That had been at Castiglione. With his usual daring he had placed himself between the three Austrian armies commanded by Generals Würmser, Quosdanovich and Davidovich, but one of his own Generals, Valette, had practically thrown away a key position, thus rendering the situation of the French army extremely precarious. This had sent Boneparte into such a transport of fury that, apart from reducing the wretched Valette to the ranks, his mind had seemed to lose the faculty of forming any decision. At a night conference of Generals he had talked vaguely of a retreat to the Adda. Augereau had violently opposed retreat and eventually stamped out of the meeting in a passion. Next morning another conference was called and the argument recommenced. This time, on Augereau's again pressing for a vigorous attack, it was Boneparte who had walked out, simply remarking, 'Well, I wash my hands of it, and I am going away.' The astonished circle were stricken dumb, except for Augereau, who shouted after him, 'If you go, who is to command?' The reply, called back over Boneparte's shoulder, was 'You.
Augereau had promptly given battle, leading the first charge himself. Soon afterwards Boneparte had resumed the direction of operations, but Augereau had also delivered the final stroke that had routed the Austrians; so it was undoubtedly his victory. Nevertheless, it was the opinion of some people that Boneparte's apparent temporary mental collapse was simply a cunning ruse, and that the wily Corsican, finding himself in a position which threatened to mar his unbroken record of victories, had deliberately left the decision, either to fight or retreat, to someone else, so that if things did go wrong he could escape being blamed for it. Having regard to the extraordinary duplicity of Boneparte's character, that was certainly a possibility; but, even so, Roger did not see how by just walking out, a General-in-Chief could shrug off his responsibility. The fact remained, too, that Boneparte was most generous in his praise of Augereau, and for years afterwards whenever anyone complained to him about the great swashbuckling gamin, he would reply: 'Ah, but look what he did for us at Castiglione.'
A few weeks after despatching Augereau to Paris, Boneparte had sent Bernadotte after him with some more captured flags; but that was a very different story. Charles Jean Bernadotte was, like Murat, a Gascon, and later as the sovereigns of Naples and Sweden they became known as 'The Gascon Kings'. But Bernadotte, although in appearance another splendid-looking, large-nosed swashbuckler, had a subtle and treacherous brain. He was a great flatterer, greatly liked by his troops and junior officers, and always charming to civilians, but universally hated by his brother Generals, and to that feeling Boneparte was no exception.
Bernadotte had won his fame with the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse and had expected to succeed Jourdan on his retirement. Instead, the Directory, at last acceding to Boneparte's plea for reinforcements for his final drive into Austria, had ordered Bernadotte to march his division down to Milan. The result had not been a happy one.
The French armies of the North were still practising the old war technique of ponderous march and counter march, with plenty of prolonged periods in between for drill and sprucing themselves up. Bernadotte's division were good fighters when they actually got into a battle, but when they joined the Army of Italy neither they nor their General sought to hide their contempt for the slovenly mobs which had performed such prodigies of valour under Augereau and Massena. The latter were largely ex sans-culottes, the former moderates, and as soon as the campaign was over open strife broke out between them. Brune, who was temporarily commanding Massena's division, had called on Bernadotte's Chief-of-Staff and asked him to forbid the use of the word 'Monsieur' among his officers. The Chief-of-Staff had refused and challenged Brune to a duel. Officers and men had taken up their leaders' quarrel with the result that, within twenty-four hours, fifty men had been killed and three hundred wounded.
Boneparte and Bernadotte had disliked one another on sight, and the former's Chief-of-Staff, Berthier, had developed a positive hatred for the handsome, long-nosed supercilious Gascon. But at least they had good reason to believe him loyal to the Directory; so they had got rid of him by pushing him off to Paris after Augereau.
Couriers came galloping in from Paris night and day, but even with the best speed they could make, their news was over a week old before it got to Montebello. It was therefore not until September 13th that Boneparte and his staff had first particulars of events on 18th of the month in the revolutionary calendar named Fructidor.
This date, by the old reckoning September 4th, 1797, was to rank with 13th Vendemiaire, and later 18th Brumaire, as key dates in the short life of the Directory. The corrupt but courageous Barras, and the brutal but bold Augereau, managed everything between them. The former did not even tell his colleagues Rewbell and Larevelliere what was planned until a few hours before the blow was struck.
Augereau's troops surrounded the two Chambers and demanded the surrender of the Constitutional Guard, a large part of which had been suborned beforehand. When asked by what right he did so, he had grinned, drawn his huge sabre, and declared: 'By that of the sword.'
Next day the Five Hundred and the Ancients were summoned to meet in the Odeon Theatre and the School of Medicine, respectively. Few who were not partisans of the Left dared to do so. To these were put resolutions that Barras and his friends had drafted overnight. The principle of these was the completely arbitrary cancellation of the recent elections in forty-eight Departments, thus throwing out at one stroke the greater part of the Deputies who represented the moderate views now held by a majority of the people of France.
After this first news of the coup d'etat couriers arrived almost every hour at Montebello bringing further details Some fifty members of the two Chambers, among them Generals Pichegru and Willot and such famous anti-Terrorists as Boissy d'Anglas, Bourdon of the Oise and Barbe-Marbois, had been placed under arrest and condemned to transportation; so, too, had the able and honest Director, Barthelemy, to whom, as a diplomat, France owed the withdrawal of Prussia from among her active enemies, Carnot's arrest had also been ordered, but he had taken the precaution of hiding in his bedroom at the Luxembourg a spare key to a small gate in the garden and, warned only just in time by his brother, he had escaped through it.
No one could have been more pleased at this last piece of news that Roger. Although Carnot had been one of Robespierre's colleagues, he had taken no part in the Terror and, as a professional soldier, concerned himself only with the defence of France. He had not only raised, armed and trained her great new armies, but for five years been solely responsible for the strategy by which she had kept her many enemies at bay. He had, too, been in a large part personally responsible for the great republican victory at Wattignies; for, having planned the battle with Jourdan at his field headquarters, he had later, on seeing a wing of the French front break, leapt into the fray, rallied the retreating sans-culottes and, waving his hat on the end of his cane, himself led them back in a victorious charge. He was a great man in every sense, honourable, generous, courageous, compassionate, and with high ideals for the real betterment of the masses; and Roger regarded him with more respect than he had for any other revolutionary leader.
After a further week or so, to the relief of most people, it became apparent that the Left did not intend to use its triumph to launch a renewal of the Terror. With shocking barbarity the shilly-shallying Pichegru, the unfortunate Barthelemy, and a number of others were transported in iron cages through France to La Rochelle, before being shipped off to 'la guillo tine sec', as exiles in the fever-ridden swamps of Cayenne, Apart from this, no acts of tyranny were indulged in and Paris, although trembling, remained quiet. But the laws against émigrés and priests were once more rigidly enforced, the Royalist Clubs were closed, and a heavy censorship was placed upon the press. Merlin of Douai and Francoise de Neuf-chateau were elected as Directors to replace Carnot and Barthelemy, much to Augereau's annoyance, as he had hoped to become a Director himself; but to console him he was made General-in-Chief of the Armies of the Rhine.