The members of the Directory were by no means anxious to have Bonaparte for their colleague.  They dissembled, and so did he.  Both parties were lavish of their mutual assurances of friendship, while they cordially hated each other.  The Directory, however, appealed for the support of Bonaparte, which he granted; but his subsequent conduct clearly proves that the maintenance of the constitution of the year iii. was a mere pretest.  He indeed defended it meanwhile, because, by aiding the triumph of the opposite party, he could not hope to preserve the influence which he exercised over the Directory.  I know well that, in case of the Clichy party gaining the ascendency, he was determined to cross the Alps with his army, and to assemble all the friends of the Republic at Lyons, thence to march upon Paris.

In the Memorial of St. Helena it is stated, in reference to the 18th Fructidor, “that the triumph of the majority of the councils was his desire and hope, we are inclined to believe from the following fact, viz., that at the crisis of the contest between the two factions a secret resolution was drawn up by three of the members of the Directory, asking him for three millions to support the attack on the councils, and that Napoleon, under various pretences, did not send the money, though he might easily have done so.”

This is not very comprehensible.  There was no secret resolution of the members who applied for the three millions.  It was Bonaparte who offered the money, which, however, he did not send; it was he who despatched Augereau; and he who wished for the triumph of the Directorial majority.  His memory served him badly at St. Helena, as will be seen from some correspondence which I shall presently submit to the reader.  It is very certain that he did offer the money to the Directory; that is to say, to three of its members.

—­[Barras, La Revelliere-Lepaux, and Rewbell, the three Directors who carried out the ‘coup d’etat’ of the 18th Fructidor against their colleagues Carnot and Bartholemy. (See Thiers’ “French Revolution”, vol. v. pp. 114,139, and 163.)]—­

Bonaparte had so decidedly formed his resolution that on the 17th of July, wishing to make Augereau his confidant, he sent to Vicenza for him by an extraordinary courier.

Bonaparte adds that when Bottot, the confidential agent of Barras, came to Passeriano, after the 18th Fructidor, he declared to him that as soon as La Vallette should make him acquainted with the real state of things the money should be transmitted.  The inaccuracy of these statements will be seen in the correspondence relative to the event.  In thus distorting the truth Napoleon’s only object could have been to proclaim his inclination for the principles he adopted and energetically supported from the year 1800, but which, previously to that period, he had with no less energy opposed.