side,
the _democrats_, under the Director Barras, on the other, were equally
disposed to invoke his assistance. He received the proposals of both
parties; and at length decided on closing with those of the former, as
consisting of a class of men less likely than the others to interfere
with his measures--when the new government, which he had determined
should be _his_, had been arranged. His brother Lucien, recently elected
President of the Council of Five Hundred--the acute and spirited Abbe
Sieyes, for whom, as "a man of systems," Buonaparte had formerly
manifested great repugnance, but who was now recommended effectually by
his supposed want of high ambition--and Fouche, minister of
police--these were his chief confidants; nor could any age or country
have furnished instruments more admirably qualified for his purpose.
Josephine, too, exerted indefatigably in his cause all the arts of
address, and contrived to neutralise by flattery many whom promises had
failed to gain. Meanwhile his house was frequented by the principal
officers who had accompanied him from Egypt, and by others who had
served in his Italian campaigns; and though no one pretended to say what
was about to happen, the impression became universal throughout Paris,
that some great and decisive event was at hand, and that it was to be
brought about by means of Buonaparte.

His friends at first busied themselves with schemes for making him one
of the directorial body; but the law, requiring that every candidate for
that office should be forty years of age, still subsisted; and this
presented an obstacle which Napoleon chose rather to avoid than to
overcome. The conspirators in his confidence were from day to day more
numerous, and, before he had been three weeks in Paris, audacity reached
its height. "During this crisis" (writes Bourienne) "there occurred
nothing a whit more elevated, more grand, more noble, than had been
observed in our preceding revolutionary commotions. In these political
intrigues, all is so despicable--so made up of trickery, lying, spying,
treachery, and impudence--that for the honour of human nature the
details ought to be buried under an eternal veil."

Sieyes governed absolutely one of his colleagues in the Directory,
Ducos; and the party of which he was the chief predominated strongly, as
has been mentioned, in the Council of Ancients. It was through the
instrumentality of that council, accordingly, that the conspirators
resol