Real Dictators - Napoleon Part 3: The Egyptian Adventure

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Napoleon sails for the Middle East. After the Battle of the Pyramids, a scientific mission makes remarkable findings, introducing the Western world to the mysteries of Ancient Egypt. But after a drubbing from Britain’s naval supremo, Horatio Nelson, Napoleon does a runner. His return to Paris is timed to perfection. Almost by accident, Bonaparte will seize power... A Noiser production, written by Jeff Dawson. This is Part 3 of 6. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It's July the 15th, 1799. We're in the town of Rashid 30 miles along the coast from Alexandria where the great river Nile hits the Mediterranean A breeze blows off the estuary but still it's blisteringly hot

On the river's west bank a party of French army engineers are stripped to the waist. With pickaxes and shovels, they hack away at the rock-hard ground. In the background, Arab dhows bob past, laden with goods. On the shore, children gather, curious as to what these strange Europeans are up to. The engineers are part of an expeditionary force, a force headed by Napoleon Bonaparte. When the main group went south, they were diverted here. Their orders are to dig out the foundations of an old Ottoman fort. It will be rebuilt as a

French stronghold. One of the men clangs his shovel into a solid piece of rock. The obstruction is hauled out and brushed off. It appears most unusual. A chunk of black granite, polished to a sheen. Etched into its surface is row after row of ancient text. The men summon their officer, Lieutenant Bouchard. He senses this may be of interest. Napoleon's army has been accompanied by a contingent of archaeologists. He sends a runner to find one. Propped up, the slab stands four feet high and two feet wide. It's chipped around the edges, with a fissure running across it.

Clearly, it was once part of something much larger. Its words are divided into three sections, three languages. Bouchard recognizes one of them as Greek. The second will be identified as an antique Demotic script. And then there is the third, made up of those strange pictograms that adorn the oldest monuments in this part of the world. The eyes and feathers and birds and snakes. On further analysis, the Greek text reveals that the stone was laid as a dedication to

King Ptolemy V, made by the priests of Memphis. This will date it to around 200 BC. Though it will take years to decipher fully, the slab will prove to be a translation device, the key to interpreting the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, unlocking the ways of a civilization over 3,000 years old. It will soon be given a name, derived from the Latin version of the town where it's been found, the Rosetta Stone. From Noisa, this is part three of the Napoleon story, and this is Real Dictators. To be continued... Just three years ago, as a humble artillery captain, such a rise would have seemed unimaginable to everyone but himself. As the head of the army of Italy, he has, in just twelve months, completed an audacious military campaign that has knocked France's rival, Austria, out of the war. The first coalition, the alliance of nations that ganged up to stifle revolutionary France, has collapsed.

Napoleon even negotiated the peace settlement, gaining territory for France and setting up a satellite republic in northern Italy. He's proven himself a statesman as well as a soldier. Returning to Paris a hero, a move into politics seems inevitable. After a series of ineffectual governments, France is crying out for strong leadership, for a saviour. But unpredictability is Napoleon's stock in trade. It's what's made him such a tricky opponent. His next move catches everyone by surprise.

He will go off and conquer Egypt. For classical scholars, scholars like Napoleon, Egypt retains an allure, a mystical luster. It was their adventures in this fabled land that burnished the legends of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Professor Andrew Roberts Napoleon had read very extensively in military history and especially military biography when he was at school and later on. In fact, he took Herodotus to Egypt and various other historians.

He took Caesar's Gallic Wars and various other books about Alexander the Great. And it's not difficult to see that, especially in the East, where these people had been successful, that he was essentially setting himself up to be a new Caesar, a new Alexander. For a military campaign, there has to be a strategic motive. A French presence in the Middle East, it is claimed, will hamper Britain's dealings with the jewel in its imperial crown, India. Britain's trade with India actually goes by sea, around the Cape of Southern Africa,

so using the Middle East as a land-born means of disrupting communications seems somewhat ambitious. In truth, the mission to Egypt is as much a case of keeping up with the Joneses. France took great satisfaction in backing the American revolutionaries against King George III, but the fact is its own international reach is diminishing, paling against its colonial rival. French Canada has been lost, so have a number of Caribbean islands. There is currently a slave revolt going on in Haiti.

Put simply, some shiny new overseas possessions will add to a sense of national pride. It would be far too vulgar to present it all as just another martial exercise, so the Egyptian adventure is also dressed up as something designed for France's aesthetic edification, a mission that's also part scientific, part cultural. France has already pillaged the Renaissance art of Italy. Now this strange eastern land will be rediscovered for France's intellectual pleasure. A team of technical experts from the Commission des Sciences et des Arts, of which Napoleon has made a member, will accompany the expedition.

Dr Michael Rowe. The Egyptian campaign has gone down in history as something which really does capture the public imagination. You've got pyramids, you've got sphinxes. It's a part of a world which Europeans don't really know all that well. This is sort of exotic. I suppose it makes strategic sense in that it is a way of getting at Britain. And it's a sure, safer way of getting at Britain

than trying to launch direct invasion. Even Napoleon's domestic opponents give the venture their blessing. At least the accursed little corporal will be out of their hair. Dr Patrice Gueniffey. The French government is very afraid of Bonaparte and says to itself, we will entrust to him

the direction of this expedition in Egypt so that, during this time, he will be occupied and we will be able to relax. On July 1, 1798, Napoleon watches through his telescope from the fo'c'sle of his ship, Lorient. It's a rare venture up on deck. With his chronic seasickness, he spent most of the voyage vomiting in his cabin. The flagship leads an armada of 400 vessels. It's one of the biggest amphibious forces ever assembled, the first French mission to hit these shores since the Crusades.

There is a buzz of excitement. The great port, Alexandria, can be glimpsed on the horizon. Such was the secrecy and the build-up that the 50,000 men in the Armada had no idea of their destination when they set sail. Indies? Brazil? Even England? But Malta has been taken en route, and now they've got a good idea where they're headed.

No Western industrialized army has ever attempted a war of conquest in the Orient. As Napoleon's forces make land, the disparity in military strength is swiftly laid bare. Ancient versus modern, guns versus bows and arrows, a quick, by-the-numbers storming of Alexandria ensues. But the ferocity of the defenders has been noted. Every last man, woman and child was gathered to rain stones down from the city walls. This is a campaign that will be fought on entirely different terms. The few French dead are laid to rest beneath the pillar of Pompey, the great monument to Julius Caesar's illustrious rival,

who was slain not far from here. Napoleon has already mapped out his destiny. But this Egypt is a far cry from the age of antiquity. Not how it appears in the history books, not at all. Alexandria, once a great metropolis, second only to Rome, has fallen into sharp decline. Its huge lighthouse, the Pharos, one of the wonders of the ancient world, has long since crumbled into the sea. This old capital, home of Queen Cleopatra, has been surpassed by a city to the south, 120 miles up the Nile, Cairo.

Following the Greek and Roman empires, Egypt has been sucked into a new sphere of influence. It is now part of the Ottoman world, run by the Turks from Constantinople. Ottoman world, run by the Turks from Constantinople. It's a cornerstone of the realm of Islam, which spread west across North Africa in the 7th century. The Ottoman regime is struggling to retain control here. Off the record, they're quite happy with the French intervention. Napoleon may at least establish some order. Napoleon may at least establish some order. In theory, a nominated Ottoman Pasha is in charge of Cairo, but in practice, the city is run by the Mamaluks.

They are a caste of renegade warlords with an army of slave soldiers. Their very name is said to strike fear into the enemy, though this is of no consequence to Napoleon. enemy, though this is of no consequence to Napoleon. His men follow the Nile south. On July the 21st, they spy in the distance the points of the pyramids of Giza. Tiring over them is the great pyramid of Cheops, the tallest building in the world. Aware of the weight of history, Napoleon addresses his troops. Soldiers, do your duty.

Consider that from the top of these monuments, forty centuries are looking down upon you. It does not take much. As in Alexandria, medieval weaponry is no match for modern French artillery. The so-called Battle of the Pyramids is a thoroughly one-sided affair. The Mameluke cavalry charge the French guns, scimitars glinting.

They moan down at leisure, almost with a yawn. Against their 6,000 killed, the French lose just 29 soldiers. It's all wrapped up in an hour. Just three weeks after taking Alexandria, Cairo, and with it Egypt, falls. The academics that have accompanied Napoleon are soon unleashed. Some travel down to Thebes, others to the Red Sea.

Archaeologists, historians, geologists, botanists, zoologists. The archaeological finds are of special interest. Every artifact that is uncovered, the statues, the sarcophagi, the mummies, is measured, hand-drawn, logged, and looted. Just as in Italy, plunder is dismantled and packaged up, ready for shipping back to the National Museum, the nascent Louvre. The full findings will take time to compile, but they will soon be published in a 24-volume illustrated study called The Description of Egypt. The original version, retained in Cairo, will be destroyed in the Arab Spring Uprising of 2011.

Cairo is a big city, over half a million inhabitants, the same size as Paris. But Napoleon has capable, loyal officers who are well-practiced in the art of conquest. One of them is his cavalry commander, Thomas Alexandre Dumas. He is the first high-ranking officer of Afro-Caribbean descent to feature in the French army. His son, Alexandre, will become one of France's most celebrated novelists. And so Napoleon settles into his familiar routine of republican governorship. He reforms Egypt's law courts, reorganizes its National Guard, and utters the usual platitudes about liberation.

He even sorts out the rubbish collection. In a nod to his audience, he also professes a newfound interest in Islam. He writes in a rather cartoonish fashion, I saw myself marching on the way to Asia, mounted on an elephant, a turban on my head, and in my hand, a new Koran. But Napoleon has become complacent and distracted. There is that Josephine problem again. If you remember, Madame Bonaparte recently informed her husband that she doesn't love him anymore.

The couple have continued to muddle through. Now she writes to Napoleon, informing him that she's purchased land to build a delightful new luxury home six miles outside of Paris. It will be called Malmaison. The bad news, according to Confidant, is that she's moved in with her lover. This is acutely embarrassing, as Napoleon has gone out of his way to keep up appearances. He's even made Josephine's son, Eugene, his personal assistant, his aide-de-camp. As ever, Napoleon descends into a deep funk. I am fed up with humankind, he writes.

I need solitude and isolation. Greatness has damaged me. All feeling has dried up. Glory already lacks luster. There is nothing left for me to do but become a complete egoist. And the egoist soon gets his revenge. Enter a young woman named Pauline Fure. Age 20. She's a dressmaker's assistant from Carcassonne.

She's come to Egypt as the new bride of a serving lieutenant. Pauline's is an incredible tale. Not wanting to be separated from her husband, the young newlywed followed him out here, dressing as a cavalryman, sneaking onto a troop transport. She even fought at the Battle of the Pyramids. Now in Cairo, she's living the life of a travelling wife. Napoleon cannot help himself.

Charming, plump and vivacious, as he describes her. Pauline resists Napoleon's advances at first, but soon the pair become lovers. Caesar has found his Cleopatra. He has her husband sent back to Paris. Out of frustration with Josephine, Napoleon writes a letter to his brother, Joseph, detailing his wife's infidelities. Joseph, detailing his wife's infidelities. The cook-holding Lieutenant Fouret, still Pauline's husband, has also been committing his wounded pride to paper. Unfortunately, the French mail ship carrying the correspondence is intercepted. Bernard Cornwell One of the jokes of the period, of course, is the British capture a French ship, which has got the correspondence of a French officer whose wife had become Napoleon's mistress.

And they publish all the letters in the London Times, which makes Napoleon look a complete moron. Meanwhile, the cosy occupation of Cairo proves to be a mirage. In the Medinas, in the souks and the bazaars, a rebellion is brewing. More than that, Napoleon has made a colossal strategic error. In the rush to march south, he's left his back door wide open.

Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson is the new star of the British Royal Navy. Not unlike Napoleon, he's an inspirational military leader, a man who has risen rapidly through the ranks. He's gained valuable battle experience in the Americas, the West Indies, India and the Mediterranean. Beloved by his men, he's incredibly brave and not afraid to get his hands dirty. Though he's already lost one of them, his arm having been smashed by grapeshark during an assault on Tenerife.

He was also blinded in one eye during the capture of Napoleon's home island, Corsica. Word of a French seaborne expedition reaches the British Admiralty, destination unknown. The Royal Naval Mediterranean Squadron sails off in hot pursuit. Hunting the French on the high seas is not easy, even a convoy that size, it takes two months to track them down. But Nelson eventually finds the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, 12 miles east of Alexandria. It's been forced to sit pretty while Napoleon has yomped off on his expedition inland. The fleet is arranged in a textbook defensive position.

Ships pulled in tight to the coast, all guns facing the sea, the vessels linked by cables to form an impenetrable barrier. The assumption is that the shallows behind the French are unnavigable. But they are no obstacle to Nelson. Like Napoleon, he's a man who does his homework. He studies the currents and the local navigation charts. On the night of August 1st 1798, by stealth and with the ships stripped of excess weight, Nelson drifts half of his warships between the French and the shore. The remainder of the task force engages the French from the seaward side, drawing their fire.

Then the ones in the rear completely blindside and broadside them. The Battle of the Nile is over almost before it's begun. Nelson, in many ways, is like a naval version of Napoleon. He takes risks. He has to squeeze a part of the fleet under his command between the shore and the French. And that's not an easy maneuver. You need to trust your subordinates to be able to pull it off. And they do pull it off.

And they sandwich the French line between two British lines and just work their way up and destroy pretty much every French ship. One of the interesting things about Napoleon is that although he has victory after victory, 47 major victories as a commander, they were always won on the land. He didn't have that natural brilliance as a sailor that he had as a soldier. Aboukir Bey does make the Egyptian campaign from a French point of view pretty much pointless. You know, from that stage on, you've just got a French army of about 30,000 troops, which is stranded in the Middle East.

And that's a bit of a problem. How are you going to get it back? And you might need it back at some point. To cap it all, in the Egyptian capital, the rebellion finally breaks out. The new National Guard has its work cut out. When the uprising is quashed, Napoleon has 300 rebels beheaded. Their bodies are tossed into the Nile for the pleasure of the crocodiles. This move proves to be the last straw for the Ottoman Turks, who, forgiving at first, have watched on as Napoleon has rampaged through their lands. Wrath incurred, they sign up to a new British-financed alliance, the Second Coalition.

Joining the new posse are the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, and, still smarting from its defeat the previous year, Austria. It's not just Napoleon's navy that has been destroyed. With his head stuck in the sand, everything he previously achieved in Italy is about to be undone. Dr Michael Rapport The Second Coalition was sparked by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. There was a very brief period of peace in Europe itself in 1797 when all the other European states had made separate peace with France.

Britain was alone in the war for a very short period, but Napoleon's invasion of Egypt brought Turkey into the war and Russia saw it as essential to its strategic interests in the Eastern Mediterranean. For Napoleon, there was only one way to proceed. He is the shark that will die if it stops swimming. He will carry the war to the Ottomans. He will march and attack them in Syria.

He didn't have an off switch. I suspect on top of all his merits, he is very susceptible to boredom. And the one activity which thrilled him was war. In war, you're pitting your wit and your intelligence and your men against other people. I think there was a sheer joy in winning. It reminds me of what Robert E. Lee said, it is good war that is so dreadful or we get too fond of it. Napoleon never saw the dreadfulness.

He only experienced the fondness. He couldn't resist war. With an army of 13,000 men, Napoleon crosses the Sinai Desert. It's only February, but the sun is scorching. The conditions hellish. The men, dressed in coarse woolen clothing, carry backpacks of up to 80 pounds. They drag their weapons and ammunition through the soft, energy-sapping dunes. The principle of living off the land has made Napoleon's armies incredibly mobile.

No need for baggage trains. All well and good in the fertile Nile Delta when you can feast on palm dates and ripe melons, but a bit of a challenge in a desert. Donkeys, camels, monkeys, dogs, any conceivable sustenance is scavenged. Fresh water becomes more precious than gold. Napoleon's men are blighted by thirst and sickness. Napoleon's men are blighted by thirst and sickness. They're also routinely harassed by the pursuing Mamluk cavalry, who torture their captives with a creative sadism.

The French soldiers drop like flies, but they press on. Ottoman Syria in the 18th century corresponds to a broader area that includes modern-day Israel and Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon. As Napoleon approaches, it's being provisioned from the sea by the British. But even with the odds stacked against him, Napoleon rides his usual luck. On March 3, 1799, he launches an assault on the port of Jaffa, situated within present-day Tel Aviv.

His artillery is stuck at sea, courtesy of the Royal Navy, so it all comes down to the infantry. But even with his depleted force, Napoleon manages to prevail. His blood is up. In an act decried for its barbarism, 3,000 captured Ottomans are taken down to the beach to be bayoneted to death. It was seen as shocking even at the time. It's seen as something which Napoleon himself has to somehow excuse.

And it's something which the British and indeed Napoleon's opponents generally use against him as a horrific war crime, which it is by today's standards, but even by the standards of 1799, when it occurs, it is seen as not right. Professor David Bell. He could be very brutal, and this is throughout his entire career. Egypt in some ways represents the worst of it with the massacres of the prisoners taken in Syria. But before that, even in the Italian campaign, when there are Italians who basically resist the French occupation forces, they burn villages, they execute hostages. There's really quite a lot of real brutality, some of which comes out of the French Revolution. These are soldiers who served often in the Vendée, where as many as 200,000 French civilians lost their lives after a counter-revolutionary revolt.

Yeah, I mean, he has a lot to answer for in that respect, absolutely. By now, for their part, the French have also sustained significant losses. This is due to a devastating new nemesis, the bubonic plague. In the aftermath of Jaffa, Napoleon makes a point of visiting some of his sick and injured men. Accompanying him is his personal portraitist, Antoine Jean Gros. Dr. Catherine Kali Galitz. Dr. Catherine Callie-Gallitz The terrible bubonic plague had affected a large number of Napoleonic soldiers and they were in a plague house, what they then called a pest house. And supposedly Napoleon visited these sick, dying soldiers there

and he asked Glo to paint this. The result, when it was exhibited in Paris, shows Napoleon as this kind of Christ-like healer with the divine touch, reaching out to touch the open plague wound of a soldier, you know, as if to say, I can heal this. Jaffa. He ordered the army's doctor to poison those soldiers who were still alive because he didn't want to have any evidence of what had actually transpired. Some of the soldiers actually survived being poisoned and then told about it. And this made the news in Britain. It was covered widely in the press of evidence of Napoleon's barbaric behavior to his own men while he was in Egypt. But yet he tries to put his own spin on this by having Gould paint this history painting, glorifying him as a general.

Napoleon pays a visit to Nazareth, where he takes Mass, possibly to atone. He's warned that there will be a particularly hostile reception laid on for him up the coast at Acre. This old walled citadel witnessed the last stand of the Crusaders back in 1291. It's a settlement loaded with historical and biblical significance. Acre is defended by a man named Jezzar the Butcher, a man who once murdered all his wives, drowning them one by one, saving his favorite for disemboweling. Just to show he means business, on news of the French advance, Jezzar rounds up every Christian in the city. He sews

them each into a sack and throws them into the sea. Then he gets back to his favorite pastime, making origami flowers. The accursed Royal Navy are making things difficult again, shipping Jezar tons of munitions. Acre is, for Napoleon, a fortress too far. It's a rare and sickening defeat. He will claim, through his usual media outlets, a stunning victory in which he razed the old city to the ground. But it's an utter fabrication. Napoleon and his men begin the long slog back to Cairo.

He's been away from Egypt for four months. Three thousand of his men have perished en route. The truth is, he's had enough. And so, in the small hours of August 23rd, 1799, Napoleon sneaks out. Citing extraordinary circumstances, he sucks up his seasickness to board one of only two frigates to have survived Nelson's attack. Under cover of darkness, the pair of small warships evade the Royal Naval pickets and set sail for France.

Napoleon has abandoned an army of 30,000 in Cairo. The rump of this force will be stuck there till 1801, when they surrender to an Anglo-Turkish force. In normal times, he would have been court-martialed and shot for that, for this desertion in front of the enemy. But no matter, he arrived in France before the bad news from Egypt. And so, when he arrived in France, he spread a legendary tale of the Egyptian campaign, as if it was a great success, when in fact it was a terrible failure. The voyage home to France is a perilous one.

Royal naval patrols are everywhere. Napoleon, overcome with emotion, even finds himself putting in at Ajaccio, the Corsican city whose cobbles he hasn't trodden in years. He eventually lands at Frasius on the Riviera and takes the long road north. At Lyon and elsewhere, he's given a thunderous reception. On October the 16th, when Napoleon takes to the streets of Paris, he's greeted by ecstatic, adoring crowds. They miraculously returned from Egypt. Many people believed he had died there.

So when he came back, it was like a character from mythology had arrived. They miraculously returned from Egypt. Many people believed he had died there. So when he came back, it was like a character from mythology had arrived. And in Paris, the rulers understand that he is the one who is going to inherit power, because of the stature, both real and mythological, that he has in public opinion. He becomes a legend during his own lifetime. It's very rare to become a legend in one's own lifetime. Only rock stars can do that. But in the case of rock stars, they die at 27.

Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, etc. But he lives, he enters his own legend, which he will then maintain very skillfully. In yet another masterpiece of spin, Napoleon even whitewashes the naval thrashing by Nelson at Aboukir Bay. Just before departing, a French force beat back some Ottomans at the town of Aboukir itself. In Napoleon's retelling, the two battles are conflated, and of course, there is only

one winner. are conflated, and of course there is only one winner. Napoleon finds high society enthralled to him, and enthralled to his Egyptian odyssey. Walking, talking, squawking like an Egyptian is all the rage, it seems, in the fashions, the furnishings, the songs, even the wallpaper. Oriental chic is in. No public space is possible without sphinx-shaped fountains or replica obelisks sprouting up. In 200 years, they'll be planting a giant glass pyramid outside the Louvre.

It would be very easy, and I think this was deliberate, seeing all of these Egyptian references in France, to think, oh, that was a great success for us. You know, yay France, yay us. But in fact, it wasn't. It wasn't at all. Unfortunately for Napoleon, there is no Rosetta Stone to show off. Left in Egypt, along with the army, it will, with the surrender, pass into British hands.

It's been in the British Museum ever since. Napoleon is not just a general now, not just a statesman, not just a trendsetter. He is a Christ-like redeemer. And, not just in Franceroad, his fan club grows. Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Beethoven, Blake, Goethe. In the Tuileries Palace, nerves jangle. Has the great general come home to seize power? Napoleon is far too astute to pose as a strongman.

Not just yet. Plus, he must tread carefully. Technically, he could be up on a charge of desertion. He recognizes very well that the French are very worried about Julius Caesar. The French are very worried about a general coming to power. If you wanted to denounce somebody during the terror, you said he's a Caesar, he's a Cromwell, he wants to become a dictator. And Napoleon did want to become a Caesar, so obviously this was something he had to worry about. And one of the ways that he dealt with this is by being very careful to pose as a civilian. So when he comes back to France,

he walks about Paris dressed in civilian clothing, not in his uniform. On his journey up from the Mediterranean, Napoleon even stopped off in Valence, where he took tea with his old landlady and presented her with a cashmere shawl. So lovably cuddly is Napoleon that even black-toothed Josephine is now beseeching him for forgiveness, promising that she is a changed woman. Though, music to the ears of the Bonaparte family, which can't stand her, he is now intent on a divorce. The civilian posturing is all an act, of course, all smoke and mirrors.

Napoleon is a soldier, a soldier to the core, and when the time is right, he will revert to type. As ever, France is in chaos. Almost a failed state. There have been three coup attempts in the last two years. Parts of the country are under de facto martial law. The permanently deadlocked government seems powerless. It lives in fear for its own safety. The economy is ruined after years of war which is now raging again on France's eastern frontiers.

A restoration of law and order is needed more than ever. The current French government is made up of a ruling council called the Directory. It consists of five men. The Directory sits above two chambers, the Council of Elders and the Lower House, the Council of 500. One of the five directors is a man named Emmanuel Joseph Siez. A former priest, he's better known by his revolutionary name, the Abbé Sieyès. Sieyès has grown frustrated at the ineffectual process of legislation. He wants to press the reset button, and he wonders whether Napoleon might want in on the action.

Napoleon has had a long association with another director, Paul Barras, who had, till recently, been the dominant figure. But now Napoleon recognises that Sieyès is the man to hang his hat on. In his home on the Rue de la Victoire, where his mother is currently in residence, Napoleon takes soundings from learned colleagues, checking out the lie of the political landscape, as if on the verge of a new campaign. C.S.'s plan is not for a military takeover. His coup will be a constitutional one, legitimate, peaceful, just with Napoleon as his insurance,

should he need it, his sword. his insurance should he need it, his sword. His thinking is that government must be streamlined, made more nimble. The only way to achieve this, procedurally, is for it to vote itself out of existence. It can then be re-established with a brand new constitution. If the directors resign, the deputies in the two houses will be compelled to dissolve Parliament altogether And thus the reform can begin Support Sears, and there'll be a plum job for Napoleon within the new set-up For good measure, Sears has Napoleon appointed as Parliament's military protector

The guarantor of its security And so on November 9th, 1799 and appointed as Parliament's military protector, the guarantor of its security. And so, on November 9th, 1799, the revolutionary date of Dix-Huit-Promere, the wheels are set in motion. The plotters have been clever. There's no paper trail to betray their moves. They've also enlisted the Minister of Police, who puts Paris under virtual lockdown. The threats of another revolution are so rife, the government has been persuaded to relocate

to the suburbs, to the Château Saint-Cloud. Saint-Cloud is not prepared to host a parliament. Carpenters are still at work constructing benches and platforms. The Council of 500 are shoved into a massive greenhouse. But Parliament has been isolated all the same. It is now a controlled environment. And if the deputies don't play ball… Napoleon's presence outside the chateau, back in his military uniform, and with a squad of grenadiers at his back, is not just to assure Parliament's protection, it's also to focus their attention.

It is another Bonaparte now, who is about to take centre stage. Lucien is Napoleon's younger brother. He is the family firebrand, the man who could start an argument in an empty room. He is currently the head of the lower house. The upper chamber duly goes along with Siez's proposal, but in the Council of 500 it's proving a harder sell. The dissolution of Parliament is still some way off. Lucian, in characteristic form, just can't help himself. Civilized debate descends into a slanging match. The younger Bonaparte threatens to shut proceedings down altogether.

There have been several bloodless coups in the past during the French Revolution, and Napoleon intended the Brumaire coup to be one of those. But it seemed like it wasn't going to come off. The legislature refused to abolish itself, which was a key prerequisite. And at one point, he had to flood the actual chamber with troops with bayonets. Waiting in the chateau grounds, Napoleon loses patience. Tired with all this faffing around, he enters the lower chamber with some of his men. The deputies are outraged. This looks like a military coup.

Some of them denounce Napoleon as a tyrant, an outlaw. The house erupts in chaos. Scuffles break out. Napoleon and his men are bundled away. In another strange echo of Julius Caesar, the deputies in the chamber are uniformed in preposterous togas draped over their clothes. One of them, a would-be Brutus, has a dagger concealed in the folds. He whips it out to slash at Napoleon, or so it's claimed by Napoleon's supporters. A Grenadier guard is said to have jumped in, taking his general's wound. Back outside there is confusion among the soldiers, unease.

Weren't they there to protect the legislature? Have they been hoodwinked into taking part in an overthrow of the state? Lucian addresses them. He assures that everything is legitimate. He grabs a sword, marches boldly to Napoleon, and rests its point theatrically against his chest. I swear that I will stab my own brother to the heart if he ever attempts anything against the liberty of Frenchmen, he proclaims.

But Lucian is up to his neck in the plot. He knows full well that Napoleon detests disorder, that he will not be able to resist stepping in. And so it was done with a great deal of theatricality. There was a small amount of blood shed in that people were cut by the bayonets. Nobody was killed or anything like that. But nonetheless,

there was a good deal of performance art about the Brumaire coup. The lower house is still in turmoil. An impatient Napoleon sends his guards back in, ordered to evict any hostile deputies. This time his men act with professional purpose. Some deputies faint, the majority flee, a few even leap out of the windows.

Joachim Murat, Napoleon's second-in-command, informs them of the state of play. Citizens, you are dissolved. And so the system of government known as the Directory comes to an end. Siez's coup has succeeded. But Napoleon is not done yet. His allies in the upper house now begin thrashing out a new constitution. The coup, it really is a kind of shambolic affair in a lot of ways. They hope that they can get a kind of quasi-legitimate transfer of power, but then

they do meet this unexpected resistance in the Chamber of 500. The fact is that the government has no legitimacy left at this point, and once Napoleon comes in, he's able to consolidate power pretty easily. It's really a vacuum, and he steps into it very forcefully. Debating into the early hours, the rump of politicians reaches a decision. They will establish a slimmed-down government based on a Roman model. It is to be headed by a ruling triumvirate of just three nominated consuls. For the time being, those men will be Siez, another old revolutionary called

Roger Ducon, and of course, Napoleon Bonaparte. The first two can kid themselves all they like, but this is far from a trio of equals. In terms of power and popularity, they cannot hold a candle to Napoleon. And when it comes to nominating one of themselves as the presiding officer, it's no contest. Duco understands this all too well. To the chagrin of C.S, who fancies himself the big cheese, he gives Napoleon his backing. Cies' pain is eased with a 350,000 franc cash settlement, a country estate and a house in Paris. Both Cies and Ducos will be swiftly sidelined anyway. For Napoleon will edit the new constitution himself. In December, he will write himself into the statute books

as the primary or pro-consul. He was the right man at the right time when it came to overthrowing the Directory. The government was unbelievably corrupt and incompetent, and it hadn't been fighting the war in Europe very well either. And so people really did want it to be overthrown, and Napoleon undertook the coup. It was a lucky break.

In many ways, it could easily have gone wrong, but he pulled it off. The move still needs to be put to the public. he pulled it off. The move still needs to be put to the public. On February the 3rd, it's endorsed by a popular vote of 99.95%. The scale of support may partly be explained by the fact

that Lucien Bonaparte is the returning officer. For Napoleon, everything has been building to this moment. His appointment has come about in near farcical circumstances and on the back of an unmitigated military disaster. But, as the year 1800, the 19th century, dawns,

Napoleon Bonaparte, aged 30, is the new French head of state. In effect, effect its dictator. Napoleon can rehash the old platitudes about liberté, égalité, fraternité. But the reality is the nation has now invested absolute power in a single man. France, Europe has been launched into a brand new era The revolution is over, declares Napoleon I am the revolution In the next part of the Napoleon story

Napoleon storms back into Italy In the next part of the Napoleon story, Napoleon storms back into Italy, reconquering all that had been lost. Back home, he consolidates his rule, declaring himself emperor. Intent on destroying Britain, he plans a seaborne invasion. But will this new master of Europe know when to stop? That's next time.