Coup of 18 Brumaire

On the 9th and 10th November 1799 the Directory was overthrown.  Key players in the coup were Sieyes (who was a director at the time), Talleyrand, Fouché and the recently returned (from Egypt) general Napoleon Bonaparte.

On the 10th November Barras agreed (possibly with a financial incentive) to resign as a Director.  Abbé Sieyès and Roger Ducos both resigned as Directors.  The other two Directors who were less compliant were under guard in their apartments.  Lucien Bonaparte (President of the Council of 500 at the time) convinced the Councils to meet for their own safety at Saint Cloud as he insisted they were in imminent danger of a Jacobin coup.

On the following day at Saint Cloud the Council of 500 demanded a roll call for all those still loyalty to the Directory and the Council of Elders started to call for election of new Directors.  Bonaparte started to shout out only to be surrounded by deputies Lucien pushed his brother out.  Bonaparte then entered the Council of 500 and met an exceptionally hostile atmosphere and he was jostled by the irate deputies.  Lucien called on the grenadiers to protect the general.

Whilst inside the deputies debated as to whether declare Napoleon an outlaw.  Outside Lucien told the waiting soldiers that a Jacobin coup was underway and that his brother had been attacked by deputies with daggers.  The troops marched in under the command of Murat and dispersed the deputies.  The Council of Ancients passed a law declaring Napoleon, Sieyès, and Ducos provisional consuls.  The expected protests in the street did not materialise and the plotters were able to plan the future of France without the imminent threat of destruction.

Shortly afterwards the plotters created two commissions to oversee the transition to a new government.  It was decided to exile up to twenty Jacobin exiles and draw up a new Constitution.  The Constitution declared that the First Consul would have greater power than the other two consuls.  Napoleon would be that First Consul.

Germaine De Staël on the planning of Brumaire .  Taken from Considerations on the Principle events of the French Revolution, Germaine De Staël, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis (2008) p430

I learned that during the five weeks which Bonaparte had spent at Paris since his return, he had been preparing the public mind for the Revolution which had just taken place.  Every faction had presented itself to him, and he had given hopes to all.  He had told the Jacobins that he would save them from the return of the old dynasty; he had, on the contrary, suffered the royalists to flatter themselves that he would re-establish the Bourbons; he had insinuated to Sieyes that he would give him an opportunity of bringing forth into light the constitution which he had been keeping in darkness for ten years; he had above all, captivated the public, which belongs to no faction, by general proclamations of love of order and tranquillity.  Mention was made to him of a woman whose papers the Directory had caused to be seized; he exclaimed on the absurd atrocity of tormenting women, he who, according to his caprice, has condemned so many of them to unlimited exile; he spoke only of peace, he who has introduced eternal war into the world.  Finally, there was in his manner an affectation of gentleness, which formed an odious contrast with what was known of his violence.  But, after ten years of suffering, enthusiastic attachment to ideas had given way in revolutionary characters to personal hopes and fears.