Meanwhile, accompanied by a brilliant group of generals, Bonaparte proceeded to the Tuileries, where the Ancients were sitting; and by indulging in a wordy declamation he avoided taking the oath to the constitution required of a general on entering upon a new command.  In the Council of Five Hundred, Lucien Bonaparte stopped the eager questions and murmurs, on the pretext that the session was only legal at St. Cloud.

There, on the next day (19th Brumaire or 10th November), a far more serious blow was to be struck.  The overthrow of the Directory was a foregone conclusion.  But with the Legislature it was far otherwise, for its life was still whole and vigorous.  Yet, while amputating a moribund limb, the plotters did not scruple to paralyze the brain of the body politic.

Despite the adhesion of most of the Ancients to his plans, Bonaparte, on appearing before them, could only utter a succession of short, jerky phrases which smacked of the barracks rather than of the Senate.  Retiring in some confusion, he regains his presence of mind among the soldiers outside, and enters the hall of the Five Hundred, intending to intimidate them not only by threats, but by armed force.  At the sight of the uniforms at the door, the republican enthusiasm of the younger deputies catches fire.  They fiercely assail him with cries of “Down with the tyrant! down with the Dictator! outlaw him!” In vain Lucien Bonaparte commands order.  Several deputies rush at the general, and fiercely shake him by the collar.  He turns faint with excitement and chagrin; but Lefebvre and a few grenadiers rushing up drag him from the hall.  He comes forth like a somnambulist (says an onlooker), pursued by the terrible cry, “Hors la loi!” Had the cries at once taken form in a decree, the history of the world might have been different.  One of the deputies, General Augereau, fiercely demands that the motion of outlawry be put to the vote.  Lucien Bonaparte refuses, protests, weeps, finally throws off his official robes, and is rescued from the enraged deputies by grenadiers whom the conspirators send in for this purpose.  Meanwhile Bonaparte and his friends were hastily deliberating, when one of their number brought the news that the deputies had declared the general an outlaw.  The news chased the blood from his cheek, until Sieyes, whose sang froid did not desert him in these civilian broils, exclaims, “Since they outlaw you, they are outlaws.”  This revolutionary logic recalls Bonaparte to himself.  He shouts, “To arms!” Lucien, too, mounting a horse, appeals to the soldiers to free the Council from the menaces of some deputies armed with daggers, and in the pay of England, who are terrorising the majority.  The shouts of command, clinched by the adroit reference to daggers and English gold, cause the troops to waver in their duty; and Lucien, pressing his advantage to the utmost, draws a sword, and, holding it towards his brother, exclaims that he will stab