The fate of the Assembly was sealed. On the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille, Bonaparte issued a proclamation to his army declaring the Republic to be threatened by Royalist intrigues. A banquet was held, and the officers and soldiers of every division signed addresses to the Directory full of threats and fury against conspiring aristocrats. "Indignation is at its height in the army," wrote Bonaparte to the Government; "the soldiers are asking with loud cries whether they are to be rewarded by assassination on their return home, as it appears all patriots are to be so dealt with. The peril is increasing every day, and I think, citizen Directors, you must decide to act one way or other." The Directors had no difficulty in deciding after such an exhortation as this; but, as soon as Bonaparte had worked up their courage, he withdrew into the background, and sent General Augereau, a blustering Jacobin, to Paris, to risk the failure or bear the odium of the crime. Augereau received the military command of the capital; the air was filled with rumours of an impending blow; but neither the majority in the Councils nor the two threatened Directors, Carnot and Barthélemy, knew how to take measures of defence. On the night of the 3rd September (17 Fructidor) the troops of Augereau surrounded the Tuileries. Barthélemy was seized at the Luxembourg; Carnot fled for his life; the members of the Councils, marching in procession to the Tuileries early the next morning, were arrested or dispersed by the soldiers. Later in the day a minority of the Councils was assembled to ratify the measures determined upon by Augereau and the three Directors. Fifty members of the Legislature, and the writers, proprietors, and editors of forty-two journals, were sentenced to exile; the elections of forty-eight departments were annulled; the laws against priests and emigrants were renewed; and the Directory was empowered to suppress all journals at its pleasure. This coup d'état was described as the suppression of a Royalist conspiracy. It was this, but it was something more. It was the suppression of all Constitutional government, and all but the last step to the despotism of the chief of the army. [Peace signed with Austria, Oct. 17.]