Napoleon Seizes Power: 18 Brumaire Coup Succeeds

Napoleon Bonaparte marched a column of grenadiers into the legislative chamber at Saint-Cloud on November 9, 1799, and ended the French Revolution's experiment in republican government. The coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire replaced the five-member Directory with a three-man Consulate in which Napoleon, as First Consul, held dictatorial power at age 30. The Directory had governed France since 1795 and was despised by virtually everyone. Royalists considered it illegitimate. Jacobins viewed it as a betrayal of revolutionary principles. The general public endured rampant corruption, economic instability, and military setbacks. Two of the five Directors, including Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, actively conspired to overthrow their own government, believing a strongman was needed to stabilize the republic. Sieyes recruited Napoleon, recently returned from a failed Egyptian campaign he had abandoned by slipping past the British blockade. Napoleon's popularity with the army and public made him the ideal figurehead. The conspirators arranged for the legislative councils to move from Paris to Saint-Cloud, ostensibly for safety from a fabricated Jacobin plot. Napoleon was to deliver a speech justifying the transfer of power and receive formal authorization. The plan nearly collapsed. Napoleon's speech to the Council of Five Hundred was rambling and incoherent. Deputies shouted him down and physically shoved him. His brother Lucien, president of the council, saved the coup by rushing outside, telling the waiting grenadiers that assassins inside were threatening the general, and ordering them to clear the chamber. Soldiers drove deputies out at bayonet point. A rump session voted to dissolve the Directory and establish the Consulate. Within five years, Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor. The revolution that began with the promise of liberty ended with a military dictatorship.