While these important campaigns were being fought out in Europe, Bonaparte had not been idle in the East. The Battle of the Pyramids had made him master of Egypt, and though cut off by the English fleet from communication with France, he remained master of the country. His internal administration made him excessively popular among the Egyptians. He removed the Turks and Mamelukes from office, and called on the Egyptians to govern themselves. But the Turks did not intend to lose Egypt without striking another blow, and a powerful army was sent for its reconquest. Bonaparte determined to meet this army half way, and in February 1799 he advanced into Syria. He speedily reduced Palestine and took Jaffa, and then laid siege to the strong fortress of Acre. Assisted by the English sailors of Sir Sidney Smith, the garrison of Acre made a gallant defence. The Turkish army advancing to its relief was defeated by Bonaparte at Mount Tabor on the 16th of April. In spite of his victory, he had, nevertheless, to abandon the siege of Acre, and on the 20th of May he commenced his retreat to Egypt. He there found the position to be extremely critical. The Mamelukes had reorganised their army and reoccupied Cairo, and a Turkish army had been disembarked by the English fleet at Aboukir. Meanwhile Desaix, whom he had left in command in Egypt, had gone up the Nile for the conquest of the interior. Bonaparte soon re-established his power; he defeated the Mamelukes at Cairo, and drove the Turkish army into the sea. At this juncture he heard the news of the events of the campaigns in Europe, and, what affected him more, of the course of politics at Paris. He determined, therefore, to return to France, and leaving Kléber in command in Egypt, he set sail with a few personal friends. The ship on which he embarked escaped the English cruisers, and he landed at Fréjus on the 9th of October 1799 after a perilous voyage of forty-seven days.

The varying issues of the campaigns of 1799 had profoundly affected the situation of the Directors, and the disasters in Italy had turned the hopes both of the army and of the French people towards Bonaparte. At the annual change in the composition of the Directory and the Councils which took place in 1799 a considerable alteration had been made. The new third of the Councils consisted almost entirely of men who, without being either Jacobins or Clichians, longed to see the establishment of a strong government in order to secure peace. The Directory, which had seemed so strong after the revolution of the 18th of Fructidor, had been considerably weakened by the behaviour of the Directors themselves. The election of none but civilians to the highest offices in the State was disliked by the army, and the characters of the Directors themselves had suffered. Reubell was the Director designed by lot to retire in May 1799; he was perhaps the ablest and most experienced of them all, but had been discredited by the bad conduct of his relative, Rapinat, in Switzerland. Sieyès was elected to succeed Reubell. This choice, and the acceptance of Sieyès, testified to a new condition of affairs. The former abbé might have been a Director on at least two former occasions, in 1795 and 1798, and his acceptance at this juncture was very significant. He had failed in his embassy to Berlin to induce the new King of Prussia to become the active ally of France, and had been convinced by his diplomatic experiences that the government of France must become frankly military, since the monarchical powers of Europe would not accept the possibility of a peaceable French Republic. From an internal point of view the acceptance of Sieyès indicated an increase of power for the Legislature, of which he was the idol.

The election of Sieyès was followed by a bloodless revolution. He maintained that the failure of the Constitution of the Year III. was due to the usurpation of the functions of the Legislature by the Directory, and, therefore, when the Councils declared Treilhard and Merlin of Douai to have been illegally chosen Directors, and called for the resignation of Revellière-Lépeaux, they found a powerful ally in Sieyès. The attacked Directors yielded without a struggle, and on 30th Prairial, Year VII. (18th June 1799), they were replaced by three personal friends of Sieyès, Gohier, Roger Ducos, and General Moulin. Barras was thus the only member left of the original Directory. The Councils, not satisfied with this victory, began to usurp the executive functions of the Directory, and a general change of ministry took place. The new ministers were Reinhard, Robert Lindet, Cambacérès, Quinette, Bernadotte, replaced on 14th September by Dubois-Crancé, Fouché, and Bourdon de Vatry, who succeeded Talleyrand and his colleagues as Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Finances, Justice, the Interior, War, Police, and the Marine respectively. It is worthy of note that four of the new ministers were formerly leading members of the Convention. But the administration of the Councils was not more effective than that of the Directory, and the news of the disembarkation of Bonaparte at Fréjus was received with a feeling of general satisfaction throughout France.

Bonaparte reached Paris on the 16th of October, and his assistance was sought by men of all parties. He allied himself with none, but there can be little doubt that he took the advice mainly of Talleyrand, Fouché, and Sieyès. Nevertheless he did not repulse the leaders of the Councils, and to show their attachment for him the Council of Five Hundred, on the 22d of October 1799, elected his brother Lucien Bonaparte to be their president, and the whole Legislature gave him a grand banquet on 6th November. The first stage of the revolution of Brumaire was a decree by which the Council of Ancients, or rather certain of its members, who had been initiated into the project of a coup d’état, taking advantage of a clause in the Constitution applicable to circumstances of popular agitation, resolved in the early morning of the 18th Brumaire, Year VIII. (9th November 1799), that the two Councils should leave Paris and meet at Saint-Cloud; and the execution of this decree was intrusted to General Bonaparte. In the palace of Saint-Cloud it was easy to surround the legislators by a body of troops faithful to Bonaparte, since the command of the troops in Paris was in the hands of one of his friends, General Lefebvre, who was discontented at not having been elected a Director instead of Moulin. Sieyès and Roger Ducos, who were in the plot, at once declared their resignations; Barras was induced to acquiesce; and the other two Directors were guarded as prisoners in the palace of the Luxembourg by General Moreau. On the following morning, the 19th of Brumaire, Bonaparte entered the Councils, escorted by soldiers; the Ancients listened to him quietly; but the Five Hundred were in a tumult; a proposal was made to declare the general and his supporters hors la loi or outlaws; and after a stormy scene the deputies were driven from the hall by the grenadiers. In the evening a few deputies, who were in the secret of the general’s plans, met and decreed the suppression of the Directory and the creation of a provisional government, consisting of three Consuls. The three men chosen for this office were Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger Ducos. Commissions were appointed to revise the Constitution and to draw up with the Consuls new fundamental laws for the Republic. By this revolution Bonaparte practically became ruler of France, for Sieyès had no influence with the army, and Roger Ducos no influence with anybody. It was a military revolution like that of the 18th Fructidor; it was a bloodless revolution like that of the 18th Fructidor; but it differed in that, instead of establishing the power of five men, it established the power of one. And that one man was the idol of the army, and generally acknowledged to be the greatest general of France. The preponderance of Bonaparte was quickly recognised by his colleagues. ‘Who shall preside?’ said Sieyès at the first meeting of the provisional Consuls on 20th Brumaire. ‘Do you not see that the general is in the chair?’ replied Roger Ducos. And Sieyès, who was the chief epigram maker as well as the constitution-monger of the Revolution, is said to have summed up the situation with the remark to his friends on the same evening: ‘Messieurs, nous avons un maître; il sait tout, il peut tout, il veut tout.’