The disorder which unavoidably prevailed in a party amounting to upwards of 250 persons, animated by a diversity of opinions and sentiments; the anxiety and distrust arising in the minds of those who were not in the grand plot, rendered this meeting one of the most disagreeable I ever witnessed.  It was all restraint and dulness.  Bonaparte’s countenance sufficiently betrayed his dissatisfaction; besides, the success of his schemes demanded his presence elsewhere.  Almost as soon as he had finished his dinner he rose, saying to Berthier and me, “I am tired:  let us be, gone.”  He went round to the different tables, addressing to the company compliments and trifling remarks, and departed, leaving at table the persons by whom he had been invited.

This short political crisis was marked by nothing more grand, dignified, or noble than the previous revolutionary commotions.  All these plots were so contemptible, and were accompanied by so much trickery, falsehood, and treachery, that, for the honour of human nature, it is desirable to cover them with a veil.

General Bonaparte’s thoughts were first occupied with the idea he had conceived even when in Italy, namely, to be chosen a Director.  Nobody dared yet to accuse him of being a deserter from the army of the East.  The only difficulty was to obtain a dispensation on the score of age.  And was this not to be obtained?  No sooner was he installed in his humble abode in the Rue de la Victoire than he was assured that, on the retirement of Rewbell, the majority of suffrages would have devolved on him had he been in France, and had not the fundamental law required the age of forty; but that not even his warmest partisans were disposed to violate the yet infant Constitution of the year iii.

Bonaparte soon perceived that no efforts would succeed in overcoming this difficulty, and he easily resolved to possess himself wholly of an office of which he would nominally have had only a fifth part had he been a member of the Directory.

As soon as his intentions became manifest he found himself surrounded by all those who recognised in him the man they had long looked for.  These persons, who were able and influential in their own circles, endeavoured to convert into friendship the animosity which existed between Sieyes and Bonaparte.  This angry feeling had been increased by a remark made by Sieyes, and reported to Bonaparte.  He had said, after the dinner at which Bonaparte treated him so disrespectfully, “Do you see how that little insolent fellow behaves to a member of a Government which would do well to order him to be shot?”

But all was changed when able mediators pointed out to Bonaparte the advantage of uniting with Sieye’s for the purpose of overthrowing a Constitution which he did not like.  He was assured how vain it would be to think of superseding him, and that it would be better to flatter him with the hope of helping to subvert the constitution and raising up a new one.  One day some one said to Bonaparte in my hearing, “Seek for support among the party who call the friends of the Republic Jacobins, and be assured that Sieyes is at the head of that party.”