When Napoleon returned from Egypt, he did not become the chief of his equals with all their concurrence.  Such of them as were already jealous of his glory then became still more envious of his power.  As they could not dispute the first, they attempted to refuse obedience to the second.  Moreau, and several other generals, either by persuasion or surprise, had co-operated in the revolution of the 18th Brumaire:  they afterwards repented having done so.  Bernadotte had refused all participation in it.  Alone, during the night, in Napoleon’s own residence, amidst a thousand devoted officers, waiting only for the conqueror’s orders, Bernadotte, then a strenuous republican, was daring enough to oppose his arguments, to refuse the second place in the republic, and to retort upon his anger by threats.  Napoleon saw him depart, bearing himself proudly, and pass through the midst of his partizans, carrying with him his secrets, and declaring himself his enemy, and even his denouncer.  Either from respect to his brother, to whom Bernadotte was allied by marriage, from moderation, the usual companion of strength, or from astonishment, he suffered him to depart quietly.

In the course of the same night, a conventicle, consisting of ten deputies of the Council of Five Hundred, met at the house of S——­; thither Bernadotte repaired.  They settled, that at nine o’clock next morning the Council should hold a sitting, to which those only should be invited who were of the same way of thinking; that there a decree should be passed, that in imitation of the Council of Ancients, which had prudently named Bonaparte general of its guard, the Council of Five Hundred had appointed Bernadotte to command theirs; and that the latter, properly armed, should be in readiness to be summoned to it.  It was at S——­’s house that this plan was formed.  S——­ himself immediately afterwards ran to Napoleon, and disclosed the whole to him.  A threat from the latter was quite sufficient to keep the conspirators in order; not one of them dared show his face at the Council, and the next day the revolution of the 18th Brumaire was completed.

Bernadotte was prudent enough afterwards to feign submission, but Napoleon had not forgotten his opposition.  He kept a watchful eye on all his movements.  Not long after, he suspected his being at the head of a republican conspiracy which had been forming against him in the west.  A premature proclamation discovered it; an officer who had been arrested for other causes, and an accomplice of Bernadotte, denounced the authors.  On that occasion Bernadotte’s ruin would have been sealed, if Napoleon had been able to convict him of it.

He was satisfied with banishing him to America, under the title of minister of the Republic.  But fortune favoured Bernadotte, who was already at Rochefort, by delaying his embarkation until the war with England was renewed.  He then refused to go, and Napoleon could no longer compel him.