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 civic capacity than Bonaparte had formed; and, to his great disgust, Merlin of Douai and Francois of Neufchatel were chosen.  The last scenes of the coup d’etat centred around the transportation of the condemned deputies.  One of the early memories of the future Duc de Broglie recalled the sight of the “deputes fructidorises travelling in closed carriages, railed up like cages,” to the seaport whence they were to sail to the lingering agonies of a tropical prison in French Guiana.

It was a painful spectacle:  “the indignation was great, but the consternation was greater still.  Everybody foresaw the renewal of the Reign of Terror and resignedly prepared for it.”

Such were the feelings, even of those who, like Madame de Stael and her friend Benjamin Constant, had declared before the coup d’etat that it was necessary to the salvation of the Republic.  That accomplished woman was endowed with nearly every attribute of genius except political foresight and self-restraint.  No sooner had the blow been dealt than she fell to deploring its results, which any fourth-rate intelligence might have foreseen.  “Liberty was the only power really conquered”—­such was her later judgment on Fructidor.  Now that Liberty fled affrighted, the errant enthusiasms of the gifted authoress clung for a brief space to Bonaparte.  Her eulogies on his exploits, says Lavalette, who listened to her through a dinner in Talleyrand’s rooms, possessed all the mad disorder and exaggeration of inspiration; and, after the repast was over, the votaress refused to pass out before an aide-de-camp of Bonaparte!  The incident is characteristic both of Madame de Stael’s moods and of the whims of the populace.  Amidst the disenchantments of that time, when the pursuit of liberty seemed but an idle quest, when royalists were the champions of parliamentary rule and republicans relied on military force, all eyes turned wearily away from the civic broils at Paris to the visions of splendour revealed by the conqueror of Italy.  Few persons knew how largely their new favourite was responsible for the events of Fructidor; all of them had by heart the names of his victories; and his popularity flamed to the skies when he recrossed the Alps, bringing with him a lucrative peace with Austria.

The negotiations with that Power had dragged on slowly through the whole summer and far into the autumn, mainly owing to the hopes of the Emperor Francis that the disorder in France would filch from her the meed of victory.  Doubtless that would have been the case, had not Bonaparte, while striking down the royalists at Paris through his lieutenant, remained at the head of his victorious legions in Venetia ready again to invade Austria, if occasion should arise.