Now was the opportunity for Bonaparte to take up the role of Cromwell which Hoche had so awkwardly played.  And how skilfully the conqueror of Italy plays it—­through subordinates.  He was too well versed in statecraft to let his sword flash before the public gaze.  By this time he had decided to act, and doubtless the fervid Jacobinism of the soldiery was the chief cause determining his action.  At the national celebration on July 14th he allowed it to have free vent, and thereupon wrote to the Directory, bitterly reproaching them for their weakness in face of the royalist plot:  “I see that the Clichy Club means to march over my corpse to the destruction of the Republic.”  He ended the diatribe by his usual device, when he desired to remind the Government of his necessity to them, of offering his resignation, in case they refused to take vigorous measures against the malcontents.  Yet even now his action was secret and indirect.  On July 27th he sent to the Directors a brief note stating that Augereau had 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]