extreme republicans, led by the Director Barras, for the overthrow of the Directory and the legislative Councils, which had fallen into contempt on account of the French disasters in Germany and Italy and because of their weakness at home. Bonaparte decided on entering into a scheme with Sieyes and the moderate party, as they would be less likely to interfere with his measures when his personal government should be established. With this design he won all the French generals except Bernadotte to his plans, and he also gained the support of the garrison of Paris. His Designs against the Directory. Revolu tion of the Eighteenth Brumaire. On the 18th Brumaire, November 9, 1799, Regnier, one of the conspirators, induced the Council of Ancients to assign the command of the National Guard and of all the troops in Paris to Bonaparte, and to pass a decree for the transfer of the sittings of the two legislative Councils to St. Cloud, where their deliberations might be more free than in Paris. Bonaparte, as commander of the division of Paris and head of the military power, was charged with the execution of this decree. The Directors Sieyes and Roger-Ducos proceeded from the Luxembourg Palace to the legislative Councils and the military camp at the Tuileries and tendered their resignations. The other three Directors endeavored to use their authority and to secure the protection, of their guard, but the guard refused to obey them. Barras then sent in his resignation as Director and started for his estate of Grosbosis. Thus the Directory was dissolved on the 18th Brumaire, and only the Directory. legislative Councils remained. Dissolution of the The Nine On the 19th Brumaire, November 10, 1799, the legislative Councils proceeded to St. Cloud, accompanied by a military force. As soon as teenth the Council of Five Hundred had assembled in session one of the con- Brumaire. spirators offered a motion which gave rise to a violent tumult, which ended in every member taking the oath of allegiance to the republican constitution. Should the Council of Ancients do the same Bonaparte would be deserted and defeated. The crisis had therefore arrived. He accordingly hastened to the Council of Ancients; and when he was summoned to take the oath to the constitution he declared that it no longer existed, that it was the watchword of all factions and had been violated by all, and that, as it was no longer respected, it must be re- Ancients. placed by another compact and other guarantees. The Council of Ancients approved his address. Bonaparte next proceeded to the Council of Five Hundred to appease that stormy assembly and to obtain its consent to his plans. But his presence and the sight of the grenadiers whom he left at the door with fixed bayonets impressed the members with the fear of military violence; and they reproached and threatened him, and all cried: "Outlaw him! Down with the Dictator! The great military leader Dissolu tion of the Council of Uproar in the Council of Five Hundred. Its Forced Dissolu tion by Bonaparte. who had stood fearless before the fire of foreign foes was disconcerted for the moment by the menaces of a deliberate assembly. He turned pale and became embarrassed, and at once withdrew from the hall and was led away by the grenadiers who had acted as his escort. The tumult continued to rage in the Council of Five Hundred, of which Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was president. He attempted to defend Napoleon; but the other members loudly demanded the outlawry of the military leader; and Lucien Bonaparte retired from the chair and cast off the insignia of his office, and was at once escorted from the chamber by a guard sent for that purpose by Napoleon. Sieyès, who was better able to conduct a revolution than Napoleon, advised a resort to military force. Napoleon and his brother, Lucien Bonaparte, harangued the troops, the one as the conqueror of Italy and Egypt, and the other as president of the Council of Five Hundred. Napoleon asked: "Soldiers, can I depend on you?" The soldiers all responded: "Yes, yes." Napoleon instantly ordered General Joachim Murat to expel the Council of Five Hundred from the chamber. Murat accordingly led a troop of grenadiers into the hall, and exclaimed: "In the name of General Bonaparte, the legislative body is dissolved. Let all good citizens retire. Grenadiers, advance!" The shouts of indignation which arose in reply to Murat's pithy proclamation were drowned in the rolling of drums. The grenadiers advanced with fixed bayonets along the whole length of the hall, and the members fled out of the doors and windows with shouts of "Vive la Republique!" That Republic thereafter existed only in name a few years longer. Thus the Constitution of the Year III. was overthrown by the military usurpation known as the Revolution of the Eighteenth Brumaire. Napoleon Bonaparte now took the government of France into his own strong hands; and France, under the name of a Republic, again became an autocracy, under the Constitution of the Year VIII. Thus the liberty which the French Revolution sought to establish was immolated on the altar of personal ambition. Constitu tion of the Year VIII. SECTION VI.-NAPOLEON'S CONSULATE AND ACCESSION WE have seen that, by the overthrow of the Directory, on the 18th Brumaire, Napoleon Bonaparte took the government of France into his own hands. On the 22d Frimaire, December 13, 1799, the Constitution of the Year VIII. was proclaimed for France, by which the executive power was vested in three Consuls, who were to be elected for Bona parte, First Consul. ten years. The First Consul, as Napoleon was called, possessed all Napoleon the powers of a monarch. The other two Consuls-at first Sieyes and Roger-Ducos, who were soon succeeded by Lebrun and Cambacéres-were the advisers of the First Consul. Talleyrand was appointed Minister of the Interior, and Fouché became Minister of Police. There was a Senate of eighty members, whose duty was to select persons for the legislature and the chief judges and officials. The legislative and Corps power was entrusted to a Tribunate of one hundred members, who were to discuss the proposals of the government, and the Corps Legislatif, which had the right only of approving or rejecting these proposals. Bonaparte, after securing the chief authority in France, proposed peace to Great Britain and Austria, the only nations then at war with France; writing letters with his own hand to King George III. and the Emperor Francis II. Both powers refused to treat until the Bourbons should be restored to the throne of France, and the most energetic preparations were made on both sides for a vigorous prosecution of the war. Senate, Tribunate Legislatif. Bona parte's Peace Offers. A French army of one hundred and thirty thousand men under Moreau in Germany. Moreau advanced into Germany, gained several victories at Engen and Moeskirch, in Baden, compelled the Austrians to a hasty retreat, Massena's advanced to Munich and laid Bavaria under contribution. Another French army of thirty-six thousand men in Italy, under Massena, was compelled to surrender to the Austrians at Genoa. On hearing of the surrender of Massena, Bonaparte started for Italy, at the head of fifty thousand troops. He crossed the Alps at the difficult pass of Great St. Bernard. Difficulties almost insurmountable presented themselves. Precipices, ravines and eternal snows seemed to forbid a passage; but the army followed a narrow path, known to no living creature but the chamois and the hunter. The artillery was taken apart, and the pieces were placed in the hollow trunks of trees, which were drawn across the mountains by the soldiers. The troops were encouraged by the music of the bands, and where the ascent was most difficult the drums beat a charge. The Austrians were completely surprised when Bonaparte's army suddenly appeared on the Italian plains. The advance guard under General Lannes entered Piedmont, May 16, 1800. Another French division under General Moncey crossed Mont St. Gotthard, and another under General Thuneau passed over Mont Cenis. All were reunited in Lombardy, and Bonaparte occupied Milan, June 2, 1800. On the 9th of June, 1800, a part of the French army, under General Lannes, defeated the Austrians at Montebello; and on the 14th (June, 1800) Bonaparte at the head of twenty thousand men encountered thirty thousand Austrians under General Melas at the village Surrender at Genoa. Bonaparte's Passage of the Alps and Invasion of Italy. Battles of bello and Marengo. Monte Passage of the Splugen. Battle of Hohenlinden. Campbell's Poem. of Marengo. The French were at first driven back; but the obstinate resistance of Desaix, who had just arrived from Egypt, and the charge of the brave Kellerman changed the result; and the battle ended in the complete overthrow of the Austrian army. Among the killed on the side of the French was the heroic General Desaix. The result of the French victory was an armistice. In November, 1800, Marshal Macdonald, with fifteen thousand French troops, crossed the Alps into Italy at the difficult pass of the Splugen, thus increasing the French forces in Italy to one hundred thousand men. When the negotiations for peace between France and Great Britain failed, the armistice between France and Austria terminated; and an Austrian army of eighty thousand men, under the Archduke John, which had advanced into Bavaria, was defeated with heavy loss by the French army under Moreau in the celebrated battle of Hohenlinden, on the 3d of December, 1800, and compelled to retreat toward Vienna. On the 25th an armistice was concluded. The following is the well-known poem of the celebrated Scotch poet Thomas Campbell on the battle of Hohenlinden: "On Linden, when the sun was low, "But Linden saw another sight When the drum beat at dead of night, "By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, "Then shook the hills with thunder riven; "But redder yet those fires shall glow ""Tis morn; but scarce yon lurid sun Shout in their sulphurous canopy. "The combat deepens. On ye brave "Ah, few shall part, where many meet! Plot to Kill Bona Plots for the assassination of Bonaparte were undertaken both by the republicans and by the royalists. On the 24th of December, 1800, while he was crossing a narrow street in Paris, a cask filled with powder, parte. called "The Infernal Machine," exploded, and killed several persons; but the First Consul escaped unhurt. In consequence of this plot many Jacobins were exiled from France, though it was afterward discovered that the plot was the work of the royalists. Luneville. The battles of Marengo and Hohenlinden completely broke the power Peace of of Austria, so that nothing remained for the Emperor but to accept such terms as France chose to dictate; and on the 9th of February, 1801, a treaty of peace, signed at Lunéville, put an end to the war between France and Austria; and Great Britain was the only nation that remained at war with France. By the Peace of Lunéville, Austria recognized the Batavian, Helvetic, Ligurian and Cisalpine Republics, and ceded the Duchy of Modena to the last-named, and an Italian Republic was formed with Bonaparte as President; and the German princes and the imperial estates were indemnified for their losses by the secularized Church property and the abolished imperial cities on the east side of the Rhine. By a subsequent treaty between France and Spain, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was erected into the Kingdom of Etruria and assigned to a son-in-law of Charles IV., while Spain retroceded the vast territory of Louisiana in North America to France. Through the influence of Bonaparte, Denmark, Sweden, Russia and Prussia had been induced, late in the year 1800, to enter into a league against the maritime power of Great Britain. The Emperor Paul of Russia, the bitter enemy of Great Britain, was the head and soul of this league. Paul had already laid an embargo on British vessels in Russian ports, while the Danish government had ordered its vessels to resist “the right of search " claimed by the British. powers After unsuccessful attempts at negotiation with the hostile which formed the league, the British government sent a powerful naval expedition under Lord Nelson and Sir Hyde Parker to the Baltic. On the 2d of April, 1801, the British fleet appeared before Copenhagen, when it was furiously attacked by the Danish fleet. A bloody naval battle of four hours ensued, resulting in the defeat of the Danes, Kingdom of Etruria. Northern League against Great Britain. Naval Battle of Copen hagen. |