But Bonaparte’s daring changed the whole aspect of affairs.  The news of the stroke of Brumaire gave the royalists pause.  At first they believed that the First Consul would soon call back the king, and Bonaparte skilfully favoured this notion:  he offered a pacification, of which some of the harassed peasants availed themselves.  Georges himself for a time advised a reconciliation, and a meeting of the royalist leaders voted to a man that they desired “to have the king and you” (Bonaparte).  One of them, Hyde de Neuville, had an interview with the First Consul at Paris, and has left on record his surprise at seeing the slight form of the man whose name was ringing through France.  At the first glance he took him for a rather poorly dressed lackey; but when the general raised his eyes and searched him through and through with their eager fire, the royalist saw his error and fell under the spell of a gaze which few could endure unmoved.  The interview brought no definite result.

Other overtures made by Bonaparte were more effective.  True to his plan of dividing his enemies, he appealed to the clergy to end the civil strife.  The appeal struck home to the heart or the ambitions of a cleric named Bernier.  This man was but a village priest of La Vendee:  yet his natural abilities gained him an ascendancy in the councils of the insurgents, which the First Consul was now victoriously to exploit.  Whatever may have been Bernier’s motives, he certainly acted with some duplicity.  Without forewarning Cadoudal, Bourmont, Frotte, and other royalist leaders, he secretly persuaded the less combative leaders to accept the First Consul’s terms; and a pacification was arranged (January 18th), In vain did Cadoudal rage against this treachery:  in vain did he strive to break the armistice.  Frotte in Normandy was the last to capitulate and the first to feel Bonaparte’s vengeance:  on a trumped-up charge of treachery he was hurried before a court-martial and shot.  An order was sent from Paris for his pardon; but a letter which Bonaparte wrote to Brune on the day of the execution contains the ominous phrase:  By this time Frotte ought to be shot; and a recently published letter to Hedouville expresses the belief that the punishment of that desperate leader will doubtless contribute to the complete pacification of the West.[135]

In the hope of gaining over the Chouans, Bonaparte required their chiefs to come to Paris, where they received the greatest consideration.  In Bernier the priest, Bonaparte discerned diplomatic gifts of a high order, which were soon to be tested in a far more important negotiation.  The nobles, too, received flattering attentions which touched their pride and assured their future insignificance.  Among them was Count Bourmont, the Judas of the Waterloo campaign.