The seas were infested with hostile ships, and a more perilous voyage than Napoleon’s from Egypt few men ever risked. His little sailing vessels had but one element of security—their insignificance. They could hope to slip by where larger ships would be sighted; and they could retreat into shoal water where men-of-war could not follow. Napoleon had with him some four or five hundred picked troops and a few cannon; his plan was to run ashore on the African coast, and make his way overland, if he should find his escape cut off on the ocean by English ships. Keeping close to the shore, he made tedious progress against contrary winds, and did not arrive off Corsica till the last days of September, 1799. He had not intended to land on his native soil, but the adverse gales made it necessary to put into the harbor of Ajaccio. Sending ashore for fruit and the latest journals, he sat up all night on board reading. He now learned that the battle of Novi had been fought, and Joubert killed.

The presence of Napoleon in the harbor of Ajaccio created a sensation on shore, and the people thronged the streets and the quays, eager for a sight of the hero of Italy and of Egypt. His victories in the East were known, for he himself had dictated the reports, and had not weakened them with any dashes of modesty. Around his name, therefore, had formed a halo, and even those Corsicans who had scorned him when feeble, admired him now that he was strong. Yielding to popular pressure, Napoleon landed. His reception was enthusiastic. The square was filled with shouting multitudes, the windows and the roofs crowded with the curious, everybody wanting to catch sight of the wondrous little man who had so quickly become the first soldier of the world. Crowds of admiring islanders remembered that they were his cousins. The number of god-children laid to him was immense. His old nurse hobbled to him, hugged him, gave him a blessing, and a bottle of goat’s milk.

He walked St. Charles Street, into the little square, and into the old Bonaparte home, which the English troops had used as a barrack. He visited the country-seat, the grotto of Milleli, all the old familiar scenes. He showed his staff, with some pride, the estates of his family; and to the tenants and the herdsmen he gave cattle and land. The soldiers of the garrison, drawn up to receive him, were in a wretched condition; they had received no pay for more than a year. Napoleon gave them $8000, all he had, saving necessary travelling expenses. To his nurse he gave a vineyard and a house in Ajaccio.

The Corsicans tell the story that during the time when the young Lieutenant Bonaparte was trying to revolutionize the island, a priest, standing at the window of a house overlooking the street, aimed a gun at the little Jacobin’s head. Napoleon, ever watchful, saw the movement just in time to dodge. The bullet struck the wall, and Napoleon scurried off.

This priest, having remained in Ajaccio, and the situation having undergone a change, was very uncomfortable; for Napoleon now had it in his power to make his old enemy do the dodging. But he bore no malice. He offered the embarrassed priest his hand, made a joke of the shot out of the window, and put the good man quite at his ease.

It was while attending a ball given in his honor in Ajaccio that Admiral Ganteaume sent word that the wind had changed, and the voyage could be resumed. Hurriedly bidding adieu to friends, he quitted Corsica for the last time.

On October 8, 1799, the four vessels entered the roads of FrÉjus, and immediately upon its becoming known that Napoleon was on board, the water was covered with the boats of hundreds crowding to meet him. It was in this spontaneous rush of the people to greet the returning hero that the quarantine law was violated. The joy of the people was unbounded. They rang the bells, they filled the streets with shouting multitudes, they hailed him as the deliverer of France. A king in the best of Bourbon days had never drawn a warmer welcome. On his way from the coast he met with a prolonged ovation. At Lyons it was as though Napoleon had already become the ruler of France.

General Marbot, late commander of Paris, now passing through Lyons on his way to Italy, was somewhat scandalized and offended to see that Bonaparte was treated like a sovereign. Says his son in his Memoirs:—

“The houses were all illuminated, and decorated with flags, fireworks were being let off; our carriage could hardly make its way through the crowd. People were dancing in the open spaces, and the air rang with cries of: ‘Hurrah for Bonaparte! He will save the country!’” The hotel keeper had given to Napoleon the rooms for which General Marbot had spoken, and Napoleon was in them. Learning how General Marbot had been treated, Napoleon invited him to come and share the rooms comrade-like. Marbot went to another hotel, rather in a huff, it would seem; and Napoleon, determined not to make an enemy out of such an occurrence, went on foot and at once to apologize and express his regrets to General Marbot in his rooms at the other hotel. As he passed along the street he was followed by a cheering crowd.

“General Marbot,” says his son, “was so shocked at the manner in which the people of Lyons were running after Napoleon, as though he were already king, that the journey to Italy was resumed as speedily as possible.”

Napoleon’s route led him through Valence, where there was not only the miscellaneous crowd to cheer him, but some true and tried personal friends. For example, there was old Mademoiselle Bou, who had credited him for board. Napoleon greeted her affectionately and made her some valuable presents, which are now to be seen in the museum of the town. Indeed, the news, flashed to all parts of France, “Bonaparte has come!” created a kind of universal transport. One deputy, Baudin by name, died of joy. Chancellor Pasquier relates that he was at the theatre one evening in Paris, when he saw two very pretty women, sitting in the box next to him, receive a message. They rose in excitement and hurried away. These very pretty women, as Pasquier learned, were the sisters of Bonaparte. A courier had brought the news that their brother had landed at FrÉjus. BÉranger says in his autobiography: “I was sitting in our reading room with thirty or forty others, when suddenly the news was brought in that Bonaparte had returned from Egypt. At the words every man in the room started to his feet, and burst into one long shout of joy!”

By the signal telegraph of that day, the news had flown to the capital, and in a short while carriages were rumbling along the road out of Paris toward Lyons, bearing relatives and friends to meet the returning hero. One of these lumbering vehicles bore the uneasy Josephine. At Lyons, Napoleon, suspicious of political foes perhaps, changed his course, and hastened toward Paris by a different road. Would-be assassins, if there were any, as well as faithful friends, would fix their plans for nothing.

When Napoleon got down from his carriage before his house in the street which was called, in compliment to him, the street of Victory, there was no wife, no relative, no friend to greet him. His home was a dismal picture of darkness, silence, desertion; and it chilled him with a painful shock which he never ceased to remember. The anxious Josephine, the faithless wife, had gone to meet him, to weep away her sins on his breast, had missed him because of his change of route; and Napoleon, not knowing this, believed she had fled his home to escape his just anger. Bitter days and nights this eminently human Bonaparte had known; bitter days and nights he was to know again; but it may be doubted whether any of them gave to him a bitterer cup to drink than this of his return from Egypt.

Josephine came posting back as fast as she could, worn out with fear and fatigue. Napoleon refused to see her. Locked in his room, he paced the floor, his mind in a tempest of wrath, grief, mortification, wounded love. The guilty wife grovelled at the door, assaulting the barriers with sobs, plaintive cries, soft entreaties. Her friends, Madame Tallien, the Director Gohier, her children, EugÈne and Hortense, and some of Napoleon’s friends, besieged the infuriated husband, appealing to his pride, his generosity, his self-interest, his fondness for the children,—in short, using every conceivable inducement,—and at length Napoleon, worn out and softened, allowed EugÈne and Hortense to put Josephine into his arms.

Bourrienne relates that many years afterward, strolling along the boulevard with Napoleon, he felt the Emperor’s hand suddenly close on his arm with spasmodic grip. A carriage had just passed, and within it Napoleon had recognized Hypolite Charles, Josephine’s old-time paramour. That this coxcomb still lived, is proof enough that Napoleon the Great scorned personal revenge.

While the hope of the Bonaparte family was in the East, its interest had not been neglected in France. Joseph had been established in state at Paris (town house, country house, etc.) and had cultivated influential men of all parties. Lucien had been elected in Corsica as deputy to the Council of Five Hundred. Bold, and gifted with eloquence, he had become a power in the council, and had been elected its president. Josephine herself had been effective, so splendid had been her establishment, so charming her tact and gracious ways. Therefore, when the returning soldier cast his eye over the political field, there was much to give him satisfaction. He was committed to no party; he was weighed down by no record; he was held in no rigid grooves. Towering above all other heads, he alone could draw strength from all parties. As he himself said, in his march to power he was marching with the nation. Barras admits that all France was rushing to him as to a new existence. That he would become the ruler was expected, was desired; it was only a question of when and how. The almost unanimous voice of the people would have made him Director. Details alone caused differences of opinion. Should the constitution be set aside? Should Bonaparte be one of five Directors? Or should he be vested with a virtual dictatorship? Should the powers of government be distributed, as under the Directory, or should they be concentrated? It was on details like these that differences arose; but as to the importance of having the benefit of Napoleon’s services, the great mass of Frenchmen were agreed. True, the brilliant triumphs of MassÉna around Zurich, and the overthrow of the English and Russians in Holland, by Brune, had saved the Republic from the pressing dangers of foreign invasion; but the foreign invasion was not the only cause of disquiet in France. The root of the evil was thought to be weakness of the government. The constitution had been violated by the Directors in Fructidor when Augereau had broken in upon the councils and arrested so many members. Three Directors, it will be remembered, had driven out two, Carnot and BarthÉlemy. Afterward, in FlorÉal (May 11, 1798), the elections had been set aside to get rid of objectionable members. In each of these cases the vacancies made by force had been filled by the victors.

Then, finally, the reaction had become too strong, and in Prairial (June 18, 1799) the Fructidorians had in turn been beaten, and the Directory changed by the putting in of SieyÈs, Gohier, Moulins, and Roger-Ducos.

People grew weary of so many convulsions, so much uncertainty, so much vacillation, so much disorder. Besides, the finances were in hopeless confusion. National bankruptcy virtually existed, and a forced loan of 100,000,000 francs, the law of hostages, and the vexatious manner in which the new Sunday law was enforced gave offence in all classes. Barras had managed to keep his place in the Directory, but not his power. SieyÈs had entered the Directory, but wished to overthrow it. Even had there been no Bonaparte to plan a change, a change was inevitable. SieyÈs had said, “France needs a head and a sword.” With SieyÈs present, only the sword was lacking, and he had tried to find one. Joubert was chosen, but got killed. Bernadotte was mentioned, but he would not take the risk. Moreau was sounded, but would not agree to act. Nevertheless, it was but a question of time when the man and the opportunity would meet. It might possibly have happened that SieyÈs with his new constitution and his new executive would have saved the Republic. Better men, coming to the front and casting out the scum which had floated to the top of the revolutionary current, might have established the Republic on a solid basis, and saved the world from the hideous revel of blood and carnage which marked the era of Napoleon. No one can tell. It is easy to say that the directorial rÉgime had failed; it is no less easy to say that a change could have been made without rushing into imperialism. Republics, being merely human, cannot be perfected in a day; and there is some injustice in cutting down the tree because it is not laden with fruit as soon as it is planted.

While Napoleon was exploring the ground and selecting his point of attack, the Directory adopted no measures of self-defence. In a general way they suspected Bonaparte and dreaded him, but they had no proofs upon which they could act. Their minister of war, Dubois de CrancÉ told them a plot was brewing, and advised the arrest of Napoleon. “Where are your proofs?” demanded Gohier and Moulins. The minister could not furnish them. Then a police agent warned them. Locking the informer in a room, the Directors began to discuss the matter. The agent became alarmed for his own safety, and escaped through a window.

Anxious to get Napoleon away from Paris, the Directors offered him his choice of the armies. He pleaded shattered health, and declined. There were two parties, possibly three, with the aid of either of which Napoleon might have won his way to power. There were the Jacobins, the remnants of the thorough-going democrats, who had made the Revolution. These were represented in the Directory by Gohier and Moulins, men of moderate capacity and fine character. But Napoleon had been cured of his youthful Jacobinism, and believed that if he now conquered with the democrats, he would soon be called on to conquer against them. Again, there were the moderates, the politicians, who were sincere republicans, but who opposed the radicalism of the democrats on the one hand, and the weakness of the Directory on the other. SieyÈs and Roger-Ducos represented these in the Directory, and their following among the rich and middle-class republicans was very large. Lastly came the Barras following, the Rotten, as Napoleon called them, who would agree to pretty much any change which would not take from them the opportunities of jobbery.

Each of these parties courted Napoleon, who listened to them all, used them all, and deceived them all. Barras he despised, yet lulled to the last moment. Gohier and Moulins were carefully manipulated and elaborately duped. SieyÈs and his associates were used as tools, and then, after the bridge had been crossed, thrown over.

Even the royalists were taken in; they were beguiled with hints that Napoleon was preparing a way for the return of the Bourbons—he to act the part of Monk to the exiled King.

Napoleon’s first plan was to oust from the Directory the hateful SieyÈs,—“that priest sold to Prussia,” and this proposition he urged upon Gohier and Moulins. As there were no legal grounds upon which the election of SieyÈs could be annulled, and as Napoleon himself had not reached the age of forty, required by the constitution, Gohier and Moulins refused to have anything to do with the scheme. Its mere mention should have put them on guard; but it did not. Then Napoleon seemed, for a moment, to consider an alliance with Barras. FouchÉ and other friends of that Director brought the two together, and there was a dinner which was to have smoothed the way to an agreement. Unfortunately for Barras he blundered heavily in proposing an arrangement which meant that he should have the executive power, while Napoleon should merely be military chief. Napoleon, in disgust, looked the Director out of countenance, and, taking his carriage, returned home to tell FouchÉ what a fool Barras had made of himself. The friends of the Director, going to him at once, were able to convince even him that he had bungled stupidly; and next day he hastened to Bonaparte to try again. He was too late. Napoleon, upon leaving Barras the day before had called in to see SieyÈs, and to tell him that the alliance of the Bonapartes would be made with him alone.

Naturally these two men were antagonistic. When Napoleon, quitting the army without orders, had landed at FrÉjus, SieyÈs had proposed to his colleagues in the Directory to have the deserter shot. The weak Directory had no such nerve as such a plan required, and the advice was ignored. SieyÈs detested the abrupt, imperious soldier; and Napoleon despised the ex-priest as a confirmed, unpractical, and conceited visionary. Before he had failed with Gohier and Moulins, Napoleon had treated SieyÈs with such contempt as to ignore his presence, when they were thrown together at one of the official banquets. The enraged ex-priest exclaimed to his friends, “See the insolence of that little fellow to a member of the government which ought to have had him shot!” Napoleon, intent upon the plan of ousting SieyÈs from the Directory, asked his friends, “What were they thinking about to put into the Directory that—priest sold to Prussia?”

Powerful as were these feelings of reciprocal dislike, they were overcome. Talleyrand, Joseph Bonaparte, Cabanis, and others plied both the warrior and the priest with those arguments best suited to each. The promptings of self-interest, as well as the necessities of the case, drew them together. With SieyÈs—jealous, irritable, suspicious, impracticable—the task had been most difficult. He knew he was being ensnared,—emphatically said so,—but yielded.

“Once Napoleon gets in he will push his colleagues behind him, like this,” and SieyÈs forcibly illustrated what he meant by bustling between Joseph and Cabanis, and then thrusting them back. Among the civilians the Bonaparte campaign at this crisis was actively aided by Talleyrand, CambacÉrÈs, Roger-Ducos, Roederer, Boulay, Regnier, Cabanis, the friend of Mirabeau. Among the soldiery the leading canvassers were SÉbastiani, Murat, Leclerc, Marmont, Lannes, Macdonald.

The plan agreed on was that the Council of Ancients, a majority having been gained over, should decree the removal of the legislative sessions to St. Cloud, name Napoleon commander of all the troops in Paris, appoint a provisional consulate (Napoleon, SieyÈs, and Roger-Ducos), during which the councils should stand adjourned and a new constitution be framed. The day fixed upon was the 18th of Brumaire (November 9, 1799), and the Ancients were to meet at seven and pass the decrees agreed on by the Bonaparte steering committee. The Five Hundred, a majority of which had not been won, were to meet after the Ancients should have voted the removal of the councils to St. Cloud. Hence they would be powerless to prevent Napoleon from doing what he proposed for the 18th. Whether they would be able to resist him after they formed themselves at St. Cloud on the 19th, was another matter.