Napoleon Bonaparte's reaction was a proclamation to the army denouncing the Clichyens and matters rapidly evolved in the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor. On 3 September 1797, a royalist conspiracy was announced and the following morning Pichegru, still in correspondence with the Prince de Condé, was among those arrested. However, few others among the Clichyens were in such treasonable relations with the royalist pretender and his advisors. On the fifth, he was among those ordered for deportation to Guyane and the new party rapidly consolidated its power. Among its first actions was to close and ban the Clichy Club, though it hesitated to treat other more private salons—though kept under close police surveillance—as political associations, which the Directorate had previously banned as "private associations occupying themselves with political questions".