 
 presentatives, your magistrates, ought to secure you from it ; they 
 will know how to prevent, until there is a necessity, those crises 
 which shake always that which they repair. Cur situation pre- 
 sents difficulties no doubt, but many are pleased to exaggerate un- 
 reasonably. In this respect the hopes of hatred, and the miserable 
 calculations of fear, will be disappointed : for our strength is supe- 
 rior to our dangers. Our transient reverses are a delay, but not a 
 defeat. Our armies have been able to preserve intact the sacred 
 territory of the republic ; they are re-inforced at this moment w-ith 
 bright and valorous youth, the fresh hope of their country. 
 
 Go, young conscripts, and rejoin your predecessors in the career 
 of glory; here we will watch over your families. Let no fear as 
 to the objects of your affections hinder the flight of your courage. 
 "We abhor, as much as you, every thing that is contrary to good 
 order and to the tranquillity of the citizen. 
 
 No more illegal vengeance, but the firm and calm action of the 
 law, — no more re-actions whatever ; the government exists for jus- 
 tice, as you do for victory ! It knows its duty — it desires to fulfil 
 it. When triumphing over the enemies of our country you shall 
 return again to your hearths, you will there experience, with the 
 national gratitude and the liberties you will have preserved, repose, 
 security, the guarantee of your property; in a word, all the benefits 
 which have been promised to you, and which we know ho\v to 
 insure to you. 
 
 Long live the Repiiblic ! 
 
 (15) Silting of the 24th Messidor, year 7. 
 
 Latv of Hostages. 
 
 Article the 1st. When a department, canton or commune, is 
 notoriously in a disturbed state, the executive directory proposes to 
 the legislative body to declare it comprised in the followang dis- 
 positions : — 
 
 2d, The relations of emigrants, their connections, and the hereto- 
 fore nobles comprised in the laws of the 3d Brumaire, year 4, and 
 9th Frimaire, year 6 : the grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, and 
 mothers of individuals, who being neither ex-nobles nor relations 
 of emigrants, are, nevertheless, notoriously known as making part 
 of the assemblages or bands of assassins, are personally and civilly 
 responsible for the assassinations andplunderings committed in the 
 interior in hatred to the republic, in the departments, cantons or 
 communes declared to be in a disturbed state. 
 
 3d. Immediately after the publication of the law rendered in ex- 
 ecution of the first article, the central administrations shall take 
 hostages in the classes aforesaid designated, in the communes, 
 R 
 
18 NOTES. 
 
 cantons and departments declared to be in a state of disturbance ; 
 nevertheless, in the event of imminent disturbances, although the 
 department, canton or commune should not yet be declared by the 
 law to be in a disturbed state, the same administrations are provision- 
 ally authorized to take hostages, they will inform the executive di- 
 rectory of it within twenty-four hours. 
 
 4th. Hostages shall be established at their own expense, in the 
 same place in a commune of the department, under the inspection 
 ot the central and municipal administrations, and of commissioners 
 of the executive directory near these same administrations. 
 
 5th. Hostages, who in the ten days of the advertisement which 
 shall be notified to them by a gend'arme, do not repair to the place 
 indicated by the administrations, shall be taken there by an armed 
 force ; those who make their escape shall be personally assimilated 
 to the emigrants, considered and treated as such. 
 
 6th, The aforesaid dispositions are excepted, the former nobles 
 and relations of emigrants who have constantly filled public func- 
 tions by the nomination of the people, or who are in the exceptions 
 foreseen in the laws of the 3d Brumairc, year 4, and 9lh Frimaire, 
 year 6. 
 
 7th. The central administrations shall draw up in the month of 
 the publication of the law which shall appoint the communes, can- 
 tons, or departments, in which the present law shall be applicable, 
 in conformity with the first article, a list of all the individuals 
 subject to the personal and civil guarantee consecrated by ihe 
 second article. 
 
 8th. The central administrations will include in this list all the 
 individuals deiiominated by the second article, domiciliated in 
 their respective arrondissements at the epoch of the Isl of Septem- 
 ber, 1791. 
 
 9th. Ifa citizen be assassinated, having been since the revolu- 
 tion, or being actually a public functionary, or a defender of his 
 country, or a purchaser or possessor of national domains, the 
 directory, after having consulted the central administrators, is 
 charged to transport out of the territory of the republic, within two 
 decades from the assassination, four of the individuals designated 
 by the second article for each person assassinated ; taken, in the 
 first place, from amongst the noble relations of emigrants ; second- 
 ly, from among the heretofore nobles ; and successively from 
 among the relations of individuals forming a part of the meetings. 
 
 The carrying off forcibly of the citizens above designated, of 
 their fathers, mothers, wives, or of their children, will occasion the 
 same penalty of transportation, and besides to the fines and indem- 
 nities hereafter fixed, if they are not set at liberty within twenty- 
 four hours from the carrying off. ' 
 
 In all cases of the carrying off of one of the persons above de- 
 nominated, the securities shall be subject to a fine of six thousand 
 franks, without, nevertheless, derogating from the penalties pre- 
 scribed by the code of crimes and pains against the authors of the 
 crime. 
 
 10th. The pain of transportation against hostages shall not take 
 place when one of them shall have formerly denounced and pro- 
 cured the arrest of individuals who shall be afterwards declared 
 guilty of crime. 
 
 11th. Sequestration shall be put upon the goods of hostages 
 
NOTES. 19 
 
 transported, and shall continue until the accomplishment of the 
 condemnations pronounced against them, and until the representa- 
 tion of a legal certificate verifying that they submit to their trans- 
 portation. 
 
 r2th. The infraction of the transportation shall be assimilated to 
 emigration, for the personal effects only of the transported. 
 
 13th. Independently of the pain of transportation pronounced by 
 the tenth article aforesaid, individuals denominated in the second 
 article shall be respectively in each department civilly and pri- 
 vately responsible in a fine of five thousand franks for each indi- 
 vidual denominated in the ninth article, whether assassinated 
 alone, or in an action, or in any other manner whatever. 
 
 14ih. The fine of five thousand franks shall be paid within fif- 
 teen days, at the utmost, from the assassination or the carrying off", 
 and shall be placed in the treasury of the receiver-general on sim- 
 ple decrees of the central administrations, which shall pronounce, 
 on the remittance of the process verbal, written down either by the 
 municipal agents or the commissioners of police, or by the justice 
 of the peace, or by the commanders of the armed force. 
 
 15th. Besides the fine of five thousand franks placed in tlie pub- 
 lic treasury, the said individuals expres-sed in the second article 
 shall be civilly and privately guarantees, and responsible for an 
 indemnity which shall not be less than the sum of six thousand 
 franks in favor c'^the widow, and of three thousand franks for each 
 of the children of tI^ person assassinated. 
 
 16th. Citizens of tne quality designated in the ninth article who, 
 mutilated, shall survive their wounds, shall be entitled to an in- 
 demnity not less than six thousand franks. 
 
 17th. Citizens who shall be in execution of a particular mi.ssion 
 given to them b)'^ a civil authority, or by a military order, devoteil 
 to the search of returned emigrants, of transported priests, or sub- 
 ject to transportation of assassins, or wh-o may be assassinated or 
 mutilated in the course or at the termination of this mission, or 
 military order, shall be entitled, they, their wives, and their child- 
 ren, to the same indemnities as above. 
 
 18th. The indemnittes aforesaid shall be acquitted within ten 
 days after the degree of the central administration. 
 
 19th. Individuals comprised in the second article are equally, in 
 each department, civilly and wholly responsible, as well towards 
 the republic as towards private persons, for the abductions, gather- 
 ings, exactions of farm-rents, spoliations of public moneys, as 
 also of burnings, degradations, and pillagings committed upon 
 properties. • 
 
 20th. The indemnities resulting from crimes comprised in the 
 preceding article shall be regulated by a decree of the central ad- 
 ministrations in the said days which shall follow the crime, and be 
 acquitted within the ten days following ; they shall be equivalent 
 to the things pillaged, burnt, or destroyed. The securities shall 
 besides be held liable to a penalty to the public treasury equal to 
 tke value of the said things. 
 
 21st. Thtt indemnities due to the nation on account of the carry- 
 ing off of the public moneys, of burning-s, degradations, or pilhiging 
 of the national properties, shall be paid into the respective treasu- 
 ries which refer to the things pillaged or destroyed. 
 
 22d. The central administration^i ^hall reg^ulate the indemnities 
 
20 NOTES. ] 
 
 and fines after the examination of the process verbal digested by the 
 municipal agents or commissioners of police, or judges of the peace, 
 or commanding the armed force according lo the informations they 
 will think proper to take. 
 
 23d. The municipal agents, or commissioners of police, justices 
 of the peace, and commanders of the armed force, shall be bound 
 to draw up their process verbal, and within three days from the 
 commission of the crime ; but when the crime shall have been 
 committed in the commune, where the municipal agent or commis- 
 sioner of police, commander of the armed force and justice of the 
 peace, reside, the process verbal shall be written down conjointly 
 Dy the first, and separately by the justice of the peace: it must be 
 addressed to the central adn-inistration the fourth day after the 
 commission of the crime. 
 
 24th. The municipal agents or commissioners of police, judges 
 of the peace, and commanders of the armed force, who shall not 
 write down or send their process verbal in the periods fixed by the 
 preceding article, shall individually incur a penalty of three hun- 
 dred franks each. 
 
 25:h. The penalties named in articles thirteen, twenty, and 
 twenty-fourth, shall be placed in the treasury of the receiver-gene- 
 ral of the department, who will open a particular account for this 
 purpose, which is to be specially applied to citizens aiding in 
 arresting an emigrant, or a priest returned from transportation, or 
 subject to transportation, or an individual forming a part of the 
 bands of assassins marked upon the list. 
 
 26th. The rewards mentioned in the preceding article are fixed; 
 that is to say, for an emigrant or a priest returned from, or subject 
 to transportation, or a chief of assassins, the sum of from three 
 hundred to two thousand four hundred franks; and for other indi- 
 viduals making part of the bands of assassins, from two hundred to 
 six hundred franks. These rewards shall be regulated by the cen- 
 tral administrations. 
 
 27th. The gend'armes and national guards, sedentary or actively 
 employedfagainst the bands of assassins, shall be entitled to the 
 same rewards. 
 
 28th. The rewards shall be paid by the receiver-general of the 
 departments by drafts upon the central administrations, from the 
 funds arising from the penalties named and paid in by virtue of the 
 present law. 
 
 29th. The rewards granted to the gend'armes and national 
 guards, sedentary or in activity, shall be equally distributed amongst 
 the soldiers who shall have aided in the arrest of individuals desig- 
 nated #n the twenty-sixth article aforesaid. 
 
 30rh. In default of funds in the treasury of the receiver-general 
 of the department accruing from penalties, individuals named in 
 the second article shall be bound to pay in to the treasury of the 
 said receiver the whole amount of the rewards accorded, within 
 ten days from the decree of the receiver-general. 
 
 31st. In default of the individuals called upon to pay, of placing' 
 in the above mentioned periods the penalties, indemnities and re- 
 wards here abov^e mentioned, they will be condemned by the civil 
 tribunal of the department by process from the commission of the 
 executive directory to the same tribunal. The central administra« 
 tions will, therefore, be bound to address to the same commissioner 
 
NOTES. 21 
 
 a copy of the decree bearing the fixed rates of the said penalties, 
 indeinniiies or rewards, with a statement of the property of indivi- 
 duals called upon for payment, to put under sequestration the goods 
 of these mdividuals, until the condemnations are accomplished, un- 
 der pain of one thousand franks penalty against each of the mem- 
 bers of the said administration. 
 
 32d. The commissioner of the executive directory near the tri- 
 bunal shall be bound, under pain of one thousand franks penalty, to 
 furnish his suit to the civil tribunal within three days from the re- 
 ceipt of the decree of the central administration ; and within three 
 days following the tribunal shall be equally bound, under pain of 
 one thousand franks penalty ag^ainst each of its members, to pro- 
 nounce upon the simple view of the said decree. 
 
 33d. The penalties aforesaid shall have the same destinatioe as 
 that mentioned in the twenty-fifth article aforesaid. 
 
 34th. If within three days after the notification of the judgment 
 given by the civil tribunal, the individual or individuals condemn- 
 ed do not pay into the treasury of the receiver-general the amount 
 of the said penalties, indemnities or rewards, and expenses relating 
 thereto, they will be compelled by distress and the sale of their 
 goods, and by means of bonds in the forms prescribed. 
 
 35th. The judgments given by the civil tribunals shall be exe- 
 cuted, notwithstanding an appeal. 
 
 36th. The central administrations, on the advice of the munici- 
 pal administrations, shall prepare in the month of the publication of 
 the law which shall designate the communes, cantons or depart- 
 ments, where the present law shall be applicable, a list of all the 
 individuals notorious as forming a part of the bands of assassins. 
 
 37th. The individuals forming a part of the said assemblages or 
 bands of assassins known, and who prove to be of the class of arti- 
 sans, workmen or cultivators, shall be admitted within fifteen days 
 from the publication of the law indicating the departments, cantons 
 or communes in which the present law shall be executed, tc return 
 freely to their homes without molestation, on condition that the said 
 individuals present themselves within the said period to the central 
 administration, and there deposite a good single barrelled musket, 
 or a good double barrelled one. The central administrations are 
 authorized to erase definitively those individuals who shall deposite 
 arms within the said period, from the list prepared in exceution of 
 the preceding article. 
 
 38th. The chiefs already pardoned shall not enjoy the faculty 
 granted bv *he preceding article, whatever may have been their 
 rank; nor the heretofore privileged, though without rank, pardon- 
 ed or not ; nor the emigrants, nor the transported priests returned, 
 or subject to transportation", the law concerning these last remain- 
 ing in all its force. 
 
 39th. All the individuals placed upon the list prepared in virtue 
 of the thirty-sixth article, who will not take the benefit of the thirty- 
 seventh article in the period prescribed, are personally assimmila- 
 ted to the emigrants, considered and treated as such ; they shall, 
 therefore, be brought before a military commission, and be con- 
 demned to death, whether they shall have been taken armed or not. 
 
 40th. The grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers aud mothers, 
 placed upon the list prepared in execution of the thiity-sixth arti- 
 cle, and who shall not profit by the advantages of the thirty-seventh 
 
22 NOTES. 
 
 article aforesaid, are personally assimilated to the ancestors of emi- 
 grants, and submit to the same indemniiy in the forms and in the 
 periods prescribed for the latter without taking a valuation of the 
 minimu»m of property. 
 
 41st. Individuals who shall be convicted of having knowingly 
 given asylum to assassins, shall be subjected to the civil aud per- 
 sonal security mentioned in the second article. 
 
 42d. The lists prepared in execution of the articles seven and 
 thirty-six, shall be printed and published in all the communes of 
 the respective depaitments within the four decades following the 
 publica'iion of the law indicating the communes, cantons or de- 
 partments, where the present law shall receive its application. The 
 said lists shall besides be addressed within the said period to the 
 minister of general police. 
 
 43d. By means of the dispositions aforesaid, the law of the 10th 
 Vendemaiaire, year 4, shall cease to have Its application, only as 
 to the responsibility established upon the communes, to note the 
 publication of the law which shall declare the present decree to be 
 executed in a department, canton or commune. The laws aiming 
 at the prevention or punishment of crimes, will continue to be ex- 
 ecuted in whatever is not contrary to the present. 
 
 44th. When a department, canton or commune, is declared in a 
 state of disturbance, the effect of this declaration ceases only by a 
 law. 
 
 45th. The present law shall not receive its execution until the 
 general peace ; it shall be proclaimed and published in all the com- 
 munes of the republic. 
 
 (16) The legislative'body to the French nation : 
 
 Frenchmen — It is upon your dearest interests — it is upon the in- 
 valuable benefits of internal tranquillity — it is upon the means of 
 recalling it and establishing it among you, that your representatives 
 feel the need of addressing you at this time. Frenchmen — dread- 
 ful civil dissensions seem already to revive in some departments of 
 the West and of the South, threatening to extend their ravages up- 
 on other points of the republic. 
 
 To arrest their progress, legislators must take severe but neces- 
 sary measures against men which a long and unhappy experience 
 has but too greatly signalized as the plotters of our discords. 
 
 But the restraints of the law must not be left alone to the voice of 
 reason. 
 
 It is to you especially that we address ourselves, plain men whom 
 malevolent persons too often seize upon in order to make you serve 
 as instruments to their views, subversive of order as established by 
 the constitution and the laws. 
 
 Perfidious men ! — they pretend to pity you ; they would not in- 
 cense you ; they recount to you without ceasing the evils of the re- 
 volution ; they do not tell you that by their opposition they were the 
 first promoters of it. 
 
 In speaking- of your interests, they are only mindful of their own, 
 and would seize again their ancient usurpations. 
 
 What ! — would it then be for the re-establishment of tithes, of sta- 
 tute labor, of feudality, that they would endeavor to arm French- 
 men against Frenchmen 1 
 
 Good and honest inhabitants of the provinces, how can you re- 
 gret such a regime, and to recall it would be madness ! 
 
Notes. 28 
 
 Citizens of all ranks, inhabitants of cities''and of villages, have 
 you forgotten what your political regeneration had in it that was 
 touching and sublime in the first periods of the revolution? 
 
 No ; such recollections can never be effaced, and you will not 
 again embrace the chains that you have broken with indignation ; 
 you would not submit with impunity ; you who at some epoch or 
 other had served the revolution, royal vengeances would know well 
 how to reach you. 
 
 And you, insensible men, who saw the revolution without enthu- 
 siasm; but without hatred, do you think that- you would not be re- 
 proached for your simple indifference by your insolent conquerors 1 
 
 Your interest towards all is to remove from the soil of France 
 this torrent of misfortunes which would overwhelm it, if the crimi- 
 nal hopes of some could be realized. 
 
 Let, therefore, civil dissensions cease, and leave our only cares 
 to repel the external enemy. 
 
 Citizens, in the midst of a dreadful war which perhaps ought not 
 so long to have existed, and at the end of a disastrous administra- 
 tion, you suffer, no doubt; your representatives sigh over it; they 
 will labor without intermission to prevent the recurrence of evils 
 which accompanied several epochs of ihe revolution. 
 
 They will know how to receive in concert with the regenerated 
 executive directory, when it shall be presented, a peace worthy of 
 the French nation and its allies. 
 
 But this peace — the object of our vows and yours — this peace, 
 which ought to draw again upon the territory of France abundance 
 and prosperity do not compromise it or remove it by civil discords, 
 and if there remain sacrifices to make, let theDO^ be for your coun- 
 try, and not to destroy one another. 
 
 What ! shall the blood of Frenchmen flow for that of any other 
 cause but that of liberty] 
 
 And are there men mad enough to hope for happiness in the end 
 from a civil warl 
 
 Carcasses heaped up, fields devastated, houses burnt, and would 
 there not then be other objects of terror'? 
 
 ^ Far be from us the thought that such a course of moral degrada- 
 tion should be admitted in the general system. 
 
 However bands of royal assassins show themselves in different 
 departments and attack republicans; these germs of a new civil war 
 cannot come to the knowledge of your representatives without their 
 seeking, at the same time, the means of putting them down, by of- 
 fering to republicans a guarantee against their enemies — this is 
 what they are about to do. Patriots, preserve or resume an ener- 
 getic and firm attitude, the legislative body and the directory have 
 determined to make the republic triumphant. 
 
 And you who were the blind instruments for the assassination of 
 republicans — you artisans and husbandmen whom they reckon 
 amongst the bands of assassins, return to your workshops and your 
 ploughs ; lay down the arms you wish to turn against your country ; 
 your peaceful retreats call you home ; your productive fields should 
 not be converted into fields of blood. You, in fine, ex-nobles, rela- 
 tions of emigrants, and ancestors of rebels— you who had so great 
 an influence over the misfortunes of your country — you who could 
 ninder crime, and who counsel it so often, consider that 5'^ou are to- 
 day responsible for the tranquillity of the interior. Strive then to 
 
24 NOTES. 
 
 maintain it; for it is at this price alone that you will be one day ad- 
 mitted to all the rights with the other children of the great family. 
 Let the departments infested with Choreanism return to order, if 
 they wish to partake of the common rights ; let the departments 
 which are strangers to civ^il troubles, continue to merit an honora- 
 ble exception ; let, in a word, internal peace be established on a so- 
 lid basis, and soon without, we shall resume the attitude of victory. 
 (17) Speech delivered by the citizen Sieyes, president of the ex- 
 ecutive directory, at the celebration of the 10th of August: 
 
 I salute you in the name of all Frenchmen, day of justice and of 
 glory, which the destinies of France had at length fixed to settle the 
 national independence upon the downfall of the throne. On the 
 tenth of August royalty was overthrown in France — it shall never 
 rise again. ,. Citizens, such is the oath which you have engraven 
 upon the walls ©f this palace, at the moment even when you drove 
 from it the last of our tyrants. Thus disappeared this long succes- 
 sion of despots, whose yoke had become unsupportable, who called 
 themselves the delegates of heaven, in order to oppress with more 
 security the earth, which in France they beheld as their patrimony 
 —the French people as their subjects— the laws but as the expres- 
 sion of their good pleasure. The hereditary influence had so far 
 familiarized us with this ridiculous language, that perhaps even at 
 this time it does not sufficiently astonish our ears. 
 
 In this last combat there remained for the defenders of royalty the 
 boldness and cowardice of a corrupt court: the perfidy, the inso- 
 lence, and the deceitful aids of slavery ; it had for adversaries, cou- 
 rage, a firm will, the enthusiasm of new liberty, and the generous 
 virtues which it inspires. The struggle could not be long, the vic- 
 tory could not be doubtful. 
 
 But with royalty could not be annihilated in a day all the inte- 
 rests with which it is associated, all the institutions which were too 
 much identified with it. In republican France, royalty preserves 
 both friends and avengers. The one does not disguise even its 
 efibrts to revive it. Founding their hope upon I know not what 
 fraternity of thrones, and upon the more real alliances between the 
 throne and the altar, they arm around us a part of Europe, they re- 
 light in the midst of us the torches of fanaticism. 
 
 The other more perfidious declaimers burning against royally; 
 but the secret and not less implacable enemies of those, who, hav- 
 ing destroyed it, bend to every form of language, unite their rage, 
 surpass in excesses, in the double hope of avenging the throne upon 
 its real destroyers, to make it regretted by those even who had most 
 applauded its overthrow. 
 
 Thus the republic has been constantly a mark for direct or indi- 
 rect aggressions, attacks equally formidable. Citizens, it is not de- 
 viating from the spirit of this fete to tell you of the means employ- 
 ed by your representatives and your magistrates, in order that 
 they might triumph over so many obstacles, and associate your pa- 
 triotism with their efforts; it is still to strike at royalty — it is to 
 continue, in some manner, to complete the victory of the 10th of 
 August. 
 
 To the open enterprises of royalty, the republic opposes, without 
 remission, the deployment of ail the national forces — opposes laws 
 without compassion to the deserter of our country — terrible mea- 
 sures to all the communes agitated with royalism — indefatigable 
 
NOTES. 25 
 
 surveillance upon all intrigues, upon the manceuvres of those who 
 dare lo speak of its return. Whoever at this moment would deny 
 either these means, or the republican will of those who direct them, 
 can only be either a madman or a man not to be trusted. 
 
 To indirect aggressions we might reply by repressive measures, 
 the constitution and the laws give the right. But, because your ma- 
 gistrates are stout republicans, because ihey know that in this class 
 of aggressors Frenchmen are mingled who are carried away by 
 their love for the republic — and it would be with inconsolable regret 
 that they should find themselves compelled lo be severe towards 
 those who have been able to serve the cause of liberty — it is rather 
 by earnest and fraternal advice that they would reach them, for they 
 cannot renounce the hope of bringing back to the true interests of 
 the republic men whose actions may have appeared doubtful, but 
 whose intentions have remained pure. It is then to these that we 
 address ourselves to make known to them this small number of false 
 patriots who agitate and torment them — who infuse into the mind 
 absurd ideas, and extravagant or guilty hopes. The presen tcir- 
 cumstances create a duty. I go to fulfil it. 
 
 Citizens, whatever these men may be whom I persist in consider- 
 ing a small number, foreigners or natives, kept in pay by the enemy, 
 or obeying only their passions, desiring the speedy return of royalty, 
 or preferring the return of that terror so justly abhorred by French- 
 men, I will exclaim : Be on your guard as republicans, in looking up 
 to those who see in the overturning of the throne, not the means of es- 
 tablishing a new government desired by the nation, but the right atall 
 times to overturn every thing which would obstruct their individual 
 ambition. Those who think that to strengthen is cowardice, to destory 
 a glory; who, unruly enemies of every thing which constitutes 
 order, or even the appearance of order, wish to govern by crises, and 
 not by laws, who would destroy with their own hands the govern- 
 ment which they themselves had formed, because a government, 
 even of their own making, could not always accomplish at will 
 the projects of their avidity — all the ravings of their madness. 
 
 No, they are not republicans who have not yet been able to revoke, 
 to pardon friends of liberty the most ancient and the most incorrupt- 
 ible, who insult them always by reason even of the confidence 
 with whi'h the nation honors them, or from the magnitude of the 
 services which they have rendered. Conquerors of the 10th of 
 August, vou to whom is addressed the homage of this day, you 
 have not yourselves been able to escape these calumniators, who 
 would do so with every name, and who dim the lustre of every 
 glory ! 
 
 They are not republicans whose servile soul cannot conceive 
 that the founders ot liberty and of the republic were republi^^ans ; 
 who repeating the ravaging injuries of this same court, which the 
 10th of August has overthrown, and which they revenge since 
 they imitate it. They yet seek at the present time to impute to 
 them, as the object of their secret vows, I know not what phantom 
 of a king, paraded by turns before all those whom they wish to 
 destroy: senseless detractors, or hypocrites, who, shutting their 
 eyes against all evidence, persist in being ignorant that men, 
 especially those most frequently attacked by this absurd accusa- 
 tion, have a thousand times, and from the origin of the revolution, 
 manifested their ardent desire that this man, whom I do not wish 
 
26 NOTES. 
 
 to name, might have remained, he and his own for ever in the 
 enemy's ranks, instead of carrying disquiet, distrust, and danger 
 into our own. 
 
 No, they are not republicans those who, through their demo- 
 cratical language, allow the shameful predilection which they 
 preserve for royal superstitions to be easily seen through, and 
 seem every moment to tell you, that since you have attacked a 
 king, they can with much greater reason attack the magistrates of 
 the people. 
 
 No, they are not republicans, those who only know how to gather, 
 to stir up, to excite discontents against established order, those 
 who in other times think, that in order to govern, you must punish 
 with death whoever should dare not to be content; those to whom 
 peace would be a misfortune, who dread victory, who calculate 
 upon our reverses for the increase of their influence; those who 
 hope for internal dissensions, are only happy from the stirring up 
 of hatred ; they denounce with boldness before the multitude, anil 
 tremble when they have to sign a denunciation ; who always 
 thirsting for vengeance, are angry at the salutary slowness which 
 the law commands, both to save the innocent and to reach with 
 ceriainty the guilty — who by the madness of their provocations 
 bring fear upon the peaceful citizen, dry up the sources of public 
 wealth, blast credit, annihilate commerce, paralyze all exertion, 
 who speak without ceasing of misfortunes, and augment the num- 
 ber of the unfortunate, call themselves the friends of the people, 
 and only know how to exasperate instead of serving them; are 
 incensed against the exterior enemy, but are thoroughly decided 
 not to contend with him. 
 
 Is it then because they repeat with more noise, the real move- 
 ments of our common indignation against dilapidators and traitors, 
 that they hope to impose upon you 1 But people in their daily ex- 
 perience, have they not learned that it is not always the men who 
 speak the loudest that are the most free from reproach ? — that 
 many denounce, in order that they may not be denounced. And 
 whom will they persuade that those who govern do not experience 
 a civic grief much more sincere, much more profound, than theirs 
 at the painful spectacle of evils done to our country, and at the 
 moment, especially, when they are called upon to seek a remedy 1 
 
 Have they given more security for their morality and their 
 civism 1 Do they enjoy a reputation more pure 1 Are they more 
 austere in their manners, more of citizens 1 And if their indigna- 
 tion be real, instead of these clamors which are only addressed to 
 the passions, and who would sooner protect the guilty, because they 
 surround them with those who are not so ; why do we not see 
 them aid usefully the action of the law in multiplying searches, in 
 gathering proofs — in fact, in enlightening the magistrates'? But 
 why should I delay to mention it, their aim is certainly not justice : 
 it is to infatua'e the public with suspicion ; it is to carry confusion 
 and discouragement into every mind ; it is to drive Frenchmen to 
 despair ; it is to plunge every thing into confusion ; it is, in a word, 
 to gov^ern at any price whatever. Frenchmen, you know how to 
 govern ! The executive directory knows all the enemies who con- 
 spire against th:: republic. In the midst of these agitations it has 
 •>ust signalized who are few in number, but appear to multiply by 
 report j it does not lose sight of other royalists of incurable mad- 
 
NOTES. 27 
 
 ftess who aspire to a master, who would call them back from all 
 their vow-, from all their actions, and who reckon so justly as 
 their auxiliaries whoever menaces at the present time the consti- 
 tution and government. It declares to you that it will be equally 
 inflexible against all ; that superior to danger, calm in the midst of 
 the storm, it will combat them all without weakness and without 
 intermission; not in balancing them one against another — this im- 
 politic and cruel game would be unworthy of the republic — but in 
 repressing them all equally by the aid of energetic measures, 
 which the constitution of the year 3 secures, and the immense 
 majority of citizens resolved to defend it : to obey only the laws 
 and to rally round at all times the tutelary auihoriiies. 
 
 Lor.g live the Republic ! 
 ■ (18) Message of the executive directroy to the council of an- 
 cients of the 17th Thermidor. 
 Citizen Representatives — 
 
 The executive directory has received your message of the 13th 
 of this month, concerning societies occupied with political ques- 
 tions, and it hastens to send it to the minister of police with orders 
 to make a prompt report upon the subject. You will find here ad- 
 ded the report which contains the information )'ou have de- 
 manded. 
 
 The directory, deeply impressed with the necessity of main- 
 taining every thing in constitutional order, and of repressing those 
 who would disturb it, will employ those measures which circum- 
 stances require : you may in this respect rely upon its courage and 
 its devotion, as it likewise places its confidence in its union with 
 the legislative ^jody, and in the laws and means which it will 
 furnish to secure individual safety, and public tranquillity . . . Re- 
 port of the ministers of police to the executive directory — 
 
 Citizen Directors — You have directed me to make to you a re- 
 port relative to political societies; to relate to you the course they 
 have pursued since their establishment, and neither to conceal 
 from you their services nor their errors. I owe you the truth as a 
 minister. I will speak it as a minister and a citizen. There never 
 was a more important and more delicate institution ever submitted 
 to the consideration of legislators — it interests essentially (I dare 
 to say it) both the republic and liberty. 
 
 After the 30th Praireal the citizens, restored to the full exercise 
 of their rights, did not delay to re-unite themselves in political 
 societies. These re-unions legitimate, for rights were favored in 
 the hope that they would re-animate public spirit, almost extin- 
 guished from a variety of causes which are known to you, and that 
 they would direct towards the salvation of their country all the 
 movements of thought, and all the passions of the soul. The end 
 was glorious, the route easy ; the first steps were circumspect, and 
 courage and energy did not disdain at first the counsels and lan- 
 guage of an enlightened prudence. Citizens gathered in crowds, 
 and this happy concourse proved to the enemies of liberty, that 
 notwithstanding so many grevous losses, after such long persecu- 
 tions, and such bitter disgusts, the ranks of republicans were not 
 thinned, nor their generous ardor exhausted — a terrible experience 
 to our enemies, a sure token of their defeats. From these political 
 re-unions the most happy results were expected for our country. 
 It was hoped that their burning and prolific zeal, seconding the 
 
28 NOTES. 
 
 patriotism and the ardor of the authorities would powerfully con- 
 cur in raising public spirit to drive the conscripts to the frontiers, 
 and to strengthen in their hearts the passion for victory. It grieves 
 me to say it, the breath of the stranger has dissipated all these 
 hopes. Hatreds, weakened by the benefit of time, have been sud- 
 denly revived with fresh activity — recollections hardly effaced, re- 
 called with the most dreadful preparation — past proscriptions re- 
 produced to the imagination by the announcement of new proscrip- 
 tions — accusations become ail at once general and irregular — the 
 guilty are skilfully confounded with the crowd. In fine, the con- 
 stitution, in virtue, of which they were united, has been evaded 
 and openly violated at several points. 
 
 In eflfect the constitution forbids presidents and secretaries. They 
 have named a regulator and commentators. The constitution says 
 textually, no particular political society can hold public sittings com- 
 posed of an assembly and members of the society distinguished from 
 each other ! There has been constantly assemblies and members of 
 societies. The constitution interdicts collective petitions, and every 
 thing which bears the character of legislation or of executive authori- 
 ty. They have named a commission of public instruction. The parti- 
 cular object of this commission is the publication every decade of a 
 report on the situation of the republic. Other commissions have also 
 been named. These united commissions have made a report to the 
 society upon a notification to the council of ancients, relative to the 
 evacuation of the hall called the Manege at the end of this report — 
 they have decreed to obey only by an order from the council taken 
 during sittings. 
 
 The commission of public instruction has distributed and placard- 
 ed another report, in which it seeks to exasperate the people, and 
 to inspire them with distrust of the intentions of magistrates, whom 
 republicans themselves have chosen ; they speak of continuators of 
 Merlin, of Familiars, of the Protectorate, of Restorers of the throne 
 of '91, of a pentarchial royalty ; they aflirm that the people can on- 
 ly be regenerated and constituted but by popular heads. The soci- 
 ety, which ought only to be occupied with political questions, and 
 with means proper to revive public spirit, is carried away without 
 ceasing, beyond its design by interests, affections, or personal ha- 
 treds, to which a more sincere love of their country would, no 
 doubt, have imposed a salutary silence ; it has hardly ever attach- 
 ed itself but to persons and things which would give to the most 
 direful passions a new degree of intensity. 
 
 These transgressions, these irregulariiies, these violences, are 
 not only seen, but we are struck with them. These first movements, 
 it is tnie, may be considered as the consequences of that long pres- 
 sure which weighed upon the republic before the 30th Praireal. — 
 Such are the effects of oppression, it leaves in the souls of men the 
 most just, the seeds of disquietude and the relics of indignation. — 
 Nevertheless, every indulgence which ought to be granted to these 
 first digressions is granted, but prudence counsels severity for the 
 future. 
 
 The political re-unions, as they exist at the present day, make the 
 Joy and the hope of thej stranger ; it has thrown already in their 
 bosom its most perfidious emissaries. 
 
 It is such who, in exaggerating the most important truths, rend- 
 er them doubtful ; it is such who have established a tyranny of 
 
NOTES. 2\> 
 
 opinions in the midst even of political re-unions ; it is such who 
 pervert the influence of them, and who turn against liberty the se- 
 curities of liberty ; it is such who weaken the republican party, and 
 who place impediments upon the march of the authorities in sur- 
 rounding the chariot of the constitution with animosities and ven- 
 geances. 
 
 ( It must not, however, be doubted, that if. the political re-unions 
 contain so many and such dangerous elements of dissolution and 
 discord, is it not because they have issued from constitutional forms 
 and limits. 
 
 The constitution has proclaimed the principle, and consecrated 
 the existence of political societies, but legislative measures are 
 wanting, and it is only by such that we can hope to reap, with the 
 advantages promised, still greater benefits. The necessity of these 
 measures they themselves feel. Thrown upon an immense soil, al- 
 most without limits, they have been irresistably exposed to every 
 species of error, seduction and snare. Contract the circle, trace 
 the limits, regulate the movements which are proper to them ; this 
 is to second their vows. Then belter directed, sustained by more 
 worthy motives and more powerful interests, the enthusiasm which 
 they will know how to inspire and to revive, will turn entirely to 
 the advantage of the republic. 
 
 The minister of police has not distinguished the political re-unions 
 from one another, because they have almost all followed the same 
 errors, and that those which have been successively established, ap- 
 pear gradually to be formed under the influence of those which had 
 been first formed. 
 
 I cannot, therefore, citizen directors, too much dwell upon the 
 necessity o^ taking prompt legislative measures which may at once 
 protect the interior discussions of political re-unions, and restrain 
 them without, wiih all the power of the republic. 
 
 Citizen directors, in the account which I am about to render you, 
 I have not desired to weaken the truth ; no consideration shall hin- 
 der me from fulfilling my duties. All who have in their hearts the 
 true love of country will respect my courage; I only know how to 
 attach a value to the consciences of free men. 
 
 Paris, the 15th Thermidor, year 7. The Minister of General 
 Police 
 
 (Signed,) FOUCHE. 
 
 (19) Citizen Representatives — 
 
 The directory is occupied without intermission in remedying the 
 evils of our country ; it redoubles its zeal and energy in proportion 
 as the dangers it discovers command new efibrts for its devotion, 
 and new precautions for its prudence. 
 
 Already it has traced to you the picture of public dangers — to 
 dissemble them before you would be a crime. Yes, citizen repre- 
 sentatives, royalism, emboldened, conspires with audacity; its 
 agents invest themselves in every form, put on every disguise, bor- 
 row every form of language; every where we find them marching 
 to the same end by different routes; they labor for the destruction 
 of the republic by the effbrts of an open hatred, as welJ by the per- 
 fidy of a false zeal by the attacks of an open war, as by the hypoc- 
 risy of an excess of patriotism. 
 
 The stranger keeps up war upon^our frontiers, and discord in 
 
 S 
 
30 NOTES. 
 
 our homes; he has in our cities his spies and his traitors, as also 
 his satellites and his generals in the armies of the enemy. 
 
 The cabinets of the coalition desire to facilitate conquest without, 
 by preparing destruction within ; they desire to aggravate the em- 
 barrassments of exterior war, by the dangers of civil war; they 
 wish to add to the powder of their solemn alliance the plots of their 
 underhand conspirators. Unhappy successes have followed the ef- 
 forts of our enemies. In the West the monarchy has re-armed its 
 ancient bands of assassins; in the I^orth, fanaticism kindles again 
 her bloody torch ; in the South, all the re-actions prepare for fresh 
 furies, an*l during this time our phalanxes, so long invincible, are 
 exasperated at being forced to cede to the superiority of number. 
 
 The directory employs every means in its power in order to re- 
 call victory under the banners of the republic; to bring back peace 
 to the departments; to re-establish order in the finances, and to re- 
 vive patriotism in all hearts. 
 
 It hoped to have been seconded in its efforts by the revival of 
 public spirit ; it flattered itself that the re-unions of citizens which 
 the constitution authorizes by keeping within the line which has 
 been marked out to them, would become the centre of civism, and 
 of knowledge, guarantees of union and tranquillity. It has seen 
 with grief, that in a commune which contains so great a number 
 of good citizens, a society is' formed' in the Rue du Bacq, which is 
 become the centre of all the passions.! They there exercise their 
 influence to revive hatreds, and to awaken dangerous reminiscences. 
 In vain have you encouraged good, citizens by the solemn procla- 
 mation of your attachment to the constitution of the ^year 3. Clam- 
 ors have drowned the accents of your consoling voices, renewed 
 alarms, your intentions outraged, and your labors insulted by me- 
 nancing the people, with the necessity of saving themselves. 
 
 These forms, these speeches, these cries, have recalled excesses 
 and misfortunes, which the whole republic is resolved to prevent 
 the recurrence. Then fear silenced energy, shook fidelity, hope 
 vanished, and a general disquietude seized upon all minds. 
 
 Republicans believe themselves menanced at the same time by 
 the armies of kings, by the horrors of the monarchy, and by the 
 furies of a new. overthrow. 
 
 The directory must say to you, citizen representatives, that the 
 legislative body, the executive power of a great republic, ought to 
 be upheld by public opinion, encouraged by devotedness, and re- 
 warded by the esteem of patriots; they cannot deceive themselves, 
 as to the ascendency always increasing in a state of anu-pilimited re- 
 union of individuals. This ascendency becomes dangerous to social 
 order, when this mass of men, ignorant for the most part, of their 
 strength, and of th^iuse,, to which it is destined, receive without 
 knowing it their ideas,, their: projects, and even a name from the 
 hands of our enemies. The French nation must not fear the re- 
 turn of a monstrous power which it has seen either as a rash rival, 
 or as an audacious regulator of the legitimate and constitutional 
 powers, .-.i) .. .,-. , , 
 
 :It mustnot be, that in the bosom of the republic, the colossus of a 
 re-union may be raised by which our enemies design to mislead, 
 and where is every day developed the perfidious .conduct of their 
 -emissaries. •' .-.,,,_ 
 
 The directory, in order to remedy these evils and prevent these 
 
NOTES. 31 
 
 dangers, has thought it right to repress the continuance of the so- 
 ciety of the Rue du Bacq in its infringing conduct upon the consti- 
 tution; it has ordered the closing of it. 
 
 Resolved to follow with firmness the line of its duties, the direc- 
 tory will protect all reunions which shall respect the law, which 
 the French people have sworn to maintain ; it will expose the ef- 
 forts of all those who would disturb them in the exercise of their 
 rights, and it will arrest unceasingly in their secret plans all those 
 who would menace liberty, of which the rigorous observance of 
 this compact is the first guarantee. The law which you will pre- 
 pare, citizen representatives, the executive directory demands of 
 you with solicitude. Hasten the emission of it as much as your 
 wisdom, and the importance, and the mature reflection of it will 
 permit. It .will recall citizens to their duties in consecrating anew 
 their rights; it will prevent abuses by making their limits. ; 
 
 These reunions which occupy themselves with political ques- 
 tions, well fulfil the designof iheir institution; then they will be 
 the hope of republicans, instead of becoming an object of disquie- 
 tude. 
 
 The directory will be no longer compelled to divide its attention 
 between the evils with which royalism and assassination menace 
 us, and the evils, the not less terrible forerunners of the success of 
 tyranny which would follow the abasement or the destruction of 
 the constitutional authorities. 
 
 Then societies of republicans, instead of weakening the action 
 of the laws by the example of their violation, would add-to the so- 
 cial security; they would inflame the courage of the conscripts, 
 they wonld hasten the collection of all the taxes which would be 
 the price of peace within, the pledge of victory without, and would 
 no more become the prey of dilapidators. Then the societies would 
 rekindle patriotism, silence all alarms ; the constitution would be 
 spoken of with respect, the law wrthi rmbmission, legislators and 
 magistrates with decorum, armies v/ith gratitude and pride, liberty 
 with enthusiasm, our country with love, and, the republic W:Ould be 
 once more saved and triumphant. 
 
 (20) It is known that a Jourdan acquired in the massacre of the 
 South, a celebrity as dreadful, as was brilliant and pure that of the 
 conqueror of Fleurus. The terrible Jourdan, chief of the assassins 
 of the South, was surnamed Coup tetes. 
 
 (21) Executive directory — message to the council of five hun- 
 dred of the 17ih Fructidor, year 7. 
 
 Citizen Represeiitativcs — 
 
 The council of the ancients has addressed to the executive di- 
 rectory a message to demand of it an account of the execution of 
 the laws made against authors, printers, venders, bill-stickers, pro- 
 clamations, addresses provoking the re-establishment of royalty, 
 the overthrow of the republic, and of the constitution of the year 3. 
 
 The directory, animated with the same sentiments as the council, 
 occupied with the same solicitudes, and when your message ar- 
 rived on the necessity of repressing the boldness and of punishing 
 the criminality of revolutionary writings, was the object of its most 
 serious deliberations. 
 
 The alarm manifested by the representatives of the people at 
 the moment when the executive power had felt it on its own part, 
 is the guarantee of the happy harmony, the salutarv inielligencft. 
 
32 NOTES. 
 
 which prevails amongst the first authorities of the republic. This 
 agreement of powers may teach our enemies what they ought to 
 dread from the active vigilance and the inflexible severity of all 
 republican magistrates. 
 
 But, at the same time, this conformity of views, this identity of 
 thoughts, this coincidence of disquietude, has prescribed to the di- 
 rectory an examination, more considered, a meditation more pro- 
 found upon the state of the republic, a resolution more energetic, 
 with regard to those who have conspired against it. 
 
 The directory has seen the external efforts of the coalition ; it 
 has judged of the power of them; it has calculated its means of 
 resistance, and it has not been terrified. It has said — the republic 
 ought to conquer, because it feels in a manner worthy of the peo- 
 ple of France, the immensity of its means, the extent of its re- 
 sources, the ascendency of its forces. But when it has desired to 
 unite these means, to collect these resources, to make these forces, 
 act, it has found them attenuated, weakened, divided by the fatal 
 action of a power of which it has been found necessary to seek 
 the levers, the points of support, and the agents. 
 
 At the first sight, all the instruments of crime and misfortune 
 are unperceived ; the insurrections break out far from Paris ; the 
 ministers, the commissioners of the directory seek the source of 
 it, the authors of it ; they can only find the effects. 
 
 A senseless, blind crowd, follow the impulse which is given to 
 it ; the conspiring hand which has impressed it escapes inspection. 
 We see fall, struck by republican thunder, the misled citizen to 
 whom they have given arms, whilst the chiefs, who have corrupted 
 his ideas, his sentiments, and who have directed his blows, are not 
 reached by the public vengeance. 
 
 The effect of the evil is destroyed or rather suspended; the 
 cause subsists, and gives presage of new misfortunes. The direc- 
 tory finds it always in the corruption of public opinion, and this fatal 
 perverting, this moral corruption, is from the abuse of the liberty 
 of the press ; it is to the perfidious distribution of writings infec- 
 ted with maxims subversive of liberty, of order, and of the gov- 
 ernment which protects them ; it is to the propagation of counter- 
 revolutionary ideas, to the predictions of the apostles of royalism, 
 to which it ought to be attributed. 
 
 It is not possible to dissemble it, a vast and atrocious conspiracy 
 exists against the republic; it breaks out at all points; it strikes 
 every eye; it attacks all authorities; threatens all true republi- 
 cans. 
 
 What if the conspirators have not yet the insolent boldness to 
 demand witnesses, to require proofs, to challeng:c the production of 
 matters for conviction 1 No doubt they wish that their projetts 
 were accomplished, to accord with what they had formed ; they 
 wish that their crime should be questioned until its accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 But at this moment every thing betrays and accuses them. The 
 witnesses are the corpses of Republicans slaughtered in the south, 
 massacred in the west, threatened on all sides. The proofs are the 
 insurrections which break out in a department when they are 
 hardly stifled in another. The matters for conviction are the lying 
 writings, the incendiary Journals, the execrable libels with which 
 the Republic is inundated. 
 
NOTES. 33 
 
 • What must be done at this moment to ensure the common safety, 
 
 the triumph of our armies and peace of which victory is the 
 token? — There only requires to be a prompt union of forces and 
 wills, a solemn concert between the people, its representatives, its 
 magistrates ; let there be the active execution of military laws, 
 organizing our battalions, and vivifying laws to fill the public 
 treasury. 
 
 Well, citizen representatives, the periodical sheets, the daily 
 bills, the pamphlets out of number with which the Republic is 
 covered, sow division amongst the citizens, inspire suspicion and 
 hatred against the representatives and the magistrates of the peo- 
 ple, remove the conscripts from the colors, and stop the sources of 
 the public revenue. 
 
 The audacious writers always divide themselves into two bands, 
 whose suggestions and inspirations produce the same effects, they 
 march separately but they unite at a point assigned : ihey follow 
 two opposite routes ; but the tomb of the Constitution is their com- 
 mon rendezvous. The death of the Government is the rallying 
 word of their impious cohorts. 
 
 The one preach openly contempt to Republican laws and the re- 
 turn to royalty. 
 
 The other in speaking of the Republic, in proclaiming them- 
 selves the privileged Apostles, its exclusive defenders, attack it 
 in its elements and wish to arrive at its destruction by the annihi- 
 lation of the powers which maintain it, of the laws which pre- 
 serve it, and of the Constitution which establishes it. 
 
 Some, as the Gluotidienne, the Mirror, and other journals, struck 
 by the law of the 21st Fructidor, lavish upon legislators, directors, 
 generals, members of civil and military administranons all the in- 
 sults, and all the outrages, they reproach the Republic with the 
 crimes of tyranny. Republicans with the atrocities which Kings 
 have committed, they have commanded crimes, they have paid for 
 them, and they have then accused of them, those who have been 
 their victims. 
 
 Others, as the Journal, which the freemen are exasperated to see 
 bear their name, calumniate, denounce, abuse the oldest soldiers, 
 the warmest friends, the most devoted admirers of Liberty and of 
 the Republic. 
 
 For them no legislator is virtuous, no magistrate is patriotic, no 
 administration is pure, the general who has just rallied an army is 
 a traitor. 
 
 In their eyes no law is good, no determination is useful, no mea- 
 sure is salutary. According to their judgment, the legislature is 
 without energy, without knowledge, the directory without courage, 
 the citizens without devotedness, the country without children. To 
 believe them the public safety could only be hoped for from a 
 regeneration, which, after their manner is but destruction. They 
 appeal by their vows and their regrets to the times which preceded 
 the Constitutional regime. Citizen representatives, the Executive 
 directory cannot deceive itself The true and immediate agents 
 of the conspiracy which occasion these alarms, are this doubl'e 
 band of parricidal writers. — The causes of our internal troubles 
 are in the odious vocabulary of their venomous writings. Trans- 
 port yourselvss in thought into tkose denartments where distance 
 S2 
 
34 NOTES. 
 
 renders the truth more slow in being arrived at ; where the want 
 of information renders it more difficult to lay hold of. 
 
 Royalisra on one side accuses the Republican regime with all 
 the sacrifices, with all the privations which Kings impose upon us, 
 by the dangers with which they surround us. 
 
 Those who deck themselves on the colors of patriotism, present 
 in other terms the same thoughts, cause to be heard the same cla- 
 mors, they reproach the Grovernment with the continuance of 
 evils and of perils which they have hindered it to remedy. 
 
 This concert of accusation against legitimate authorities, scat- 
 ters fear and discouragement, destroys patriotism and leads the 
 abused and dejected citizens into error from calumny, and into 
 crime from despair. What can the feeble dyke which the laws 
 and the tribunal oppose, do against the devastating torrent. 
 
 The laws are insufficient, and from that time the tribunals are 
 without action. What avails it to these conspirators of all shades, 
 a denunciation which only strikes their names, and leaves to subsist 
 and envenom still their writings; an accusation before a tribunal 
 whose authority they insult by their boldness, whose blow they 
 avoid by absence, whose condemnation they would brave by flight. 
 It is necessary to take such a part that in preparing the punishment 
 of the crime we should suspend the action and the consequences. 
 
 In -this difficult position the Directory has sought what resolu- 
 tions were demanded by the state of the country, what resolutions 
 were permitted by the law. 
 
 It considers that it has found the rule of its duties, and the limit 
 of its authority in the 145th Article of the Constitution, which 
 says: 
 
 " If the Directory is informed that some conspiracy is being 
 hatched against the internal and external safety of the state, it may 
 ordain mandates to bring in, and mandate of arrest, against those 
 who are presumed to be the authors and accomplices." 
 
 Convinced that the conspiracy exists, that most dangerous agents 
 are those who devise, prepare, provoke the destruction of the estab- 
 lished government, who sow division amongst all the citizens, es- 
 tablish them by taking them for granted, defame all reputations, 
 calumniate all intentions, stir up all parties, animate all factions, 
 rekindle all hatred, threaten all powers, discredit all measures, 
 discourage all agents, disparage the national representation, ener- 
 vate the executive authority, insult the whole nation, — the directory 
 has ordained mandates of arrest against the authors and printers 
 of the Official Bulletin, of the armies of the coalition, of the Pa- 
 risienne, of the GLuolidienne, of the Courier de Paris, of the Demo- 
 crat, of the Mirror, of the Feuille du Jour, of the Recessaire, of 
 the Freemen, of the Gzondeur, of the Defender of the Country, 
 being a continuation to the Friend of the People. It has ordered 
 that the seals shall be placed upon the presses and the cabinets of 
 the authors and printers of these journals. 
 
 Citizen representatives, the law authorizes, the circumstances 
 require the preservative act which the Direccorj'- announces to 
 you ; it is a duty to wrest from the hands of a few parricidal cor- 
 rupt and bold conspirators, the fatal weapons wherewith to destroy 
 their country; without this determination the people would impute 
 their sufferings to their representatives, to their magistrates, in- 
 
NOTES, 36 
 
 Stead of accusing circumstances over which they could have no 
 control. 
 
 The armies would attribute to dilapidation or to malevolence, 
 privations which a penury, about to cease, has but too much pro- 
 longed. 
 
 Citizens of all conditions would regard the Republican regime 
 as the source of evils which arise only from the attacks by which 
 they strive to destroy it. 
 
 In conclusion, error propagated would have multiplied error, 
 falsehood would have continued to sow hatred, calumny would not 
 have ceased to prepare crime, revolt would have brought civil war, 
 the overthrow would have raised royalty again. 
 
 The Constitution had foreseen the danger, it had prepared the 
 remedy; the Directory has made use of it. The accused are in 
 the hands of the law, it will pronounce upon them. 
 
 However a law upon the abuses of the press would have pre- 
 vented the return of evils of which the Directory is about to arrest 
 the progress. 
 
 In the meantime, until this law is produced, public opinion will 
 no longer be daily perverted, the arrest of the Journalists, the si- 
 lence of the passions which they stir up, will permit the truth to 
 be heard. The Directory should say to the people that it is about, 
 in an address, to enlighten them with respect to their interests, to 
 encourage them with respect to their dangers, without concealing 
 them, to develop their resources without exaggerating them, and 
 to revive hopes in giving them the measure of their strength. 
 
 Thus the coalition baffled, conquered in the interior will soon be 
 conquered upon the frontiers, thus justice and power will ensure the 
 return of order and prepare for the return of peace. 
 
 The Directory invites you to take into your most prompt consid- 
 eration the object of this message which it has addressed to you on 
 the crimes of the Press, 
 
 Signed, Syeyes, President. 
 Signed, Lagarde, Secretary General. 
 
 22nd. The Executive Directory to the French nation of the 
 17th Fructedor, year 7 of the French Republic. 
 
 Frenchmen, — 
 
 It is in the name of the common safety, in the name of the inter- 
 ests of the country that the Directory addresses itself to you, that 
 it would rally you round the standard of the Republic. 
 
 In vain factions disturb, in vain cri.me conspires, in vain the 
 stranger rewards, stirs up, and sets the passions in a flame. 
 
 People of France, the voice of your magistrates will borrow from 
 yourselves a force, a power capable of making itself heard, of 
 making the truth resound from one extremity of the Republic to 
 the other. 
 
 Republicans hear the depositories of authority, it is of you they 
 wish to speak, it is for your advantage they wish to persuade you, 
 it is for your interests that they need to convince you. 
 
 Learn from tke Directory what is the nature of the dangers of 
 your country : it is convinced that the majority of Frenchmen are 
 r&solved to remove from the Republic all the misfortunes which 
 threaten it ; that personal interest demands this resolution even 
 from those with whom the love of liberty and their country is not 
 
86 NOTES. 
 
 sufficient to awalven it. But this disposition of mind will be sterile 
 without fruit, if we do not submit to those sacrifices which the law 
 commands, if we do not silence the factions, if we do not know 
 how to protect ourselves from egotism, if we do not place our faces 
 together in order to dissipate fears and realize hopes. 
 
 Learn that no League of Tyrants has ever triumphed over a 
 great people, if a part of the people is not become an accomplice 
 in this tyranny by neglecting to develop the means of defence, if 
 it has not beforehand weakened by its divisions. 
 
 Learn that the resentments of your enemies threaten you all, 
 that you would all be struck by their vengeance. 
 
 Learn that the return of royalty would increase tenfold the evils 
 and the sacrifices of which you complain, and that the only way 
 of shortening the duration of them, and of diminishing their ex- 
 tent, is the resolution to bear them with energy and to devote your- 
 self with courage. 
 
 Learn in fact that you are placed between the shame of yielding, 
 and the glory of conquering, that if you are conquered, infamy 
 will not save you from misfortune, if you are victorious, happiness 
 and repose will make you forget the days of suffering and alarm : 
 peace and abundance will repair all losses, and will be the reward 
 of all sacrifices. 
 
 No doubt there is in the bosom of the Republic a considerable 
 mass of citizens who are disinterested admirers, and generous 
 lovers of liberty. 
 
 No doubt there are a great number of minds in which burns the 
 iire of a pure patriotism, in which reigns the most lively and pro- 
 found sentiments of French honor and of national dignity. These 
 are exasperated at the thought of seeing the territory of our allies 
 defiled, and stained with blood from the presence and the arms ol 
 •lespots. 
 
 They do not calculate whether liberty has need of them for its 
 defence, they feel that they have need of liberty in order to their 
 existence ; they love the laws of the Republic, they cherish its 
 principles, and hate in an equal degree the maxims of despots, the 
 debasing forms of their courts, the shameful bondage of their cour- 
 tier.s, and their slaves. 
 
 These have nothing which they are not ready to sacrifice for 
 their country. Their fortune and their lives are devoted to the 
 defence of liberty. To these ardent Republicans is united a crowd 
 of those who have given a pledge to the resolution, having been 
 seen only in the ranks of the friends of equality, having been 
 reckoned amongst the number of its defenders, know that their 
 names are proscribed by Tyrants. How many Citizens there are 
 who forget or who dissemble their title to the hatred, their rights 
 to their resentment, to the vengeance of the friends of the throne, 
 if it should ever raise itself again !" 
 
 Let them abjure so unhappy an allusion as well for them as for 
 their country. Let them know that amongst all Frenchmen, a 
 very small number excepted, there exists a common responsibility 
 for all the events of the revolution. 
 
 These shades of opinion, these disastrous denominations which 
 have sent to the scaflfbld or devoted to the poinard the patriotism 
 and the courage, the talents and the virtue which still at the present 
 time divide Republican France, in the eyes of those who look with- 
 
NOTES, 37 
 
 in, they exist only for strangers, and emigrants, the disciples of 
 royalty. The coalition would make the tricolor Flag, the funeral 
 flag of all those who have hoisted it as of all those who have fol- 
 lowed it, of those who planted it upon the walls of the Basulle| oa 
 the 14th of July, as of those who raised it upon the Tuilleries the 
 10th of August. The Constituents, the Legislators of 1791 and 
 the Conventionalists of 1792 are a bond in the eyes of the coalition 
 for the overthrow of despotism, and the overthrow of the Throne. 
 
 The oath taken at the Tennis Court to Liberty, is to them a 
 crime equal to all those which have been committed since the Re- 
 public, 
 
 You do not know how the royalists under the power of whom 
 the coalesced powers wish to make you return, are rigorous in the 
 examination of conduct and in the judgment of opinions, how few 
 amongst you are innocent and pure in their eyes. You do not 
 know how they have treated even amongst the Emigrants those 
 who had not professed their religious respect, their profound sub- 
 mission to the senseless dogma of absolute despotism. 
 
 You are ignorant, perhaps, that several of these monarchical 
 protestants have been obliged to conquer by singular combats the 
 shameful honor of obtaining a place in the ranks of the army of 
 Conde. 
 
 You would not suspect with what fury the hired writers of Eng- 
 land and of the council of the Pretender inspired by aristocratic 
 and priestly hatred, proclaim resentments and call for vengeanee, 
 If the bloody pages of the history of England, or the reign of 
 Charles and of James the 2d, do not suffer to depict to you the fate 
 which is destined to France by those who would raise up again the 
 Throne — if the scaffold of Sydney is not sufficiently eloquent, profit 
 by the example which is offered you at Milan, and at Naples by 
 the Tyrants, who have for a moment seized again upon power ; 
 even infancy and old age have not been respected. 
 
 See what a fate is reserved for all those who have loved and 
 served liberty, those who have spoken as well as those who have 
 fought for it: some receive death, others wait for it in chains. 
 
 If you are not conquerors. Frenchmen, behold the future! 
 
 And do not flatter yourselves to escape by the obscurity of your 
 condition, by the smallness of your services, find the little of pub- 
 licity in your opinions, from the active animosity of a royal and 
 sanguinary reaction. 
 
 No doubt the first blows world fall upon men the most known, 
 and would cause the heads of the most ardent Republicans to falL 
 But after these first sacrifices which royal vengeance would re- 
 quire, there would be some more obscure whom the monarch would 
 give to serve inferior passions in a slower degree, the progressive 
 action of which would overrun all ranks, reach all conditions, em- 
 brace all epochs. 
 
 Then the military would be reached who would not shoot the 
 provokers of the States General, the members of the States of 
 Dauphiny and of Brittany in 1778, as he who had not imitated 
 Lambese in 1789, he who promised to serve the nation at the flight 
 of the King in 1791, as he who has since sworn fidelity to the 
 Republic. 
 
 Then would be pursued the signers of those numerous addresses 
 of adhesion, which arrived from all carts of France to the States 
 
^38 NOTES. 
 
 iGeneral, ibecdme the National Assembly, and which would be ex- 
 tracted from the archives in order to become titles of proscription, 
 as those who have applauded oiher epochs of the revolution. Then 
 would be attached all the generous plebeians who organized, arm- 
 ed, and commanded the National Guard, with which in a moment 
 was covered the soil of regenerated France. 
 
 Then would be sacrificed those honorable deserters of the privi- 
 leged caste who came to range themselves in the Battalions of 
 Freemen to render homage to equality. 
 
 Then would be delivered up to the sacerdotal anathema, the 
 priests who shook off the yoke of Rome in 179v0, as those who ab- 
 jured their religion in 1793; those who preserved' their functions, 
 and swore fidelity to the Laws of the Republic, as .those who 
 changed their condition and submitted to the rites of wedlock. — 
 Then would be persecuted all those magistrates who have been 
 honored by the choice of the people, who after silting upon the 
 Fleurs delis, have judged in the popular tribunals. ' Their probity 
 would not justify them in the eyes of their enemies, irritated at not 
 being able to give a false motive for their cruelty. — Then would 
 be sought out all the administrators of Districts and of departments, 
 all municipal othcers, however they may be distinguished for their 
 civism, or their devotedness, or" whether they only had the title 
 without the function, Whether they desired the Constitution of '91, 
 or that of '93, or that of the year '3 ; all are equally odious and cul- 
 pable for having borne the colors of liberty. 
 
 Then would be submitted to ecclesiastical censure, as well as to 
 civil degradation, the husband whom a divorce has freed from an 
 unhappy connexion, from the danger of offending morals ; then the 
 legitimate and cherished fruits of a happy union without a name, 
 without condition, without parents, repulsed from society in the 
 name of God and of the monarchy. 
 
 Then private hatred would redouble in activity;, then the royal 
 agents would receive all denunciations, would help every intem- 
 perate rage, republicanism would be the crime of every one who 
 should have an enemy, or one who may be envious or jealous of 
 them, even the Royalist would be laid hold of by calumny, and per- 
 sonal safety would no longer exist for any citizen. 
 
 Property would be no longer respected ; the overthrow of For- 
 tunes would be universal, and the necessary consequence the im- 
 mediate return of royalty. • :•,; v : 
 
 First the ecclesiastical tithes would be claimed, the Bible in the 
 hand, by the Priests, as the terrage, the field rent and the quit rent, 
 would be by the nobles; right, divine, feudal right, the Throne and 
 the altar, would renew their ancient alliance, would- levy tribute 
 again of the territorial productions of France, the fruit of the ad- 
 vances of Proprietors, the product of the toil of the cultivators, 
 and to recover this heavy and iniquifous tax, the soil of the repub- 
 lic would offer again to humiliated Frenchmen, the hideous spec- 
 tacle of prisons, of the gallows, of chains, and of the iron collar. 
 Frenchmen, picture to yourselves the convulsions, the rending, the 
 overturning which would follow such events, and if you doubt 
 their reality, cast your eyes upon the territory of the allied republics. 
 
 The first act of conquerors has been to despoil the purchasers of 
 national domains; a proclamation of the general enemy has suf- 
 .fiped to spoliate and condemn to mendicity, to despair, thousands 
 
NOTE^. 39 
 
 of citizens, who expect that victory will reinstate them in their po^i 
 sessions. — 
 
 And Frenchmen would be destined to such evil? — they would 
 undergo such shame. Ferocious strangers^ barbarous hordes would 
 give the insolent orders of their chief:5 in the place of the sovereign 
 will of the nation ! :o.. '. .° 
 
 They would dispose of the lives and fortunes of th'e citizens,' 
 They would give as in the time of the conquests of the Gauls, the 
 properties to their soldiers, would carry of their moveable wealth,' 
 would despoil our museums of their Ancient monuments and those 
 -which we have added at the price of the blood of our warnors.-^'^^ 
 
 Frenchmen, these misfortunes will never be realized. Yoti]? 
 courage will know how to prevent them ; bat the picture of them 
 serves at least to revive the patriotism of lukewarm spirits, to en- 
 lighten improvident minds, to rally all hearts to one sentiment, to 
 a common desire, that of conquering our enemies and making thd 
 republic triumphant. .i ,,; ■.f!i'>i 
 
 Citizens of all conditions, believe that the Directory whOSemehi- 
 bers lived lately in the midst of you, has seen near at hand y6ur 
 evils and your wants, and calculated with grief the extent of the 
 privations and sacrifices which an imminent peril has forced the 
 laws to demand of you. It knows what the hu.'ybandman feeks, 
 deprived momentarily of the arm which aided him in his labors, 
 the widow -regretting the loss of the son who soothed her sorrows, 
 the soldier who has asked, often in vain for alms, subsistence and 
 clothing, the artisan for whom work is scarce, the manufacturer 
 whose productions languish, the artist whose talent is without en- 
 couragement, the proprietor whose domains are depreciated. Be- 
 lieve that the pains, the suffering.s, the misfortunes, the most re- 
 moved from its regards are not the less present to its solicitude. 
 
 Indulge the hope with the Directory that the endeavors which it 
 is charged to make in the name of the Law which it claims in th6 
 name of the country, which it invokes in the name of your dearest 
 interests will be the certain pledges of success, of glory, of pacifi- 
 cation and of happiness. — 
 
 These efforts, the armies expect in order to secure victory undei^ 
 our bann^rsijtbe brigands of the West, and, of the South expect 
 them, tahid-e far off their infamy and their crime, the allied repub- 
 lic expe'ct them in order to revive liberty, the friendly powers in 
 order to persevere in their fidelity the whole republic in order to 
 be without alarms. — 
 
 These efforts which will be the last because they will ensure us 
 triumphs, national pride would suffice to inspire them ; — the inter- 
 est of all compels them — they must be placed between the people of 
 France and the misfortunes with which the return of royalty 
 threatens us. 
 
 Frenchmen, think upon the incontestible facts, upon the certain 
 details, theilnportantTefleclions which ;the Directory have placed 
 before you. If your minds are struck, if your hearts are affected 
 at the dangers of your country, if you wish to make them cease, 
 carry into effect the laws with exactness, with eagerness : rally 
 round the republican standard, saciiAce your resentments, abjure 
 your hatreds, drive away every irritating remembrance, pardon 
 errors, and weaknesses, make war only against crime, attack only 
 Ihe enemies of the republic. — Let probity, patriotism and courage 
 
40 ' NOIES. 
 
 •understand each other, draw near and unite tog^ether. — The forces 
 concentrated, are immense, nothing can j resist the all-prevailing 
 power of yours, the Directory will obtain from without the peace 
 which will ensure victory ; and within, the peace which will guar- 
 antee justice. 
 
 The Executive Directory decrees that the aforesaid proclama- 
 tion shall be inserted in the Bulletin of the Laws, and that it shall 
 be printed, published in all the communes of the republic in the 
 accustomed places, and sent to the Armies. 
 
 The Ministers of Justice,, of the Interior,, of War, and of General 
 Police are charged each in that which concerns them with the 
 execution of the present deeiee. 
 
 Liong live the Republic t 
 
 (23) Disconrse pronounced by the Citizen Syeyes,. President of 
 the Executive Directory, at the commemorative fete of the 18tb 
 Fructidor. 
 
 Citizens, 
 
 We owe to the day of the 18th Fructidor, (which we celebrate 
 for the second time the return — ) for having destroyed, of all the 
 conspiracies formed against the Republic, that perhaps which was 
 the most powerfully concocted in order to effect its ruin. 
 
 The Republic without continued to astonish with its glory every 
 one who had not continued strangers to human revolutions ; agi- 
 tated for a long period within, it began at length to repose upon a 
 constitution, when Royalism, always indefatigable, sought to lay 
 hold of this first repose, and to turn it entirely to its own triumph. 
 It had obtained an increase of its forces, from that unreflecting 
 multitude who believed they could not too much hate times which 
 yet weighed upon all remembrances, and did not see that those 
 who pretended to avenge them, were only fit to reproduce them. 
 From that tin>e it conceived and executed, almost upon all points 
 of the Republic, a vast plan of organization by which it might in- 
 vade every means of action, ev^ery means of resistance. — Its agents 
 were everywhere: some marching openly, others concealed. They 
 knew to what point they dare go. Become masters, or rather ty- 
 rants of opinion, by journals, by pamphlets, by all foreign means 
 of influence, they commanded a party at the eleetions, and intro- 
 duced treason amongst all the authorities. Every thing bore the 
 stamp of their cruel intervention. Inflexible against the slightest 
 wrongs of the sincere friends of liberty ; they only knew of indul- 
 gence for the crimes of its enemies. 
 
 In the name even of humanity, they excited hatreds, stirred up 
 furies, promoted vengeances, and when from the number of assas- 
 sinations, their own work, they carried every where amongst re- 
 publican families, mourning and fear^they wondered that any one 
 should dare to be disquieted at it. Soon they had no longer need 
 to disguise themselves. The name of Republican became a re- 
 proach, the Emigrants returned with security and in the midst of 
 those who had called them, they wiped out the reproach of being 
 too timid counter-Revolutionists. It was not they who were guilty j 
 it was those who having dared to attack their privileges, had con- 
 strained them, they said, to desert France. At length, the glory 
 of the French Armies was itself a wrong, which they reserved the 
 expiation of, to another day. And already they were provoked at 
 
NOTES. 41 
 
 the cries of liberty which were heard in the midst of the songs of 
 victory. 
 
 How much the fall of the Republic, then appeared certain to 
 men impatient to make us return under the yoke! — But all this 
 scaffolding was doomed to fall in one day. It was only necessary 
 to Republicans, in order |to remove danger, to rally together; to 
 make those return to the ranks who felt the need of a Government, 
 and of order: should necessarily make them at length find force 
 and direction in the first authorities. 
 
 This happy change was effected on the 18lh Fructidor, under 
 the inspiration of liberty. No effusion of blood saddened the vic- 
 tory ; and the French nation owes to it the not having been entirely 
 plunged in a civil war. . . . The day of the 9th Thermidor put 
 an end to the action so cruelly prolonged of a dreadful tyranny. 
 Day of the 18; h Fructidor, thou hast put an end in thy return to 
 reaction not less insupportable, which went to annihilate the re- 
 public and every hope of liberty. 
 
 These two days have been the reparation of many evils. Why 
 have they not dried up the source of them ! Both were indispen- 
 sable, both however cost tears to republicans — Citizens, you all 
 wish, without doubt, at once to prevent the return as to guarantee 
 us hereafter from the times which they would recal to us: march 
 then, constantly united in the route which is so plainly marked out 
 to you. The two first authorities of the Republic have made you 
 to hear in the name of L-iberty, this consolatory cry, — no more 
 terror, no more reaction in France, justice and liberty for all. — 
 Frenchmen we know that it is also the most ardent of your vows. 
 In this agreement of retirement is a certain pledge that notwith- 
 standing all our Enemies, a vow truly national will be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 The hopes, I know, which have been engraven in our hearts by 
 the most solemn declarations have not all yet been fulfilled. No, 
 they have not wnthout doubt. — But see with how many ob'-tacles 
 the zeal of the Government has been retarded. These obstacles 
 will yield to the perseverance of its efforts, if you lend it the invin- 
 ciple support of your union, whatever may be the ambition of those 
 who shake around it the brands of discord, which they desire to 
 throw amongst us, and the incomprehensible suspicions which they 
 spread throughout the Republic, you know that it exists ,but for 
 you, that all its glory is in your glory, all its happiness in your 
 happiness; that it has not, that it cannot have any other interest 
 but yours, it will therefore not cease then to tell you with confi- 
 dence; rally round the Constitutional Authorities, for a safeguard 
 cannot be found beyond them for your repose and your liberty. 
 And at what time will you more feel this imperiou.^ need 7 The 
 course of our triumphs has been interrupted for some moments, 
 and we mourn the irreparable loss of that young hero whose mag- 
 nanimous virtues and talents promised us so many victories. 
 Every day we receive the horrible details of a Counter Revolution 
 which has just broke forth like a clap of thunder in a country but 
 lately renewed by liberty ; and behold in us the contemporaries of 
 a Royal vengeance exercised upon a people who desire to be free. 
 A foreign influence is arrived to relight a civil war in several de- 
 partments and the blood of Frenchmen has again flowed under the 
 hands of Frenchmen. The coalesced powers have dared to say 
 T 
 
42 NOTES. 
 
 Ihey are sure to tear up the Republic either by their sword, or our 
 own ! — Citizens, this picture might change at once. The resources 
 of the people of France are without limits. — Every thing yields to 
 the energy of their will when united ; how criminal then would 
 those be who would bring in discord ! — I say but another word: — 
 Citizens, think, that if in the honorable struggle which you have 
 sustained for these ten years, your divisions make you yield, you 
 would become the fable of the world, and it only belongs to you 
 to be the example of it. 
 
 Long live the Rcpvilic. 
 
 END OP VOL. I, 
 
INTERESTING WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED S7 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 In 3 vols. 18mo., with Engravings, Maps, &c., 
 THZ: HZSTORV OF THS JE-WS. 
 
 From the earliest Period to the Present Time. 
 By the Rev. H. H. MILMAN. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with Portraits, 
 
 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 
 
 By J. G. LOCKHART, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 By ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D. 
 
 f 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with a Map, 
 THE LIFE AND ACTIONS OP 
 
 By Rev. J. WILLIAMS. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with numerous Engravings, 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF INSECTS. 
 
Interesting Works 
 In one vol. 18mo., 
 
 By JOHN GALT. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 
 Founder of the Religion of Islam, and of the Empire of 
 
 the Saracens. 
 
 By Rev. GEORGE BUSH. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with an Engraving 
 
 LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 By Sir WALTER SCOTT, Bart. 
 
 In 2 vols. ISmo., with a Map, 
 By the Rev. G. R. GLEIG. 
 
 In one vol. ISmo., with Maps, &c.. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERY AND ADVENTURE IN 
 
 tl)e 53olat: Seas anU HcQions. 
 
 With Illustrations of their Climate, Geology, and 
 
 Natural History, and an Account of the 
 
 Whale-Fishery. 
 
 By Professors LESLIE and JAMESON, and 
 HUGH MURRAY, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. ISmo., 
 
 THE LIFE AND TIMES OP 
 
 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 
 
 With Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons of the last 
 
 Fifty years. 
 By Rev. GEORGE CROLY. 
 
PvhUshed by Harper ^ Brotherg. 
 
 In one vol, 18mo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DISCOVERY AND ADVENTURE IN AFRJCA. 
 
 From the Earliest Ages to the Present Time 
 
 With Illustrations of its Geology, Mineralogy, and 
 
 Zoology. 
 
 By Professor JAMESON, and JAMES WILSON and 
 HUGH MURRAY, Esqrs, 
 
 In 5 vols. 18mo., with Portraits, 
 LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT 
 
 By ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 
 HISTORY OF CHIVALRY AND THE CRUSADES. 
 
 By G, P. R. JAMES, Esq. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 By HENRY GLASSFORD BELL, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 
 A VIEW OF 
 
 ^USg'(Sai^S3'^ ASS'S) MI(o)S)^aiE3" Il^'^IP'i?, 
 
 With an Outline of its Natural History. 
 
 By the Rev. M. RUSSELL, LL.D. 
 
 In one vol. I8mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 From the Earhest Period to the Present Time. 
 By JAMES FLETCHER, Esq. 
 
Interesting Works 
 
 In 2 vols. ISmo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 
 PALESTINE, OR THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 From the Earliest Period to the Present Time 
 
 By the Rev. M. RUSSELL, LL.D. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 XiIFE OF &l;:i ISjficAC NEV7TOW. 
 
 By Sh DAVID BREWSTER, K.B., LL.D., F.R.S. 
 
 In one vol. ]8mo., 
 Ancient and Modern. 
 
 By HORATIO SMITH, Esq. 
 With Additions, by SAMUEL WOODWORTH, Esq., of New-York. 
 
 In one vol. ISrao., with Portraits, 
 MEMOIRS OF THE 
 
 By JOHN S. MEMES, LL.D. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Portraits, 
 
 LIVES AND VOYAGES OF 
 
 DRAKE. CAVENDISH. AND DAMPIER; 
 
 Including an Introductory View of the Earlier DiscoT^ 
 
 eries in the South Sea, and the History 
 
 of the Bucaniers. 
 
 In one vol. ISmo., with Engravings, 
 
 A DESCRIPTION OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND, 
 
 AND ITS INHABITANTS. 
 
 With an Authentic Account of the Mutiny of the Ship 
 
 Bounty, and of the subseejuent Fortunes of 
 
 the Mutiiieers. 
 
 By J. BARROW, E^. 
 
Jpubliahed by Harper <f Brothers. 
 
 In one vol. ISmo., with a Portrait, 
 
 CT^ie Court anH <!!ratnp of 3Sona|»arte. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., 
 
 SacreH ^{stjir^ of tte CSJorllr, 
 
 as displayed in the Creation and Subsequent Events 
 
 to the Deluge. 
 
 Attemp'^ed to be Philosophically considered in a 
 Series of Letters to a Son. 
 
 By SHARON TURNER, F.S.A. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 By Mrs. JAMESON. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Portraits, Maps, &c., 
 
 JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION TO EXPLORE 
 
 THE COURSE AND TERMINATION OF THE NIGER. 
 
 With a Narrative of a Voyage down that River 
 to its Termination. 
 
 By RICHARD and JOHN LANDER. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., 
 
 INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 
 
 artti tt)c Snbestfflation of Cinit^, 
 
 By JOHN ABERCROMBIE, M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 With Questions. 
 
 In 3 vols. ISmo., 
 
 JJI^lga ©I? ©EILISISISAmin) 'STSJL'^nSSJLSBB!^ 
 Br JAMES AUGUSTUS ST. JOHN. 
 
Interesting Work* 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 LIFE OF FREDERIC THE SECOND. 
 
 King of Prussia. 
 
 By LORD DOVER. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 By the Rev. E. SMEDLEY, M.A. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., 
 
 or, an Historical Account of those individuals who have 
 been distinguished among the North American 
 Natives as Orators, Warriors, States- 
 men, and other Remarkable 
 Characters. 
 
 By B. B. THATCHER, Esq. 
 
 In 3 vols. ISmo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF 
 
 From the most remote Period to the Present Time. 
 Including a Narrative of the early Portuguese and Eng- 
 lish Voyages, the Revolutions in the Mogul Empire, 
 and the Origin, Progress, and Establishment 
 of the British Pow^er; with Illustrations 
 of the Botany, Zoology, Climate, 
 Geology, and Mineralogy. 
 
 By HUGH MURRAY, Esq., JAMES WILSON, Esq., R. K. 
 
 GREVILLE, LL.D., WHITELAW AINSLIE, M.D., 
 
 WILLIAM RHIND, Esq., Professor JAMESON, 
 
 Piofessor WALLACE, and Captain 
 
 CLARENCE DALRYMPLE. 
 
Pubtished by Harper <f Brothers. 
 In one vol. 18mo,, with Engravingi, 
 
 Addressed to Sir Walter Scott. 
 By Dr. BREWSTER. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 
 From the Anglo-Norman Invasion till the Union of the 
 
 Country with Great Britain. 
 
 By W. C. TAYLOR, Esq. 
 
 With Additions, by WILLIAM SAMPSON, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 
 HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OP 
 
 DISCOVERY ON THE NORTHERN COASTS OP 
 
 NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. 
 By P. F. TYTLER, Esq. 
 
 With Descriptive Sketches of the Natural History of 
 
 the North American Regions. 
 
 By Professor WILSON. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 
 THE TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES OP 
 
 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT} 
 
 being a condensed Narrative of his Journeys in the 
 
 Equinoctial Regions of America, and in Asiatic 
 
 Russia : together with Analyses of his 
 
 more important Investigations. 
 
 By W MACGILLIVRAY. A.M. 
 
Interesting World 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with numerous Engravings, 
 
 ILIS'lP'iPISIJiS ©I? liWILalSia 
 
 ON DIFFERENT SUBJECTS OF NATURAL 
 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Addressed to a German Princess. 
 
 Translated by HUNTER. 
 
 With Notes, and a Life of Euler, by Sir DAVID BREWSTER 
 
 and Additional Notes, by JOHN GRISCOM, LL.D. 
 
 With a Glossary of Scientific Terms. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 A POPULAR GUIDE TO 
 
 or, Hints of Inducement to the Study of Natural Pro- 
 ductions and Appearances, in their Con- 
 nexions and Relations. 
 By ROBERT MUDIE. 
 
 In one vol. ISmo., 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MORAL FEELINGS. 
 
 By JOHN ABERCROMBIE, M.D., F.R.S. 
 With Questions. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 
 ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY 
 
 BY THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 By THOMAS DICK, LL.D. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 To which is prefixed an Introduction, comprising the 
 
 History of France from the Earliest Period 
 
 to the Birth of Charlemagne. 
 
 By G. P. R. JAMES, Esq. 
 
Published by Harper <f Brother*. 9 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 
 Comprehending their Civil History, Antiquities, Artsi 
 Religion, Literature, and Natural History. 
 
 By the Rev. M. RUSSELL, LL.D. 
 
 In 2 vols. 16mo., with a Portrait, 
 By the Rev. M. RUSSELL, LL.D. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., 
 
 LECTURES ON GENERAL LITERATURE, 
 POETRY, &c. 
 
 Delivered at the Royal Institute in 1830 and 1831. 
 By JAMES MONTGOMERY. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 THE LIFE OF PETER THE GREAT. 
 
 By JOHN BARROW, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. I8mo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF 
 
 IP II a © a c^ 
 
 From the Earliest Period to the Present Time. 
 
 With a Detailed View of its Resources, Government, 
 Population, Natural History, and the Charaiiter 
 of its Inhabitants, particularly of the 
 Wandering Tribes : including 
 a Description of Af- 
 ghanistan. 
 
 By JAMES B. FRASER, E*l. 
 
10 Interesting Works 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with a Map and Engravings, 
 
 Ancient and Modern. 
 
 Containing a Description of the Country — An Account 
 of its Inhabitants, Antiquities, Political Condition, 
 and Early Commerce — The Life and Religion of 
 Mohammed — The Conquests, Arts, and Litera- 
 ture of the Saracens — The Caliphs of Damas- 
 cus, Bagdad, Africa, and Spain — The Civil 
 Government and Religious Ceremonies of 
 the Modern Arabs — Origin and Suppres- 
 sion of the Wahabees — The Insti- 
 tutions, Character, Manners, and 
 Customs of the Bedouins; and 
 a Comprehensive View of 
 its Natural History. 
 
 By ANDREW CRICHTON. 
 
 In one vol, 18ma, 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY, 
 
 APPLIED TO THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH, 
 
 AND TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF 
 
 PHYSICAL AND MENTAL 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 By ANDREW COMBE, M.D. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF 
 
 Comprehending a View of their Civil Institutions, An- 
 tiquities, Arts, Religion, Literature, Commerce, 
 Agriculture, and Natural Productions. 
 By the Rev. M. RUSSELL, LL.D. 
 
Pvblished by Harper <f Brothers. 11 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with beautiful Engravings, 
 
 ByJ. K. PAULDING, Esq. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with Engravings, 
 
 SCtie 39i)ilosoj)|)5 of ilibinfi; 
 
 OR, THE WAY TO ENJOY LIFE 
 AND ITS COMFORTS. 
 
 By CALEB TICKNOR, A.M., M.D. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., with numerous Illustrative Engravings, 
 
 ITS PHYSICAL CONDITION, 
 AND MOST REMARKABLE PHENOMENA. 
 
 By W. MULLINGER HIGGINS. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 (Anabasis, translated by EDWARD SPELMAN, Esq., 
 Cyropaedia, by the Hon. M. A. COOPER, j 
 
 In 2 vols. ISmo., with a Portrait, 
 
 THE ORATIONS OF DEMOSTHENES. 
 
 Translated by THOMAS LELAND, D.D. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., 
 
 Translated by WILLIAM ROSE, M.A. 
 With Improvements and Notes. 
 
 In 2 vols. ISmo., with a Portrait, 
 Translated by WILLIAM DUNCAN. 
 
141 Interesting Works 
 
 In 3 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 CICERO. 
 
 The Orations translated by DUNCAN, the Offices by COCKMAN, 
 and the Cato arid Lselius by MELMOTH. 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 VIRGIL. 
 
 The Eclogues translated by WRANGHAM, the Georgics by 
 SOTHEBY, and the ^neid by DRYDEN. 
 
 In one vol. 18mo., 
 
 iESCHYLUS. 
 
 Translated by the Rev. R. POTTER, M.A. 
 
 In one vol. I8mo., vvdth a Portrait, 
 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 Translated by THOMAS FRANCKLIN, D.D. 
 
 In 3 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 Translated by the Rev. R. POTTER, M.A. 
 
 In 2 vols. ISmo., with a Portrait, 
 
 HORACE. 
 
 Translated by PHILIP FRANCIS, D.D. 
 With an Appendix, containing translations of various Odes, &c. 
 
 By BEN JONSON, COWLEY, MILTON, DRYDEN, POPE, ADDISON, SWIFT, 
 BENTLEY, CHATTERTON, G. WAKEFIELD, POBSON, BYRON, he 
 
 And by some of the most eminent Poets of the present day. 
 
 i P H ^ D R U S. 
 
 ; With the Appendix of Gudius. 
 
 ' Translated by CHRISTOPHER SMART, A.M 
 
 i 
 
published by Harper <f Brothers. 13 
 
 In 2 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 OVID. 
 
 •Srarjslated by DRYDEN, POPE, CONGREVE, ADDISON, 
 
 and others. 
 
 In 3 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 HERODOTUS. 
 
 Translated by the Rev. WILLIAM BELOE. 
 
 In 3 vols. 18mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 HOMER. 
 
 Translated by ALEXANDER POPE, Esq. 
 
 In 5 vols. ISmo., with a Portrait, 
 
 L I V y. 
 
 Translated by GEORGE BAKER, A.M. 
 
 In 2 vols. ISmo., with a Portrait, 
 
 THUCYDIDES. 
 
 Translated by WILLIAM SMITH, A.M. 
 
 In one vol. 8vo., with Plates, 
 
 PLUTARCH'S LIVES. 
 
 Translated from the original Greek, with Notes, Crit- 
 ical and Historical, and a Life of Plutarch. 
 By JOHN LANGHORNE, D.D., and Wm. LANGHORNE, A.M. 
 A New Edition, carefully revised and corrected. 
 
 t In one vol. 12mo., with a Portrait, 
 
 A LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 In Latin Prose. 
 
 By FRANCIS GLASS, A.M., of Ohio. 
 
 Edited by J. N. Reynolds. 
 
Interesting Work9 
 In one vol. 8vo,, 
 
 or the Relation which Words bear to Things. 
 By A. B. JOHNSON. 
 
 In one vol. 8vo., with numerous Illustrative Engravings, 
 
 THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SURVEYING ; 
 containmg all the Instructions requisite for the skilful practice 
 
 of this art. 
 With a new set of accurate Mathematical Tables. 
 
 By ROBERT GIBSON. 
 
 Newly arranged, improved, and enlarged, with useful selections, 
 
 by .Tames Ryan. 
 
 In one vol. 8vo., 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MECHANICS. 
 
 Translated from the French of M. Loucharlat. 
 
 With additions and emendations, designed to adapt it to the use of 
 the Cadets of the U. S. Military Academy. 
 
 By EDWARD H. COURTENAY. 
 
 In one vol. 48mo., 
 CJ)e 3Etclicule ntCO iSocfeet Companion j 
 
 OR, 
 
 MINIATURE LEXICON OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 By LYMAN COBB. 
 
 In one vol. 8vo., 
 
 With copious Illustrations and Explanations, drawn from the 
 
 best Writers, 
 
 By GEORGE CRABB M.A. 
 
92B64 
 B 
 
 "" COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Ll^?.^^.'^,^, 
 
 5020541 
 
 o 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 o^ 
 
 
 00 
 
 
 rO 
 
 
 CO 
 
 
 r-4 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 -t 
 
 
 nO 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 CO 
 
 
 CM 
 
 
 O CO 
 
 ftD ^ >d/3> 
 

 
 (,"■■■'; 
 
 
 
 /■■.>■■ I. ■ 'fi.ji' 
 
 .'■■ l' ,''-■*'■ ' »■'''' 
 
 
 
 
 . '.\X]