mmtmum. By spring such an operation was no longer feasible and, as
everything would not be ready before April 1798 that seemed to rule out
the possibility of a descent on England.
On 23 February, three days after returning to Paris via St-Quentin,
Douai and La Fere, Napoleon indited a long letter to the Directors,
setting out his reasons why he considered an invasion of England
chimerical: 'However hard we try, we will not achieve naval supremacy in
a few years. To undertake an invasion of England without being masters
of the sea would be the boldest and most difficult operation ever carried
out and would require the long nights of winter. After the month of April
it would be impossible to attempt anything.' He suggested instead either
throwing in the towel and concluding peace terms with England or
launching an attack on Hanover which, though it might ignite a
premature war in Europe, would at least chime with the analysis he made
elsewhere of Barras and his colleagues: 'The Directory was dominated by
its own weakness; in order to exist it needed a permanent state of war just
as other governments need peace.'
Next day there was a stormy meeting in the Directory. The Five
Directors seemed unable to grasp that Bonaparte was actually refusing to
proceed with the descent on England. They asked him what his terms
were. When he replied with what he thought were impossibly steep
demands, they agreed to meet them. In frustration he suggested
deputising his protege General Caffarelli Dufalga as de facto commander
of the invasion attempt, but Reubell countered by putting up his own
candidate, who would not be under Bonaparte's thumb. At this point
Napoleon lost his temper and exclaimed: 'Do what you will, but I am
commanding any descent on England.' His threat to resign if the
Directors were dissatisfied was met by the now equally agitated Reubell
with a histrionic flourish: 'Here is a pen. The Directory awaits your
letter.' At this point Barras, realizing that there might soon be blood on
the streets of Paris, before he had considered his own position carefully
enough, intervened to pour oil on troubled waters. Napoleon promised to
let the Five have a memorandum on his further thinking.
What Napoleon did not say in his letter of 23 February was that his
own future prospects precluded a descent on England. This was a
venture fit for a political gambler betting on a rank outsider, and
Bonaparte was too well ensconced to need to take such risks. He had
never yet been associated with failure and did not intend to start in the
Channel. But how to prevent his star from slipping over the horizon?
After three months on a precarious political tightrope in France, his
lustre was beginning to dim. He had either to engineer a coup and make
marcin
(Marcin)
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