d requested
leave to go to Paris, "where his affairs call him"; and that he sent
by this general the originals of the addresses of the army, avowing
its devotion to the constitution. No one would suspect from this that
Augereau was in Bonaparte's confidence and came to carry out the
_coup d'etat_. The secret was well preserved. Lavalette was
Bonaparte's official representative; and his neutrality was now
maintained in accordance with a note received from his chief:
"Augereau is coming to Paris: do not put yourself in his power: he has
sown disorder in the army: he is a factious man."

But, while Lavalette was left to trim his sails as best he might,
Augereau was certain to act with energy. Bonaparte knew well that his
Jacobinical lieutenant, famed as the first swordsman of the day, and
the leader of the fighting division of the army, would do his work
thoroughly, always vaunting his own prowess and decrying that of his
commander. It was so. Augereau rushed to Paris, breathing threats of
slaughter against the royalists. Checked for a time by the calculating
_finesse_ of the triumvirs, he prepared to end matters by a single
blow; and, when the time had come, he occupied the strategic points of
the capital, drew a cordon of troops round the Tuileries, where the
Councils sat, invaded the chambers of deputies and consigned to the
Temple the royalists and moderates there present, with their leader,
Pichegru. Barthelemy was also seized; but Carnot, warned by a friend,
fled during the early hours of this eventful day--September 4th (or 18
Fructidor). The mutilated Councils forthwith annulled the late
elections in forty-nine Departments, and passed severe laws against
orthodox priests and the unpardoned _emigres_ who had ventured to
return to France. The Directory was also intrusted with complete power
to suppress newspapers, to close political clubs, and to declare any
commune in a state of siege. Its functions were now wellnigh as
extensive and absolute as those of the Committee of Public Safety, its
powers being limited only by the incompetence of the individual
Directors and by their paralyzing consciousness that they ruled only
by favour of the army. They had taken the sword to solve a political
problem: two years later they were to fall by that sword.[86]

Augereau fully expected that he would be one of the two Directors who
were elected in place of Carnot and Barthelemy; but the Councils had
no higher opinion of his civ