Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,263 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon.

Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,263 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon.

made fresh efforts to be heard, and wished to be allowed to address the assembly as a member of the Council, and for that purpose resigned the Presidentship to Chasal.  He begged that the General might be introduced again and heard with calmness.  But this preposition was furiously opposed.  Exclamations of “Outlaw Bonaparte! outlaw him!” rang through the assembly, and were the only reply given to the President.  Lucien, who had reassumed the President’s chair, left it a second time, that he might not be constrained to put the question of outlawry demanded against his brother.  Braving the displeasure of the assembly, he mounted the tribune, resigned the Presidentship, renounced his seat as a deputy, and threw aside his robes.

Just as Lucien left the Council I entered.  Bonaparte, who was well informed of all that was passing,

—­[Lucien distinctly states that he himself, acting within his right as President, had demanded an escort of the grenadiers of the Councils as soon as he saw his withdrawal might be opposed.  Then the first entry of the soldiers with Napoleon would be illegal.  The second, to withdraw Lucien, was nominally legal (see Iung’s Lucien, tome i, pp, 318-322)]—­

had sent in soldiers to the assistance of his brother; they carried him off from the midst of the Council, and Bonaparte thought it a matter of no little importance to have with him the President of an assembly which he treated as rebellious.  Lucien was reinstalled in office; but he was now to discharge his duties, not in the President’s chair, but on horseback, and at the head of a party of troops ready to undertake anything.  Roused by the danger to which both his brother and himself were exposed he delivered on horseback the following words, which can never be too often remembered, as showing what a man then dared to say, who never was anything except from the reflection of his brother’s glory:—­

CitizensSoldiers!—­The President of the Council of the Five Hundred declares to you that the majority of that Council is at this moment held in terror by a few representatives of the people, who are armed with stilettoes, and who surround the tribune, threatening their colleagues with death, and maintaining most atrocious discussions.
I declare to you that these brigands, who are doubtless in the pay of England, have risen in rebellion against the Council of the Ancients, and have dared to talk of outlawing the General, who is charged with the execution of its decree, as if the word “outlaw” was still to be regarded as the death-warrant of persons most beloved by their country.
I declare to you that these madmen have outlawed themselves by their attempts upon the liberty of the Council.  In the name of that people, which for so many years have been the sport of terrorism, I consign to you the charge of rescuing the majority of their representatives; so that, delivered from
Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.