The eighteenth Brumaire of the Year VIII, corresponding to the ninth of November, 1799, was fixed as the day for the revolution.  By that date soldiers to the number of 10,000 men had been collected in the gardens of the Tuileries.  There they were reviewed by General Bonaparte and the leading officers of his command.  He read to the soldiers the decree which had just been issued under the authority of the Council of the Ancients.  This included the order for the removal of the legislative body to St. Cloud, and for his own command.  He was entrusted with the execution of the order of the Council, and all of the military forces in Paris were put at his disposal.  In these hours of the day there were all manner of preparation.  That a conspiracy existed was manifest to everybody.  That General Bonaparte was reaching for the supreme authority could hardly be doubted.  His secretary thus writes of him on the morning of the great day.

“I was with him a little before seven o’clock on the morning of the eighteenth Brumaire, and, on my arrival, I found a great number of generals and officers assembled.  I entered Bonaparte’s chamber, and found him already up—­a thing rather unusual with him.  At this moment he was as calm as on the approach of a battle.  In a few moments Joseph and Bernadotte arrived.  I was surprised to see Bernadotte in plain clothes, and I stepped up to him and said in a low voice:  ’General, everyone here except you and I is in uniform.’  ’Why should I be in uniform?’ said he.  Bonaparte, turning quickly to him, said:  ’How is this?  You are not in uniform.’  ’I never am on a morning when I am not on duty,’ replied Bernadotte.  ‘You will be on duty presently,’ said the general!”

To Napoleon the crisis was an epoch of fate.  The first thing was to be the resignation of Sieyes, Barras and Ducos, which—­coming suddenly on the appointed morning—­broke up the Directory.  Bonaparte then put out his hand as commander of the troops.  Too late the Republicans of the Council of Five Hundred felt the earthquake swelling under their feet.  Napoleon appeared at the bar of the Assembly, and attempted a rambling and incoherent justification for what was going on.  A motion was made to outlaw him; but the soldiers rushed in, and the refractory members were seized and expelled.  A few who were in the revolution remained, and to the number of fifty voted a decree making Sieyes, Bonaparte and Ducos provisional Consuls, thus conferring on them the supreme executive power of the State.  By nightfall the business was accomplished, and the man of Ajaccio slept in the palace of the Tuileries.  He had said to his secretary, Bourriene, on that morning, “We shall sleep to-night in the Tuileries—­or in prison.”