Crises in Civil Society.


BRUMAIRE.

THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH DIRECTORY.

The eighteenth century went out with the French Directory, and the
nineteenth came in with the Consulate. The coincidence of dates is not
exact by a year and a month and twenty-one days. But history does not
pay much attention to almanacs. In general our century arose with the
French Consulate. The Consulate was the most conspicuous political
fact of Europe in the year 1801; and the Consulate came in with
_Brumaire_.

"Brumaire" is one of the extraordinary names invented by the
French Revolutionists. The word, according to Carlyle, means
_Fogarious_--that is, Fog month. In the French Republican calendar,
devised by the astronomer Romme, in 1792, Brumaire began on the
twenty-second day of October and ended on the twentieth day of
November. It remained for Brumaire, and the eighteenth day of
Brumaire, of the year VIII, to extinguish the plural executive which
the French democrats had created under the name of a _Directory_, and
to substitute therefor the One Man that was coming.

The Directory was a Council of Five. It was a sort of five-headed
presidency; and each head was the head of a Jacobin. One of the heads
was called Barras. One was called Carnot. Another was called
Barthelemy. Another was Roger Ducos; another was the Abbé Sieyes. That