Meanwhile the conspiracy was at work from the Sieyès-Talleyrand end of the line. The Council of Ancients, convoked at seven in the morning in order that unfriendly and unnotified deputies might not be present, voted that the councils should meet at St. Cloud, and that Napoleon should be invested with command of all the troops in Paris. This decree, brought to him at his house, was immediately read by him from the balcony, and heard with cheers by the officers below. The Napoleonic campaign was based upon the assumption that the country was in danger, that the Jacobins had made a plot to overthrow everything, and that all good citizens must rush to the rescue. Upon this idea the council had voted its own removal to a place of safety, and had appointed Napoleon to defend the government from the plotters who were about to pounce upon it. Therefore when Napoleon read the decree, he called aloud to the brilliant throng of uniformed officers, “Will you help me save the country?” Wildly they shouted “Yes,” and waved their swords aloft. Bernadotte and a few others did not like the looks of things, and drew apart; but, with these exceptions, all were enthusiastic; and when Napoleon mounted his horse, they followed. He went to the Council of Ancients, where he took the oath of office, swearing not to the constitution then in existence, but that France should have a republic based on civil liberty and national representation. The councils stood adjourned to St. Cloud, and Napoleon went into the gardens of the Tuileries to review the troops. He briefly harangued them, and was everywhere hailed by them with shouts of “Long live Bonaparte!” So strong ran the current that Fouché volunteered aid that had not been asked, and closed the city gates. “My God! what is that for?” said Napoleon. “Order the gates opened. I march with the nation, and I want nothing done which would recall the days when factious minorities terrorized the people.” Augereau, seeing victory assured, regretted that he had not been taken into the confidence of his former chief, “Why, General, have you forgotten your old comrade, Augereau?” (Literally, “Your little Augereau.”) Napoleon had no confidence in him, no use for him, and virtually told him so.