#this is very simplified but i hope somewhat correct hehe

[divorcedwife]

hi you mentionned in one of your post that the coup of the 18th of brumaire (you actually reminded me it was today too!!) was cool but the coup that made napoleon get ruling of france was badly made (in shortened terms i don't actually know if you would qualify them as 'cool' or 'bad' but i hope you get what i mean) what is the second coup you're talking about?? i only have very basic knowledge over napoleon and thought the coup d'état of the 18th brumaire was what made him get ruling of france?

oh i can elaborate yes!! pre-emptive warning that i am not a historian or really qualified, but these are the events as i understand them :-)

so there is just indeed one coup yes! the 18 of brumaire is what made Napoléon first consul and pretty much sole ruler. i might have worded it confusingly in that last post. i've always heard of Napoléon as this great genius in every single way, and i must admit after learning about the events of his career that lots of them were good moves and well played. so i was excited to get to the coup, not only because the government at the time (the directory) was awful, extremely corrupt and torn by infighting between directors, but because Napoléon had shown abilities to deceive and convince and i was hyped to see which genius tricks he might have used on that day

but it wasn't really like that

first of all, he wasn't the initiator of the coup ; his own brothers were in it before him, and warned their co-conspirators not to get him involved, because he was too ambitious and would spin it to his own advantage. but the conspirators needed a general for the coup to succeed, and after their favorite candidate died suddenly, they had no choice but to ask him. he indeed immediatly saw that he held for the cards, and demanded to be named first consul once the coup was over. so, for starters, not his plan

but then, he also almost caused the coup to fail due to his actions! the idea was to convince the legislators that there was a leftist coup happening, and for the safety of the country, general Napoléon Bonaparte was to be given emergency powers. this is where things did not go as planned, because the deputies and senators found this suspicious and would not vote this. Napoléon was waiting impatiently outside the palace, and decided to just barge into the deputies room with a bunch of soldiers. you might recognize this move as generally frowned upon, and the deputies were indeed unhappy

they were even more unhappy when Napoléon fumbled his way through a really bad speech meant to convince them that there was definitely a leftist coup just, you know, over there! it was not convincing, and he also made open threats to them if they did not comply. this ended with the events you see on the painting i reblogged ; they got angry and started getting closer, one of them punched him and he had to be carried out by his soldiers

in the end, the coup only succeeded because of Napoléon's brother Lucien, who called out to his soldiers to protect their leader and the Republic, and gave a great speech that was almost ruined by Napoléon once again saying nonsense that really gave away that the threat was fake and that the goal was for him to get power

so that's what amazed me about this! i was expecting a genius move, but instead, he was asked to join a coup other people had planned, played his cards all wrong, and had to be bailed out by his little brother. and that's how he became ruler of France. it reminds me of when earlier in his career, he got his military advancement through political friendships with the radical Jacobin government and not really his merit - it turned out great because he was really good as a military commander, but he earned it through social networking. similarly, he was extremely competent as a ruler of France, but he got there in an incredible fail moment

and by the way, Napoléon then told a completely different story that you see in art sometimes ; that he walked into the deputies room alone, and they had KNIVES and tried to kill him. oh the poor soul! maybe they should have