“Is it not true,” said he—­“I said many foolish things?”

“Well, yes, general, that cannot be denied,” replied Bourrienne, shrugging his shoulders, while Josephine broke out into loud, joyous laughter.

“I would sooner speak to soldiers than to lawyers,” said Bonaparte, cheerfully.  “These honorable fools made me timid.  I am not accustomed to speak to an audience—­but that will come in time.”

With affectionate sympathy Josephine requested him to relate in detail all the events of the day; and she listened with breathless attention to the descriptions which Bonaparte made in his own terse, brief, and lucid manner.

“And Gohier?” said she, at last—­“you know I love his wife, and when you were in Egypt he was ever kind and attentive to me.  You will not touch him, will you, mon ami?”

Bonaparte shrugged his shoulders.  “What of it, my love?” said he; “it is not my fault if he is pushed aside.  Why has he not wished it otherwise?  He is a good-natured man, but a blockhead.  He does not understand me....  I would do much better to have him transported.  He wrote against me to the Council of the Elders, but his letter fell into my hands, and the council has heard nothing of it.  The unfortunate man!....Yesterday he expected me to dinner....And that is called statesmanship....  Let us speak no more of this matter.” [Footnote:  Bonaparte’s own words.—­See Bourrienne, vol. iii., p. 106.]

Then he began to relate to his Josephine how Bernadotte had acted, refusing to take any part in the events of the day, and how, when Bonaparte had requested him at least to undertake nothing against him, he answered:  “As a citizen, I will keep quiet; but if the Directory gives me the order to act, I will fight against every disturber of the peace and every conspirator, whoever he may be.”

Bonaparte then suddenly turned to Bourrienne to dismiss him, that he might himself take some rest; and when he extended his hand to bid him farewell, he added, carelessly: 

“Apropos, to-morrow we sleep in the Luxemburg.”  It was decided!—­the long-premeditated deed was done!  With the 18th Brumaire, Bonaparte had made an important step forward on the path of fame and power whose end was seen by him alone.

Bonaparte was no longer a general receiving orders from a superior authority; he was no longer the servant of the Directory; but he was now the one who would give orders—­he was the master and ruler; he stood at the head of the French nation; he made the laws, and his deep, clear eye looked far beyond both consuls who stood at his side, into that future when he alone would be at the head of France; when, instead of the uprooted throne of the lilies, he would sit in the Tuileries, in the chair of the First Consul, this chair of a Caesar, which could so easily become an emperor’s throne!

On the 20th Brumaire, Napoleon occupied the residence of the Directory in the palace of the Luxemburg, after he had, through his brother Louis, made Gohier prisoner, the only one of the directors who still lingered there, and whom he afterward released.  Josephine’s intercession procured the liberty of the husband of her friend, and this generous pardon of the furious letter which Gohier had written against him was the thank-offering which Bonaparte presented to the gods as he made his entrance into the Luxemburg.