.

The Directory was a Council of Five. It was a sort of five-headed
presidency; and each head was the head of a Jacobin. One of the heads
was called Barras. One was called Carnot. Another was called
Barthelemy. Another was Roger Ducos; another was the Abbe Sieyes. That
was the greatest head of them all. The heads were much mixed, though
the body was one. In such a body cross counsels were always uppermost,
and there was a want of decision and force in the government.

This condition of the Executive Department led to the deplorable
reverses which overtook the French armies during the absence of
General Bonaparte in Egypt. Thiers says that the Directorial Republic
exhibited at this time a scene of distressing confusion. He adds: "The
Directory gave up guillotining; it only transported. It ceased to
force people to take assignats upon pain of death; but it paid nobody.
Our soldiers, without arms and without bread, were beaten instead of
being victorious."

The ambition of Napoleon found in this situation a fitting
opportunity. The legislative branch of the government consisted of a
Senate, or Council of Ancients, and a Council of Five Hundred. The
latter constituted the popular branch. Of this body Lucien Bonaparte,
brother of the general, was president. Hardly had Napoleon arrived in
the capital on his return from Egypt when a conspiracy was formed by
him with Sieyes, Lucien and others of revolutionary disposition, to do
away by a _coup_ with the too democratic system, and to replace it
with a stronger and more centralized order. The Council of Ancients
was to be brought around by the influence of Sieyes. To Lucien
Bonaparte the more difficult task was assigned of controlling and
revolutionizing the Assembly. As for Napoleon, Sieyes procured for him
the command of the military forces of Paris; and by another decree the
sittings of the two legislative bodies were transferred to St. Cloud.

The eighteenth Brumaire of the Year VIII, corresponding to the ninth
of November, 1799, was fixed as the day for the revolution. By that
date soldiers to the number of 10,000 men had been collected in the
gardens of the Tuileries. There they were reviewed by General
Bonaparte and the leading officers of his command. He read to the
soldiers the decree which had just been issued under the authority of
the Council of the Ancients. This included the order for the removal
of the legislative body to St. Cloud, and for his own command. He