1797.
The royalists of the interior--Bonaparte's intention of marching on Paris with 25,000 men--His animosity against the emigrants and the Clichy Club--His choice between the two parties of the Directory--Augereau's order of the day against the word 'Monsieur'--Bonaparte wishes to be made one of the five Directors--He supports the majority of the Directory--La Vallette, Augereau, and Bernadotte sent to Paris--Interesting correspondence relative to the 18th Fructidor.
Bonaparte had long observed the struggle which was going on between the partisans of royalty and the Republic. He was told that royalism was everywhere on the increase. All the generals who returned from Paris to the army complained of the spirit of reaction they had noticed.
Bonaparte was constantly urged by his private correspondents to take one side or the other, or to act for himself. He was irritated by the audacity of the enemies of the Republic, and he saw plainly that the majority of the councils had an evident ill-will towards him. The orators of the Club of Clichy missed no opportunity of wounding his self- love in speeches and pamphlets. They spared no insults, disparaged his success, and bitterly censured his conduct in Italy, particularly with respect to Venice. Thus his services were recompensed by hatred or ingratitude. About this time he received a pamphlet, which referred to the judgments pronounced upon him by the German journals, and more particularly by the Spectator of the North, which he always made me translate.
Bonaparte was touched to the quick by the comparison make between him and Moreau, and by the wish to represent him as foolhardy ("savants sous Moreau, fougueuse sous Buonaparte"). In the term of "brigands," applied to the generals who fought in La Vendee, he thought he recognized the hand of the party he was about to attack and overthrow. He was tired of the way in which Moreau's system of war was called "savants." But what grieved him still more was to see sitting in the councils of the nation Frenchmen who were detractors and enemies of the national glory.
He urged the Directory to arrest the emigrants, to destroy the influence of foreigners, to recall the armies, to suppress the journals sold to England, such as the 'Quotidienne', the 'Memorial', and the 'The', which he accused of being more sanguinary than Marat ever was. In case of there being no means of putting a stop to assassinations and the influence of Louis XVIII., he offered to resign.
His resolution of passing the Alps with 25,000 men and marching by Lyons and Paris was known in the capital, and discussions arose respecting the consequences of this passage of another Rubicon. On the 17th of August 1797 Carnot wrote to him: "People attribute to you a thousand absurd projects. They cannot believe that a man who has performed so many great exploits can be content to live as a private citizen." This observation applied to Bonaparte's reiterated request to be permitted to retire from the service on account of the state of his health, which, he said, disabled him from mounting his horse, and to the need which he constantly urged of having two years' rest.
The General-in-Chief was justly of opinion that the tardiness of the negotiations and the difficulties which incessantly arose were founded on the expectation of an event which would change the government of France, and render the chances of peace more favourable to Austria. He still urgently recommended the arrest of the emigrants, the stopping of the presses of the royalist journals, which he said were sold to England and Austria, the suppression of the Clichy Club. This club was held at the residence of Gerard Desodieres, in the Rue de Clichy. Aubry, was one of its warmest partisans, and he was the avowed enemy of the revolutionary cause which Bonaparte advocated at this period. Aubry's conduct at this time, together with the part he had taken in provoking Bonaparte's dismissal in 1795, inspired the General with an implacable hatred of him.
Bonaparte despised the Directory, which he accused of weakness, indecision, pusillanimity, wasteful expenditure, of many errors, and perseverance in a system degrading to the national glory.
--[The Directory merited those accusations. The following sketches of two of their official sittings present a singular contrast:
At the time that the Directory were first installed in the Luxembourg (27th October 1795)." says M. Baileul, "there was hardly a single article of furniture in it. In a small room, round a little broken table, one of the legs of which had given way from age, on which table they had deposited a quire of letter-paper, and a writing desk 'a calamet', which luckily they had had the precaution to bring with them from the Committee of Public safety, seated on four rush-bottomed chairs, in front of some logs of wood ill-lighted, the whole borrowed from the porter Dupont; who would believe that it was in this deplorable condition that the member's of the new Government, after having examined all the difficulties, nay, let me add, all the horrors of their situation, resolved to confront all obstacles, and that they would either deliver France from the abyss in which she was plunged or perish in the attempt?
They drew up on a sheet of letter-paper the act by which they declared themselves constituted, and immediately forwarded it to the Legislative Bodies."
And the Comte de La Vallette, writing to M. Cuvillier Fleury, says:
