Episode 39 Bonaparte Seizes Power
Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon
Dr Suzanne M Desan
Film Review
Although Napoleon could have been shot for abandoning his army in Egypt (see French Revolution: Napoleon Invades Egypt), his skill at self-promotion made him a national hero. In 1799, Directory member Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès shoulder-trapped him to launch a coup ending the Revolution and installing a more conservative/authoritarian government.
Although the Directory lasted the longest of any of France’s revolutionary governments, it was extremely ineffectual owing to intense factional fighting between conservative and left-leaning Directors. It had already overturned several elections. In the Coup of Fructidor (18 Fructidor or September 4, 1797), recently elected neo-Jacobins ousted its three most conservative Directors and arrested and deported 53 conservative deputies. In 1798, majority conservatives launched a similar purge against recently elected leftist deputies.
Facing imminent invasion by an Austrian regime fearful the French revolution would spread to the rest of Europe, by 1799 the Directory had lost popular support – mainly due to its enactment of universal conscription (to defend France against Austria and other European regimes threatening to crush the revolution) and strict laws limiting religious practice.
Fellow coup conspirators in the legislature’s upper chamber prepared for the imminent coup by moving both legislative chambers to the Paris suburb of St Cloud (they used a rumored neo-Jacobian coup* as an excuse). After Napoleon, who the Directory had appointed Commissioner of Paris, assembled 7,000 troops outside the chambers, three (of the five) Directory members resigned.
The first time Napoleon and his troops stormed first the upper and lower chamber, the deputies shouted them down and they withdrew. After lower chamber president, Napoleon’s brother Lucien Bonaparte, gave the troops a rousing speech about their essential role in preventing a return of the Reign of Terror, they stormed the lower chamber with drawn bayonets. When General Joachim Murat (who later married Napoleon’s sister Caroline) gave the order to physically expel the deputies, they fled of their own accord.
Napoleon supporters in the upper chamber proceeded to vote the Directory out of existence, replacing it with a new government consisting of three proconsuls (which included Napoleon and Sieyès).
*Which they feared could trigger a popular uprising in Paris.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149395
The Most Revolutionary Act 