I highly suspect the French Revolution was fomented. I’ve been broadcasting Napoleon Memoirs and Count Lavalette describes how orators were whipping up the crowd to revolt. Then the nobles who were true patriots, like Josephine’s husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais were killed in droves. Next, a decadent group called the Directoire took over.
An ambitious general named Buonaparte became acquainted with one of the directors named Paul Barras. When there was an uprising, Napoleon put it down. Barras had a highly indebted mistress who was the famous aforementioned Josephine. Barras offered her and the Army of Italy to him. Napoleon amazingly took over Italy. The acclaim was so great that Napoleon’s fame made the Directors nervous. To please each other, Napoleon took off to Egypt to interfere with England’s ambitions.
While in Egypt, Napoleon got his hands on some newspapers and found out the Directors had lost Italy and Napoleon returned to Paris and staged a coup d’état.
My sources are available here.
Napoleon Memoirs links — The Tanster
https://www.thetanster.com/blog/2019/2/11/napoleon-memoirs-links