The Days of the French Revolution (34 page)

He allowed himself to be led away; but in the courtyard he was given a message from Fouché and Talleyrand in Paris who wrote to say that there was not a moment to lose, that the time for decisive action had come. Surrounded by soldiers, he thereupon marched into the Orangery where the deputies of the Five Hundred rose to their feet in horror at this illegal intrusion. Some of them left their seats, shaking their fists in his face, punching him in the chest, seizing hold of his collar. ‘Outlaw him!’ they shouted. ‘Down with the military dictator!’ Looking shocked and pale and as though about to faint – he afterwards admitted that he lost his nerve that day – he was dragged from the hall by four of his grenadiers.

When the rest of the men heard what had happened to their General, they furiously demanded orders to clear the
péquins
out of the Orangery. And when shouts of ‘Outlaw him! Outlaw him!’ reached Bonaparte’s ears through the windows of the hall, he real
ized that he must act if only to save himself. Resolving to make an appeal to the Council’s bodyguard who seemed as yet reluctant to support him, he sent a message to his brother to come out to help him.

Lucien had been presiding over the increasingly rowdy session, firmly resisting the demands for a vote to be taken on a motion declaring the General an outlaw. He came out of the hall immediately in response to his brother’s request and went over with him to the Council’s guards.

‘The President of the Council of Five Hundred declares to you that the great majority of the Council is, at this very moment, terrorized by certain deputies,’ Lucien announced to them. ‘They are armed with daggers…and probably in the pay of England.’ He added that an attempt had been made to assassinate the General whose pale face, bleeding where he himself had scratched it in his excitement, lent force to the suggestion. The Guards were at first hesitant, but when Lucien, pointing a sword at his brother’s chest, cried out, ‘I swear to kill my own brother if he ever interferes with the freedom of Frenchmen,’ they allowed themselves to be persuaded by his lies, and stood by while a column of soldiers, led by Joachim Murat, marched upon the Orangery with drums beating and bayonets fixed. At the sight of their approach the deputies fled from the building, several of them jumping out of the windows, the braver among them shouting, ‘Long live the Republic!’ as they ran off through the park.

Both Councils were thus demolished and later replaced by two commissions of twenty-five members each. These commissions were required to prepare a new Constitution; and in this they were to take the advice of the ‘Consuls of the French Republic’–Sieyès, Ducos and Bonaparte.

Bonaparte’s name came last of the three. But no one doubted that his was the one that mattered. The other two, priest and lawyer, soon faded into the background, and before long Bonaparte was First Consul. Five years later he was Emperor. It was he, the soldier, who was the Revolution’s heir, and ultimately its victim.

The fate of characters
whose end is not recorded in the text

A
LIGRE
. Emigrated to England, then moved to Brunswick where he died in 1798.

A
MAR
. Lived in obscurity during the Consulate and Empire and was still in Paris in 1815. Having accepted no employment under Napoleon and taken no oath, he escaped the law which forced other regicides into exile. He died in Paris in 1816.

A
RTOIS
. Became King Charles X on the death of his brother Louis XVIII in 1824. A characteristic Bourbon, he could neither learn nor forget. His reactionary rule ended with the July Revolution of 1830 when the former Duc de Chartres, now Duc d’Orléans, became King Louis Philippe.

A
UGEARD
. After the arrest of the royal family at Varennes he went to Brussels where he publicized the royalist manifesto against the Constitution of 1791. He soon returned to Paris and took part in various intrigues. Emigrated in 1792. Returning to France after 18
Brumaire
, he died in Paris in 1805.

A
UGEREAU
. Became a marshal in 1804 and distinguished himself at Jena and Eylau where he was badly wounded and thereafter never recovered his former powers. He agreed to serve Louis XVIII at the first Restoration, then, during the Hundred Days, offered his services to Napoleon who refused them, calling him a traitor. He was deprived of his rank and pension at the second Restoration of Louis XVIII in 1815 and died the following year.

B
ARBAROUX
. After the fall of the Girondins he escaped to Caen, then moved to Saint-Émilion where he wrote his
Mémoires
. His hiding place discovered in June 1794, he tried to shoot himself but missed his aim, shattered his jaw and mutilated his tongue. Thus painfully wounded he was taken to Bordeaux and there guillotined.

B
ARENTIN
. Emigrated in 1790, first to Piedmont, then to Germany and finally to England. Returned to France after the First Restoration but on account of his age was not reappointed Keeper of the Seals. He died in Paris in May 1819.

B
ARÉRE
. Removed from the Isle of Oléron to Saintes, he escaped to Bordeaux and remained there in hiding for some years. On his emergence, Bonaparte employed him as a secret agent. At the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty he was banished from France as a regicide–‘the tree of liberty could not grow if it were not watered with the blood of Kings’, he had declared during Louis XVI’s trial. He went to live in Belgium, returning to France after the revolution of July 1830. He was granted a pension by King Louis Philippe and died in 1841 at the age of eighty-five, the last survivor of the Committee of Public Safety.

B
ARRAS
. His political life came to an end with the fall of the Directory. Having amassed a great fortune he lived in luxurious comfort until his death in 1829.

B
ARTHÉLEMY
. Escaped from French Guiana to the United States, thence to England. Returned to France after 18
Brumaire
and entered the Senate. Deserted Napoleon in 1814, went into hiding during the Hundred Days, and was created a marquis after the second Restoration. He died in 1819.

B
ERNADOTTE
. Appointed a marshal of France under the Empire, he was elected successor to the Swedish throne in 1810. He became King Charles XIV of Sweden in 1818 and died at Stockholm in 1844.

B
ESENVAL
. Arrested after the fall of the Bastille, he was brought to trial by the tribunal of the Châtelet and acquitted. He died in obscurity in Paris in 1794.

B
ILLAUD-
V
ARENNE
. Deported to French Guiana after the insurrection of 12
Germinal
1795, he survived the ‘dry guillotine’ in a hut made of palm leaves and refused a pardon offered him by Napoleon after 18
Brumaire
. He left Guiana in 1816 for Haiti where he died of dysentery three years later.

B
OISSY
D’
ANGLAS
. Suspected of royalism by the Directory whom he vigorously attacked, he was proscribed on 18
Fructidor
1797 and went
to live in England. Returning to France after 18
Brumaire
, he was elected a member of the Tribunate, a senator in 1805 and a peer of France in 1814. He served Napoleon during the Hundred Days and was consequently for a time excluded from the chamber of peers. He died in 1828.

B
ONAPARTE, LUCIEN
. Became Minister of the Interior during the Consulate but differences of opinion with his brother led to his dismissal. He was appointed Ambassador in Madrid in 1800 but disagreed with his brother there, too. The final break with Napoleon came when he married his mistress instead of the widow of the King of Etruria as was required of him. He went to live in Italy, and subsequently lived in England having been captured by a British ship on his way to the United States. He returned to Rome in 1814, but went back to France to support Napoleon, with whom he was by then reconciled, during the Hundred Days. Returning once more to Italy at the Second Restoration, he died in Rome in 1840.

B
OURDON, LÉONARD
. Arrested after 12
Germinal
and imprisoned in the Château de Ham from which he was released by the Directory to establish a
comité de propagande
in Hamburg. Soon recalled, he was appointed a member of the administrative council of the military hospital at Toulon under the Consulate. He died shortly before the Restoration.

B
OURDON DE L
’O
ISE
. Arrested after 18
Fructidor
, he was deported to French Guiana where he died soon after his arrival.

B
OURIENNE
. Sent to Hamburg as French envoy in 1802, he was recalled in disgrace in 1810, having accumulated an enormous fortune. He went over to the Bourbons in 1814, and thereafter lived in obscurity, dying at Caen in 1834.

B
RETEUIL
. After the fall of the Bastille, he fled to Switzerland, one of the first of the
émigrés
. For some time he acted for Louis XVI in negotiations with the European courts and with the Comtes de Provence and Artois; but, following the execution of Marie Antoinette, he retired into private life in Germany. He returned to France in 1802 and died in Paris in 1806.

B
RIENNE
. Returned to France from Italy at the outbreak of the Revolution and took the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Tried to explain his conduct to the Pope who would not excuse it and accepted his resignation as a cardinal. Distrusted also by the revolutionary Government, he was arrested at Sens in November 1793 and died in prison soon afterwards either of poisoning or of a stroke.

B
ROGLIE
. An early
émigré
, he commanded the ‘army of the princes’ for a short time in 1792. He died at Münster in 1804.

B
UZOT
. After the fall of the Girondins, he fled to Normandy thence, when the uprising there failed, to the Gironde. Hunted by police spies with trained dogs he was forced to leave his hiding place and on 18 June 1794 his body, partly devoured by animals, was found on the outskirts of a wood near Châtillon.

C
ALONNE
. After being dismissed by Louis XVI and exiled to Lorraine, he went to live in England where he corresponded with Necker. Forbidden to return to France to offer himself for election to the Estates General in 1789, he joined the
émigrés
at Coblenz. He went back to France with Napoleon’s permission in 1802, but died a few weeks after his arrival.

C
AMBON
. During the Thermidorian reaction he was proscribed as a former Montagnard and felt compelled to leave France. He returned in 1795 and went to live in retirement near Montpelier. Condemned as a regicide in 1816 he had to go abroad again. He died in Brussels in 1820.

C
ARNOT
. Fled abroad after the
coup d’état
of 18
Fructidor
, returning after 18
Brumaire
and becoming Minister of War in 1800. He resigned the following year and in 1810 published his celebrated work on fortifications,
De la défense des places fortes
. When France was threatened in 1814 he offered his services to Napoleon and was appointed Governor of Antwerp. Minister of the Interior during the Hundred Days, he had to go abroad again on the second Restoration. He died at Magdeburg in 1823.

C
AZALÈS
. Emigrated after the fall of the monarchy in 1792. He fought with the
émigré
army. Returning to France in 1802, he died two years later.

C
HABOT
. Compromised in financial speculations in 1794, he was executed with the Dantonists who protested against being associated with this former Franciscan friar, the ‘
fripon
’, who had claimed Christ as the ‘first of the
sans-culottes
’.

C
HARTRES
. Driven from France by the hostility of Louis XVIII, he went to live in England. He became Louis Philippe after the deposition of Charles X in 1830. Following the revolution of 1848 he fled to England and died at Claremont, Surrey, in 1850.

C
HOISEUL
. Arrested after the flight to Varennes and imprisoned at Verdun. Transferred to Orléans, he was released when the King accepted the Constitution and returned to Paris where he was appointed
chevalier d’honneur
to the Queen. After the Queen’s imprisonment in the Temple, he fled to England in the guise of a Spaniard. On his return he was accused of taking part in a conspiracy against Bonaparte and exiled. At the Restoration he was created a peer of France and later became aide-de-camp to Louis Philippe and Governor of the Louvre. Died in Paris in 1838.

C
LERMONT-
T
ONNERRE
. Having advocated Louis XVI’s right to an absolute veto, he was murdered by the mob during the insurrection of 16 August 1792.

C
LÉRY
. Remained in the Temple until March 1793 when he was released and went to live at Juvisy. He was rearrested in May and imprisoned in La Force. Saved by
Thermidor
, he went to Strasbourg where he wrote his memoirs which were published in London in 1798. He returned to Paris in 1802 where he tried to get a new edition of the memoirs published. The authorities refused to allow this unless an apology for the new régime was included. He declined the compromise and later angered Napoleon by turning down the offer of becoming First Chamberlain to the Empress Josephine. He left France and died at Vienna in 1809.

C
OFFINHALL
. Escaped from the Hôtel de Ville on 9
Thermidor
and hid in a boat on the Seine near the Île des Cygnes for three days. Anxious for news, he went to his mistress’s house in the Rue Montorgueil where he was arrested. His identity being established he was executed the same day.

C
OLLOT D
’H
ERBOIS
. A victim of the ‘dry guillotine’, he died at Cayenne in 1796, less than a year after his transportation there.

C
ONDORCET
. His outspoken support of the Girondins and condemnation of the Montagnards led to his being declared
hors la loi
. Concealed for a time by Madame Vernet, the widow of a sculptor, he left her house for the country where he died in April 1794, evidently of exposure and exhaustion.

C
ORDAY
. Perfectly composed during her trial, she moved her position so that a man who was sketching her portrait could get a better view of her. In the tumbril Sanson said to her conversationally, ‘It’s a long journey, isn’t it?’ ‘We’re bound to get there,’ she replied, ‘in the end.’ Sanson, profoundly impressed by her beauty and courage, considerately stood up when they came in sight of the guillotine so that she should not see it, but she asked him to sit down: a person in her position was ‘naturally curious’. After her execution Sanson’s assistant picked up the head to show to the crowd and slapped it across the cheek. Some said
they saw her face blush; others maintained it was the effect of the red stormy sunset. ‘
Elle nous perd
,’ Vergniaud said, ‘
mais elle nous apprend à mourir
.’

C
ORNY
. Dismayed by the course the Revolution was taking, he fell ill and died in November 1790.

D
AVID
. As enthusiastic a supporter of Napoleon as of the Jacobins, David’s portrait of Napoleon pointing the way to Italy is a characteristic apotheosis. At the Restoration he was exiled as a regicide and went to live in Brussels. He died in December 1825.

D
ROUET
. Declining a reward of 30,000 francs for his part in the capture of the King at Varennes, he was elected to the Convention where he became notorious for the violence of his proposals which included one for the execution of all English residents in France. While on a mission to the army he was captured by the Austrians, later being released with a group of other prisoners in exchange for Madame Royale. Elected to the Council of Five Hundred, he was arrested for his part in Babeuf’s conspiracy. He escaped, fled to Switzerland and then to Teneriffe. Returning to France, he was forced into exile again by the second Restoration. He went back secretly, however, and settled down under an assumed name at Mâcon where he died in 1824.

D
UCOS
. Voted for Napoleon’s deposition in 1814, but gained no favour with the Bourbons. Exiled as a regicide in 1816, he died in a carriage accident at Ulm the same year.

D
UMONT
. Died of natural causes in January 1830.

D
UMOURIEZ
. Intrigued against Louis XVIII and endeavoured to establish an Oréanist monarchy. He went to live in England and was granted a pension by the Government to whom he gave military advice during the Napoleonic wars. He died at Turville Park, Henley-on-Thames in 1823 and was buried in Henley parish church.

D
UPONT DE
N
EMOURS
. Emigrated to the United States in 1799. He returned to France in 1802 but refused office under Napoleon. Appointed a Councillor of State on the first Restoration, he returned to America in 1815 when Napoleon escaped from Elba and died near Wilmington, Delaware in 1817.