The Unveiling of Canadian History, Volume 4.
To Shining Sea – Ireland, Haiti, and Louisiana, and the Idea of a Continental Republic, 1797 – 1804.
Part 2 – The Haitian Frontier
Chapter 18 - The Coup of 18th Brumaire, November 10th 1799
As President Adams struggled to respond to France’s new assurances of respect for the United States, and whether or not to send his commissioners, the French Directory was overthrown in a coup, run by Sieyes, and a Consulate was installed - run by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes [by Jacques-Louis David, 1817]
When the United States Senate had approved the appointment of Murray as one of the three commissioners to France, Pickering sent his instructions to Murray in a letter on March 6th 1799.
When Murray received this letter on May 4th, he wrote to Talleyrand, the next day, informing him that Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry and himself had been appointed:
“to be envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary of the United States to the French republic, with full powers to discuss and settle by treaty, all controversies between the United States and France; but that the two former will not embark for Europe until they shall have received from the Executive Directory direct and unequivocal assurances, signified by their Minister of Foreign Relations, that the envoys shall be received in character to an audience of the Directory, and that they shall enjoy all the prerogatives attached to that character by the law of nations, and that a minster or ministers of equal powers shall be appointed and commissioned to treat with them.”
On May 12th, Talleyrand replied to Murray that the Executive Directory had been informed of the nomination of the three commissioners and that:
“be pleased to transmit to your colleagues, and accept yourself, the frank and explicit assurance that it will receive the envoys of the United States in the official character which they are invested; that they shall enjoy all the prerogatives which are attached to it by the law of nations, and that one or more ministers shall be duly authorized to treat with them.”
On May 17th, when Murray received Talleyrand’s reply, he sent copies of this letter to both Pickering and to President Adams – who received it on August 5th.
On August 6th, President Adams replied to Pickering, that the United States would accept Talleyrand’s assurances, but would also maintain its defensive preparations:
“it is far below the dignity of the President of the United States, to take any notice of Talleyrand’s impertinent regrets, and insinuations of superfluities. You, or the envoys or Mr. Murray may answer them as you please, in your correspondence with one another or with the French Minister. I will say to you, however, that I consider this letter as the most authentic intelligence yet received in America of the successes of the coalition. That the design is insidious and hostile at heart I will not say. Time will tell the truth. Meantime I dread no longer their diplomatic skill. I have seen it and felt it and been the victim of it, these twenty-one years. But the charm is dissolved; their magic is at an end in America ...
Our operations and preparations by sea and by land are not to be relaxed in the smallest degree: on the contrary I wish them to be animated with fresh energy. St. Domingo and the Isle of France and all other parts of the French Dominions are to be treated in the same manner as if no negotiation was going on ...
I pray you to lose no time in conveying to Governor Davie his commission and to the Chief Justice and his Excellency, copies of these letters from Mr. Murray and Talleyrand with a request that laying aside all other employment they make immediate preparations for embarking.”
On September 11th, Pickering wrote to President Adams regarding a letter he had received from Murray about the startling new situation in France:
“[that] have suggested to the Heads of Departments some doubts of the expediency of an immediate departure of the envoys. The men lately in power, who gave the assurances you required, relative to the mission, being ousted in a manner indicative of a revolution in the public mind, and, according to Mr. Murray’s letter, the threats, now first uttered by the military, of a King, show such instability and uncertainty in the government of France, and are ominous if such further & essential changes, probably at no great distance, as made it appear to us a duty to submit to your consideration, the question of a temporary suspension of the mission to that country … or if a revival of the system of terror should first take place, which the last arrival of intelligence at New-York now shows to be probable; still the question of suspending the mission seems to the Heads of Departments to merit serious consideration …”
Note on the ‘instability and uncertainty’ in France:
The elections in France in April 1798 – to replace one-third of the council deputies, and also to replace those deputies that had been expelled after the coup of 18 Fructidor – resulted in gains for the Jacobin ‘opposition’. The Directory moved to secure its power by annulling the elections in 30 departments and expelling 48 elected deputies; and made (moderate) Jean-Baptiste Treilhard the new Director, replacing Neufchateau.
After the elections in April 1799 again resulted in gains for the Jacobins, (including Lucien Bonaparte, younger brother of Napoleon, who was elected president of the Council of Five Hundred) and the election of Emmanuel Sieyes as the new Director, replacing Rewbell.
The two councils now declared the election of Treilhard illegal, replaced him with (Jacobin) Louis-Jerome Gohier, and then demanded the resignation of two other Directors, Revelliere-Lepeaux and Merlin de Douai. When Revelliere and Merlin resisted, General Joubert, commander of the 17th army division began moving his troops into Paris, forcing Revelliere and Merlin to resign – to be replaced with Pierre Roger Ducos and Jean-Francois Moulin. Talleyrand had to resign as Foreign minister.
Now, in August 1799, the ‘Second Coalition’ launched both a British-Russian invasion of the Batavian Republic, and an Austrian-Russian attack on the French forces in Italy, capturing Milan and Turin and driving the French back to Genoa, while a ‘royalist’ uprising was begun in western France.
On September 16th, President Adams would receive the good news from his son, John Quincy Adams, that he had negotiated a treaty of amity and commerce between the United States and the King of Prussia, on July 11th.
On September 21st, President Adams responded to Pickering’s warning letter, that he had decided to leave his home in Quincy, Massachusetts, and that:
“sometime between the 10th and 15th of October I shall join you at Trenton & will suspend, till that time, the ultimate determination concerning the instructions … we must be all together to determine all the principles of our negotiations with France & England.”
President Adams arrived at Trenton, and on October 15th he met with the members of his cabinet - that was split on their resolve concerning France. Secretary of State Pickering, Secretary of the Treasury Wolcott and Secretary of War McHenry were in favour of postponing the mission until more was learned about the situation in France, while Secretary of the Navy Stoddert and Attorney General Lee (who was absent, but sent a letter with his views) supported sending the commissioners immediately. President Adams sided with the minority, of Stoddert and Lee.
The next day, Present Adams wrote to Pickering to request that he send copies of the instructions ‘as corrected last evening’ to the commissioners, and that he should write to Judge Ellsworth & Governor Davie ‘his desire that they would take their passage for France on board the frigate, the United States … by the first of November, or sooner if consistent with their conveniences’.
Coincidently, General Hamilton, who ‘had no anticipation of the movement of the president’, had previously arranged to travel to Trenton with General Wilkinson, to meet with the Secretary of War about ‘the future disposition of the western Army’. Also coincidently, Commissioner Ellsworth had travelled to Trenton to meet with Commissioner Davie – ‘where they would be at the fountain head of information, and would obtain any lights or explanations which they might suppose useful’.
As Hamilton would later write:
“yet these simple occurrences were to the jealous mind of Mr. Adams, ‘confirmations strong’, of some mischievous plot against his independence.”
Hamilton heard about the president’s decision to dispatch the peace mission to France, and since he was the commanding general of the army, he had a reason to want to consult with the president. Even though he knew that the president despised him, he met with President Adams to try to convince him to postpone the mission.
From the correspondence recently received from Murray in the Hague and from King in London, it seemed to Hamilton that the changes in the French Directory could result in a restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France. President Adams replied that:
“if France is disposed to accommodate our differences, will she be less so under a Royal than a Directorial Government? Have not the Directory humbled themselves to us more than to any nation or power in contest with her? If she proves faithless, if she will not receive our envoys, does the disgrace fall upon her, or upon us? We shall not be worse off than at present. The people of our own country will be satisfied that every honorable method has been tried to accommodate our differences.”
Hamilton wrote to inform General Washington on October 21st that:
“the President has resolved to send the commissioners to France notwithstanding the change of affairs there. He is not understood to have consulted either of his Ministers; certainly not the Secy. of War or of Finance. All my calculations lead me to regret the measure. I hope that it may not in its consequences involve the United States in a war on the side of France with her enemies. My trust in Providence which has so often interposed in our favor, is my only consolation.”
On October 27th, General Washington voiced his concern to Hamilton that:
“The purport of your (private) letter of the 21st, with respect to a late decision, has surprised me exceedingly. I was surprised at the measure, how much more so at the manner of it? This business seems to have commenced in an evil hour, and under unfavorable auspices; and I wish mischief may not tread in all its steps, and be the final result of the measure. A wide door was open, through which a retreat might have been made from the first faux pas; the shutting of which, to those who are not behind the curtain, and are as little acquainted with the secrets of the cabinet as I am, is, from the present aspect of European affairs, incomprehensible. But I have the same reliance on Providence which you express, and trust that matters will end well, however unfavorable they may appear at present.”
Ellsworth and Davie sailed for Europe on November 3rd and arrived at Lisbon on November 26th, where they wanted to rest for a few weeks to recover from the voyage, before sailing on to the Netherlands. They also wanted to see what course the ‘new’ French government would pursue! While in Lisbon, they heard the news of the coup d’etat against the Directory, of the new French government, and of the new First Consul – Napoleon Bonaparte!
Bonaparte had said that the revolution was over!
Earlier, Bonaparte had returned to Paris, on October 16th, from his campaign in Egypt. By that time, the British-Russian invasion had been defeated at the battle of Castricum on October 6th and had been forced to withdraw from the Batavian republic; the Russian army was defeated at the Battle of Zurich on September 26th and was forced to retreat from the Helvetic Republic; and the uprisings in western France were crushed by the end of August.
And Director Sieyes was busy planning a coup – with fellow Director Ducos, with police chief Joseph Fouche and with Talleyrand.
Sieyes had been planning on using General Joubert in carrying out the coup, but Joubert had been killed at the battle of Novi on August 15th, and Sieyes had been persuaded by Talleyrand to use Bonaparte.
Bonaparte first met with Talleyrand, who told him that ‘you want the power and Sieyes wants the constitution, therefore join forces.’ On October 23rd Bonaparte met with Sieyes on ‘their respective views of the constitution to be established, and the position that each would take.’ Bonaparte was keeping his options open, as he was entertaining other offers – there may have been as many as ten active plots to overthrow the Directory being secretly discussed.
On October 30th, Bonaparte met with Director Barras, who proposed that General Hedouville (who had just returned/fled from Saint-Domingue) should become President of France to save the republic. Bonaparte didn’t reply, but after that meeting, he immediately went to see Sieyes and told him that ‘I had made up my mind to act with him.’ On November 1st, Bonaparte met with Sieyes, and with Ducos, Talleyrand and Fouche, to plan the coup. On November 7th, Bonaparte would dine with Generals Bernadotte, Jourdan and Moreau, to put their minds at rest about the coming days’ events.
On Day 1, November 9th, at a special session of the Council of Ancients, they would be informed that because of new plots against the Republic, they should authorize that the next day’s meeting of both councils should take place at Saint-Cloud (7 miles west of, and outside of, Paris) – so that the Jacobins could not raise the sans-culottes and the faubourgs of Paris against the coup-plotters. Sieyes would then get the Council of Ancients to appoint Bonaparte as commander of the 17th military district [i.e. Paris].
Then on Day 2, November 10th, Moreau arrested Barras, Gohier and Moulin and demanded their resignations. Bonaparte went to Saint-Cloud in order to persuade the two councils that, because of national emergency, the constitution must be repealed and a new one established, replacing the 5-man Directory with a 3-man Consulate – comprising Sieyes, Ducos and himself, and with new elections to the two councils. While receiving a respectful audience from the Council of Ancients, the opposition in the Council of 500, however, revolted and tried to block him, forcing him to be hustled out of the chamber. The two Bonaparte brothers then met outside in the courtyard in order to win over the Corps Legislatif guards – with Lucien claiming that the majority of the Five Hundred were being terrorized by a minority of fanatics in the pay of British gold, and with Napoleon ordering the guards to disperse this assembly of sedition – and the guards evacuated the chambers and the deputies fled.
At the end of that day, Lucien Bonaparte assembled as many deputies as he could find who supported the coup and decreed the end of the Directory; appointed Sieyes, Ducos and Napoleon Bonaparte as provisional Consuls; adjourned both councils for four months; and ordered the expulsion of 61 (Jacobin) deputies from the councils; and appointed a 50-member interim commission (25 from each council) to draw up a new constitution. The new government would have a First, Second and Third Consul, a 100-man Tribunate, a 300-man Legislature and a 60-man Senate.
On December 13th, at the final meeting of the constitutional commission, Bonaparte invited Sieyes (who had accepted 350,000 francs, an estate outside Versailles and a house in Paris) to propose the names of the three consuls – he proposed Bonaparte as First Consul, and Cambaceres as second consul and Lebrun as third consul. Sieyes was made President of the Senate, and Ducos (who accepted 100,00 francs) became vice-president.
On December 22nd the Council of State was inaugurated to advice the First Consul. Fouche would become minister of police, Talleyrand would become minister of foreign affairs and Carnot would become minister of war!
On December 25th, France celebrated the Constitution of Year VIII coming into force.
[next week - chapter 19 - the United States Navy and the Capture of Jacmel, February 27th 1800]
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Volume 1 – The Approaching Conflict, 1753 – 1774.
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