Lastly, the officers of the garrison, and many besides, had sent to beg admittance to Napoleon's presence, that they might tender him the expression of their admiration and attachment; and to them also an answer of the same kind had been given.
On the evening of the 17th Brumaire all the officers above-mentioned received, separately, the General's invitation to come to his house in the _Rue de la Victoire_, at six o'clock the next morning; and the three regiments of dragoons were desired to be mounted for their review, at the same early hour, in the _Champs Elysees_.

How many of these persons knew the real purpose of the assemblage it is impossible to tell; but Moreau, Macdonald, and other generals of the first reputation, avowedly attached to the _moderes_, were in the number of those who attended,--having, it is not to be doubted, received sufficient intimation that the crisis was at hand, though not of the manner in which Buonaparte designed it to terminate.

However, at the appointed hour, the dragoons were at their post in the Champs Elysees; and the concourse of officers at Napoleon's residence was so great that, the house being small, he received them in the courtyard before it, which they entirely filled.
Among those who came thither was Bernadotte; but he certainly came without any precise notion of the purposes of his friend Joseph Buonaparte, who invited him.

He was, next to Napoleon, the general who possessed the greatest influence at the period in Paris; in fact, the fate of the government depended on whether the one party in the Directory should be the first to summon him to interfere, or the others to throw themselves on Buonaparte.

He came; but, unlike the rest, he came _not_ in uniform, nor on horseback.