Naturally these two men were antagonistic. When Napoleon, quitting the army without orders, had landed at Fréjus, Sieyès had proposed to his colleagues in the Directory to have the deserter shot. The weak Directory had no such nerve as such a plan required, and the advice was ignored. Sieyès detested the abrupt, imperious soldier; and Napoleon despised the ex-priest as a confirmed, unpractical, and conceited visionary. Before he had failed with Gohier and Moulins, Napoleon had treated Sieyès with such contempt as to ignore his presence, when they were thrown together at one of the official banquets. The enraged ex-priest exclaimed to his friends, “See the insolence of that little fellow to a member of the government which ought to have had him shot!” Napoleon, intent upon the plan of ousting Sieyès from the Directory, asked _his_ friends, “What were they thinking about to put into the Directory that--priest sold to Prussia?” Powerful as were these feelings of reciprocal dislike, they were overcome. Talleyrand, Joseph Bonaparte, Cabanis, and others plied both the warrior and the priest with those arguments best suited to each. The promptings of self-interest, as well as the necessities of the case, drew them together. With Sieyès--jealous, irritable, suspicious, impracticable--the task had been most difficult. He knew he was being ensnared,--emphatically said so,--but yielded. “Once Napoleon gets in he will push his colleagues behind him, like this,” and Sieyès forcibly illustrated what he meant by bustling between Joseph and Cabanis, and then thrusting them back. Among the civilians the Bonaparte campaign at this crisis was actively aided by Talleyrand, Cambacérès, Roger-Ducos, Roederer, Boulay, Regnier, Cabanis, the friend of Mirabeau. Among the soldiery the leading canvassers were Sébastiani, Murat, Leclerc, Marmont, Lannes, Macdonald. The plan agreed on was that the Council of Ancients, a majority having been gained over, should decree the removal of the legislative sessions to St. Cloud, name Napoleon commander of all the troops in Paris, appoint a provisional consulate (Napoleon, Sieyès, and Roger-Ducos), during which the councils should stand adjourned and a new constitution be framed. The day fixed upon was the 18th of Brumaire (November 9, 1799), and the Ancients were to meet at seven and pass the decrees agreed on by the Bonaparte steering committee. The Five Hundred, a majority of which had not been won, were to meet _after_ the Ancients should have voted the removal of the councils to St. Cloud. Hence they would be powerless to prevent Napoleon from doing what he proposed for the 18th. Whether they would be able to resist him after they formed themselves at St. Cloud on the 19th, was another matter. CHAPTER XX