MURAT’S MARRIAGE. CAROLINE BUONAPARTE. 323

sword, swore he would never sheath it until he had seenBuonaparte fixed firmly in the seat of chief magistrate andconsul of the republic. Thus it was Murat who gave thefirst plunge into the Rubicon. From that moment henever left the side of Napoleon for a single hour. Hewas with him at the celebrated review of the 18th Brumaire,and on the way to Saint Cloud.

Murat was not, as it is written, at the head of the troopswho expelled the council of five hundred from the hall oftheir sittings; but he went to them previously and aloneand had the boldness to address them in these words:—“ Citizen Representatives,—It is impossible any longer to beanswerable for the safety of the state or of this council, Iinvite you to retire.” A shout of “ Vive la Republique!’was the hostile reply. Upon which Murat retired, andrepaired to Buonaparte with the intelligence, who instantlydissolved the assembly. That same evening a large minorityof the dissolved council of five hundred issued a manifesto,approving of what had been achieved by Buonaparte andMurat, and declared that Buonaparte , Murat, Lefebvre,andGardanne , and all the military who in the morning hadturned them out, had merited well of, and had savedthe nation.

A few days after the nomination of the consuls, Muratwas appointed commander of the consular guard, whichattached him still closer to the destinies of Buonaparte ,

Napoleon had three sisters; the elder was married toFelice Baciocchi , a noble Corsican, afterwards Prince ofPiombino ; the second, to General Le Clerc, who perishedin the servile war of St. Domingo; the third, CarolineMaria, then eighteen years of age, and very pretty, was at thistime married to Murat, then in his thirty-third year. Thiswas, in every respect, a marriage of mutual inclination.Caroline Buonaparte was gifted with every quality and

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