The coup d’etat had been dexterously planned, which enabled him to bring about a bloodless overthrow.  Josephine was deployed to win over her friend Gohier, the President of the Directory.  She invited him and his wife to breakfast on the 17th Brumaire.  Gohier wonders why they should be asked so early as six in the morning.  He thinks he smells a rat, excuses himself, but sends his wife, who is ushered into the presence of a houseful of officers of the National Guard, and the hostess does not lose time in conveying to Gohier’s former cook the meaning of their being there.  Bonaparte, be it known, is determined to form a Government, and it grieves her that so good a friend as the President of Directors should have been so thoughtless of his own interests as not to accompany his wife on such an auspicious occasion.

“The inevitable is at hand, Madame Gohier,” says Josephine in effect, “and at this very moment Barras is being pressed to resign, and if he disobeys his fate is sealed.”  Madame Gohier is aghast, stiffens her back, and with as much dignity as her nature will allow, she bows, withdraws, and hastens to the side of her husband, to convey all she has seen and heard.

Meanwhile, events travel swiftly under the direction of the intrepid General.  He walks into the Council of Ancients and jerks out with vivid flashes of oratory the object of his visit.  The members see at a glance its meaning.  They become inarticulate with rage begotten of fear.  He thunders out, “I am here to demand a Republic founded on true liberty,” and swears that he will have it.  In the Hall of the Five Hundred he is met with cries of “Down with the Cromwell!” “No Dictator!” “Outlaw him!” and so forth.

But these are mere futile belchings of exasperated gasbags, on whom he darts a look of withering scorn, which they discern means trouble if they do not conduct themselves with decorum.  His guards are close at hand, and he is daring enough to make use of them if there is any resistance to that which he has undertaken.  To the Directory, through their envoy Dottot, he says in substance, and not without vigour, “Do not sicken me with your imbecile arguments and lame, impotent conclusions.  What I want to know is:  What have you done with this France which I left you so glorious?  I left you peace; I return and find war!  I left you victories; I find reverses!  I left you the millions of Italy; I find despoiling laws and misery throughout!” But ere this terrific indictment had been thrust at them, they had become conscious that their dissolute and chaotic regime was at an end, and that Napoleon had become the ruler of the France he had left prosperous and found tottering to pieces on his return from Egypt.