The drums sound for an advance, and the troops forthwith enter the hall.

In vain the deputies raise the shout, "Vive la Republique," and invoke the constitution.

Appeals to the law are overpowered by the drum and by shouts for Bonaparte; and the legislators of France fly pell-mell from the hall through doors and windows.[129] Thus was fulfilled the prophecy which eight years previously Burke had made in his immortal work on the French Revolution.

That great thinker had predicted that French liberty would fall a victim to the first great general who drew the eyes of all men upon himself.

"The moment in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the army is your master, the master of your king, the master of your Assembly, the master of your whole republic." Discussions about the _coup d'etat_ of Brumaire generally confuse the issue at stake by ignoring the difference between the overthrow of the Directory and that of the Legislature.