The Conversation

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There are moments when historical events seem poised to reveal their full significance: Alexander the Great at the head of his army, on the verge of taking on the vast and inexhaustible Persian Empire; Hannibal preparing to cross the Alps with his elephants, to strike at the heart of Rome; Caesar, of course, standing on the banks of the Rubicon; dawn on June 17, 1940, in Bordeaux, that instant before General Charles de Gaulle climbed into General Edward Spears’ plane — bound for London, and for what appeared a hopeless, if glorious, act of resistance.

The moment I will try to capture here involves Napoleon Bonaparte, at the height of his adoration by the French people, whom he has pulled back from the abyss created by years of chaos and misrule. He is on the brink of declaring himself Emperor of France.

We must keep in mind what led up to this moment. In November 1799, the thirty-year-old Bonaparte, just returned from conquering Egypt, triumphed over the Vicompte de Barras, head of the Directory, and, with assistance from his brother, Lucien, and Abbé Sieyès, succeeded in his coup d’état on 18 Brumaire in the Revolutionary Year VIII, ending the Directory’s four-year rule. The five directors (only the first two really counted) — Barras, Sieyès, Louis-Jérôme Gohier, Roger Ducos, and Jean-François Moulin — were replaced by a Consular Committee (commission consulaire), consisting of three members — Sieyès, Ducos, and Bonaparte himself. This would itself soon be replaced, following the terms of a new Constitution, by yet another triumvirate: Bonaparte, who was to be called First Consul; Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, Second Consul; and Charles-François Lebrun, Third Consul. The First Consul held the true power. The others were mainly advisers.

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