In fact, the incidents of that day were all uncommon. The "Moniteur" published an article hinting that the Jacobins contemplated merging the two councils into a convention. The populace, far from being uneasy and riotous, seemed dazzled by the military display, and were not alarmed by the movements of the soldiery. It was only with languid interest that they read a pamphlet scattered everywhere, which had been written by Roederer to prove the need for renewing the constitution. Bonaparte as commandant, and therefore temporary dictator, received according to prearrangement the resignations of Sieyès and Roger-Ducos, to be presented on the morrow at St. Cloud. The Gohiers had been invited to breakfast with Mme. Bonaparte that morning at the unusual hour of eight o'clock. Pleading official duties, the director himself did not go; his wife, amazed by the dazzling assemblage of generals which she found before the Bonapartes' door, hurried back to announce what she had seen. We may surmise that had Gohier accompanied his wife, both might have been won to the support of the movement in hand; in the other event, perhaps, both might have been forcibly detained. As it was, Gohier's first instinct was to consult Barras, and he hurried in search of his colleague; but the fallen statesman was in his bath, and could see nobody. He sent word to Gohier to count on him; but before his toilet was complete he was forced to receive Bruix and Talleyrand, who had come as emissaries from Bonaparte. A guilty conscience made him like wax in the hands of Talleyrand, who successfully pleaded with him to resign, and secured his signature to a form, prepared in advance by Roederer under Bonaparte's supervision, which declared that all danger to freedom was past, thanks to the illustrious warrior for whom he had had the honor to open the way to glory. Such was the haste that even before Moulins, the remaining director, could reach the Tuileries, where Bonaparte had established an office, this paper of Barras had been delivered, and the Directory had ceased to exist. "What have you done," said the dictator to Barras's messenger--"what have you done with the France I made so brilliant? I left you victory: I find nothing but defeat. I left you the millions from Italy: I find plundering laws and misery. Where are the hundred thousand warriors who have disappeared from the soil of France? They are dead, and they were my comrades! Such conditions cannot last; in three years anarchy will land us in despotism. We want a republic founded on the basis of equality, of morality, of civil liberty, of political long-suffering." It is needless to say that a reporter was present, the poet Arnault, who printed this fine language next day in the newspapers.