'Constitutional Society' - a Jacobin club which had hitherto been a
bugbear for the Directory.
The third party in the ring was the Thermidoreans who wanted to end
the Revolution on an 'as is' basis, leaving them as the beneficiaries of the
sale of national property. They wanted neither the true social revolution
of the Jacobins nor the restoration of the monarchy. These were in
essence the people who had held power since the fall of Robespierre in
1794, the veterans of the revolutionary assemblies who now wanted a
cosmetic change of regime that would allow them to emerge untarnished
by the image of the Directory yet in possession of all their economic
gains. These were the men who held power as a result of a whole series of
illegal actions, principally the Decree of Two-Thirds against the royalists
and the Florea! coup against the Jacobins; their hallmark was the ruthless
sacrifice of their weakest members so as to cling to power. At root the
Thermidoreans wanted a Republic dedicated to the interests of the rich -
rather like the U.S.A. at that time under Washington and Jefferson.
Since the great personalities of the royalist movement were in exile and
those of the Jacobin club were generals like Bernadotte, Jom:dan and
Augereau, it was on the Thermidoreans and the five Directors that
Napoleon directed most of his attention during the critical period from r6
October to 9 November I799· General Moulin and Roger Ducos were the
two minor Directors, basically nonentities. The three key figures were
Barras, Sieyes and Gohier. Barras was still ostensibly the key man, still
linked to Bonaparte through Josephine, but increasingly perceived as
erratic and harbouring secret royalist sympathies. Gohier and his stooge
Moulin supported the status quo, but because Gohier was physically
attracted to Josephine, there were obvious possibilities for Napoleon to
neutralize him in any power struggle.
The most dangerous man in the Directory, was the fifty-one-year-old
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, who had gradually usurped Barras's premier
position on the executive while Napoleon was in Egypt. Sieyes had
betrayed Danton, and later Robespierre, and when asked what he had
done during the Terror, replied: 'I survived.' This grim cynic now
had Barras firmly in his sights, and to this end had constructed a loose
coalition of intriguers, including Talleyrand, Fouche and Lucien
Bonaparte. The hotheaded Lucien, who had brought the Bonaparte
family close to disaster by his denunciation of Paoli, nearly ruined things
again by shooting from the hip. He started a whispering campaign that
Barras had deliberately sent Napoleon and the cream of the army into the
'deserts of Araby' to perish. To cover his tracks he bracketed Talleyrand
with Barras as the two men jointly responsible. Barras knew how to deal
marcin
(Marcin)
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