The fifth year of the Revolutionary War was opening. It was already evident that this war would change the face of Europe, and almost certain that it would create a new French ascendency. The Coalition, which seemed to have France at its mercy, had been paralysed by the reopening of the Polish question in its rear. Prussian troops were recalled from the Rhine to oppose Kosciuszko, and at the same time, the mutual jealousy of Prussia and Austria, which had dominated German politics for half a century, was suddenly rekindled. France reaped the benefit of this diversion. In the campaign of 1794 she expelled the Austrians from Belgium, in the following winter she overran Holland, expelled the Stadtholder, established the authority of the so-called Patriots, and thus wrested this state from the Coalition. No similar blows had been struck by France since the reign of Louis XIV, and, what was still more portentous, the Coalition, instead of rallying its forces, began at this moment to rapidly dissolve. Thus the system of Europe was already broken up. A new age had begun in which France stood forth as a conquering Power, her territory already enlarged, her military spirit exalted, her army increased and disciplined beyond all former experience. Bonaparte did not introduce, but found already introduced, the principle of conquest.
    Prussia, with most of the North German princes, had retired from the war in April 1795; Spain followed the example in July. The Coalition assumes its second shape, which it was to keep almost till the pacification of 1801; it is now a triple alliance of Russia, Austria and England; and Russia as yet is an inactive, not to say a perfidious, member of it. Practically France has to deal on the Continent only with Austria, who in the campaign of 1795 shielded Germany against the invasion of Jourdan and Pichegru. The French are already conquerors, but in this campaign they meet with ill-fortune. At the moment when Vendemiaire revealed Bonaparte to the world, Clerfait and Wursmer were striking blows which forced the French armies to recross the Rhine and for the moment saved Germany. But only Bonaparte has quite firmly grasped the truth that there is no real enemy but Austria, for, though he can see that Prussia has deserted her on the Rhine, it seems that Sardinia still stands by her in the Alps. Bonaparte is sure that Sardinia will sustain Austria little as Prussia had done, and has as little interest to continue the war, now that she has lost Savoy and Nice, and sees France stronger than ever. Can Sardinia but be pushed aside, Austria may be attacked in Lombardy, where she is an alien power. Bonaparte has long pictured himself rousing the Italian population against her, driving her across the Alps, and co-operating with the Army of the Rhine by an attack in flank. Since Vendemiaire he had discussed this plan with Carnot, who was now one of the five Directors, and it was perhaps Carnot—at least so we are told in the Reponse a Bailleul—who procured Bonaparte's appointment to the Italian command.
    At the moment the French armies everywhere were paralysed by financial need; it seemed likely that in 1796 France would achieve nothing for want of means. For this difficulty Bonaparte had a resource. From the outset the French had levied contributions in the territories they invaded. By frankly adopting this system, by making war support war Bonaparte would turn poverty itself into a spur and a warlike motive. He announced to the army without the least disguise: 'Soldiers, — You are naked and ill fed; I will lead you into the most fruitful plains in the world. Rich provinces, great cities will be in your power. There you will find honour, and fame, and wealth.' The French soldier thus received at the same time a touch of the wolf, which made him irresistible, and a touch of the mercenary, which made him in the end useful to Bonaparte.
    This order of the day was issued from Nice on March 27. The campaign began early in April. This, the first of Bonaparte's campaigns, has compared to the last. As in 1815 he tried to separate Blucher and Wellington, hoping to overcome them in turn, so now with more success he attacked first the Austrians under Beaulieu and then the Sardinians under Colli. Defeating the Austrians at Montenotte, Millesimo and Dego, he turned on the 15th against Colli, defeated him at Ceva and again at Mondovi. Almost in a moment the calculation of Bonaparte was justified. Sardinia which might have made a long and obstinate defence behind the fortifications of Turin, Alexandria and Tortona, retired at once from the alliance of which she was weary. She signed the convention of Cherasco on the 28th, yielding her principle fortresses into the hands of the France. What Bonaparte had so long dreamed of he accomplished in a single month, and turned himself at once to the conquest of Lombardy.
    The month of May was devoted to the invasion. On the 7th he crossed the Po at Piacenza, stormed the bridge over the Adda at Lodi on the 10th, and as the Archduke who governed Lombardy had quitted Milan on the 9th, retiring by Bergamo into Germany, Bonaparte entered Milan on the 15th. That day Bonaparte told Marmont that his success hitherto was nothing to what was reserved for him. 'In our days', he added, 'no one has conceived anything great; it falls to me to give the example.' June was spent consolidating the conquest of Lombardy, in spoiling the country, and repressing the insurrections which had broken out among the Italians, astonished to find themselves plundered by their liberators. From the middle of July the war, was as far as Austria is concerned, becomes a war for Mantua. Austria makes desperate and repeated attempts to raise the siege of this all-important fortress. In June she withdraws from the Rhine one of her armies and a general who had won renown in the preceding campaign, Wurmser. He arrives at Innsbruck on June 26; here in Tyrol he assembles 50,000 men. At the end of July he advances on both sides of Lake Garda, and threatens Bonaparte's communications by occupying Brescia. Bonaparte abandoned the siege of Mantua, and brought his whole force to meet the enemy. The position for a moment seemed desperate. He called councils of war, and declared in favour of retreating across the Adda. When Augereau resisted this determination, he left the room declaring that he would have nothing to do with the matter, and, when Augereau asked who was to give orders, answered 'You!'. The Austrians were defeated at Castiglione on August 3, and retired into the Tyrol. But Mantua had been revictualled, and Bonaparte had suffered the loss of his siege train.
    Early in September Bonaparte, having received reinforcements from France, assumed the offensive against Wurmser, and after defeating him at Bassano forced him to throw himself with the remainder of his army into Mantua (September 15).
    At the end of October Austria had assembled a new army of 50,000 men, mostly, however, raw recruits. They were placed under the command of Alvintzy. Bonaparte was to be overwhelmed between this army and that of Wurmser issuing from Mantua. But by a night march he fell upon Alvintzy's rear at Arcole. The surprised failed, and Bonaparte's life was at one moment in great danger. But after three days of obstinate conflict the Austrians retreated (November 15-17). From Arcole he used ever afterwards to date his profound confidence in his own fortune. Mantua, however, still held out, and in early January (1797) a fourth and last attempt was made by Alvintzy to relieve it, but he was again completely defeated at Rivoli (January 14), and a whole Austrian corps d'armee under Provera laid down its arms at Roverbella (January 16). On receiving the intelligence of this disaster Wurmser concluded the capitulation by which the French were put in possession of Mantua (February 2).

    Such was the campaign of Bonaparte against Austria by which he raised his reputation at once above that of all other generals of the republic—Jourdan, Moreau, or Hoche. But he had acted by no means merely as a general of the republic against Austria. He had assumed from the beginning the part of an independent conqueror, neither bound by the orders of his government nor by any rules of international law or morality.
    The commander of a victorious army wields a force which only Government long and firmly established can hold in check. A new Government, such as the Directory in France, having no root in the country, is powerless before a young victor such as Bonaparte. In vain the Directory devised a plan by which the Army of Italy should be divided between Bonaparte and Kellerman, while the whole diplomacy of the campaign should be entrusted to Salicetti as Commissioner. Bonaparte defeated these manoeuvres as easily as those of Beaulieu and Colli. In truth the coupd'etat of Brumaire was in his mind before he had been many weeks at the head of an army. But long before he ventured to strike the existing Government, we see that he has completely emancipated himself from it, and that his acts are those of an independent ruler, as had been those of Caesar or Pompey in the East, while the Roman republic was still nominally standing. As early as June 1796 he said to Miot, 'The commissioners of the Directory have no concern with my policy; I do what I please'.
    From the outset it had been contemplated to make the invasion of Italy financially profitable. Contributions were levied so rapaciously that in the duchy of Milan, where the French had professed to appear as brothers and liberators, a rebellion speedily broke out, which Bonaparte suppressed with the merciless cruelty he always showed in such cases. He kept the promise of his first proclamation; he made the army rich. 'From this moment', writes Marmont, 'the chief part of the pay and salaries was paid in coin. This led to a great change in the situation of the officers, and to a certain extent in their manners. The Army of Italy was at that time the only one which had escaped from the unprecedented misery which all armies had so long endured'. The amount of confiscation seems to have been enormous. Besides direct contributions levied in the conquered territory, the domains of dispossessed Governments, the revenues and property of churches and hospitals, were at Bonaparte's disposal. There seems reason to think that but a small proportion of this plunder was ever accounted for. It went to the army chest, over which Bonaparte retained the control, and the pains he took to corrupt his officers is attested in the narrative of Marmont, who relates that Bonaparte once caused a large sum to pass through his hands, and when ho took great pains to render a full account of it, as the officers had then une fleur de delicatesse, Bonaparte blamed him for not having kept it for himself.
    As he made himself financially independent of the Government, so he began to develop an independent policy. Hitherto he has had no politics, but has been content to talk the Jacobinism of the ruling party; now he takes the line, and it is not quite that of the Government. He had already, in June 1796, invaded the Papal territory, and concluded a convention at Bologna by which he extorted fifteen millions from the Pope; immediately after the fall of Mantua he entered the States of the Church again, and conclude the treaty of Tolentino on February 19. We see how freely he combines diplomacy with war; he writes without disguise to the Directory, October 5: 'You incur the greatest risk whenever your general in Italy is not the centre of everything'. But now in dealing with the pope he separates his policy from that of the Directory. He demands indeed the cession of Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romagna, besides Avignon and the Venaissin, and the temporary cession of Ancona. But he recognises the Pope by treating him, and towards the Catholic religion and the priesthood he shows himself unexpectedly merciful. Religion is not to be altered in the ceded Legations, and Bonaparte extends his protection in the most ostentatious manner to the pretres insermentes, whom he found in large numbers in the States of the Church. This was the more marked, as they were at this time objects of the bitterest persecution in France. Here is the first indication of the policy of the Concordat, but it is also a mark of Bonaparte's independent position, the position rather of a prince than of a responsible official; nay it marks a deliberate intention to set himself up as a rival of the Government.
    His manner of conducting the war was as unprecedented as was his relationship to the government and in like manner foreshadowed the Napoleonic period. It was not that of a civilised belligerent, but of a universal conqueror. The revolution had put all international law into abeyance, by proclaiming a sort of crusade against monarchy it had furnished itself with a pretext for attacking almost all states alike, for almost all were monarchies or at least aristocratic. Bonaparte in Italy, as in his later wars, knows nothing of neutrality. Thus Tuscany, the first of all states to conclude a treaty with the French republic, is not thereby saved from invasion. Bonaparte's troops march in, seize Leghorn, and take possession of all English property found in that port. More remarkable still is the treatment of Venice. The territory of the republic is turned unceremoniously into a field of battle between France and Austria, and at the end of the war the Venetian republic is blotted out of the map.
    Further, is to be remarked the curious development which was given to the principle of plunder. The financial distress of France and the impoverishment of the army at the opening of the campaign might account for much simple spoliation. but the practice was now introduced of transferring pictures and statues from the Italian palaces and galleries to France. This singular war becomes more striking when we reflect that the spoiler of Italy was himself an Italian.
    Altogether these campaigns brought to light a personality entirely without precedent in modern European history. True, the revolution behind him and the circumstances around him were absolutely unprecedented. Marmont remarked at the time the rapid and continual development which just showed itself in Bonaparte's character. 'Every day', he writes, 'he seemed to see before him a new horizon'. An ambitious man had suddenly become aware that a career entirely unparalleled was open to him, if only he could find the audacity and unscrupulous energy to enter it. Add to this that he had lived for three years in the midst of disorders and horrors such as might well have dissipated all principles, beliefs, and restraints. Even as early as 13th Vendemiaire we find him impressed with a fatalist belief in his own luck ('I received no hurt; I am always lucky', he writes), and there are indications that his wonderful escape at Arcole greatly heightened this belief in a mind naturally somewhat superstitious.
    At this moment, as Bonaparte's private political beliefs begin to appear, his Jacobinism, even his republicanism, slips from him like a robe. As early as May 1797 he said to Miot and Melzi, 'Do you suppose that I triumph in Italy for the glory of the lawyers of the Directory, a Carnot or a Barras? Do you suppose I mean to found a republic? What an idea! a republic of thirty millions of people! with our morals and vices! how is such a thing possible? The nation wants a chief, a chief covered with glory, not theories of government, phrases, ideological essays, that the French do not understand. They want some playthings; that will be enough; they will play with them and let themselves be led, always supposing they are cleverly prevented from seeing the goal towards which they are moving'. His contempt for the French, such as they had become under the influence of Versailles and the salons of Paris, and his opinion of their unfitness for republican institutions, was sincere; it was the opinion of a Corsican accustomed to more primitive, more masculine ways of life; we meet with it in his earliest letters, written before the thought of becoming the ruler of France had occurred to him.
    When the fall of Mantua had established the French power in North Italy, Bonaparte's next thought was to strike at the heart of Austria from this new basis. Early in March, having secured his position in Italy by the treaty of Tolentino with Rome and by a treaty with Sardinia, he set his troops in motion. He sent Joubert with 18,000 men into Tyrol, while he prepared to march in person upon Vienna from Fruili through Carinthia and Styria. But Austria had still one resource. The year 1796, which had given Bonaparte to the French public, had given her too a great general. The Archduke Charles, who had succeeded Clerfait in Germany, and who had been left by the departure of Wurmser for Italy utterly unable to resist the French when they advanced in June under Jourdan and Moreau, achieved in the autumn a masterpiece of strategy. About the same time that Bonaparte won the battle of Bassano, he won that of Wurzburg, and by the end of October he had forced both French armies to recross the Rhine. He is now despatched to meet the other invasion, threatening Austria from the south.
    But instead of being allowed to take up a strong position in the Tyrol and to await reinforcements, he was instructed to advance to Friuli, though with insufficient and demoralised troops. Bonaparte dislodged him from the line of the Tagliamento, then from that of the Isonzo, and advanced steadily until he reached Leoben in Styria on April 13. But he too felt his position to be hazardous, especially as he was not seconded by any forward movement of the Rhine armies. Hence he had himself, as early as March 31, proposed negotiation to the Archduke. At Leoben an armistice of six days was concluded.
    The preliminaries of Leoben were now signed (April 18). This was the first step in a long and slippery negotiation, which led only to a renewal of the war at the end of 1798. The preliminaries afterwards suffered much modification in the treaty of Campo Formio, which was itself soon swept away. The prize of the war was Belgium, and this was now ceded by Austria. In return we might expect to find the Italian conquests of Bonaparte restored. Instead of this a Cisalpine republic is established, nominally independent, but really, like the Batavian republic, under French tutelage. Nevertheless Bonaparte, as he said himself, was in no position to dictate peace. Accordingly he grants to Austria as an indemnity, the Continental possessions of the Venetian republic as far as Oglio, with Istria and Dalmatia. Here is the new partition of Poland! The Venetian republic was a neutral state, but its neutrality had been utterly disregarded by Bonaparte during the war, and as its territory had been freely trampled on by his troops, irritation had necessarily arisen among the Venetians, thence quarrels with the French, thence on the side of the French an attack on the aristocrat government and the setting up of a democracy. Of all this the result was now found to be that the Venetian empire was a conquered territory, which in her next treaty France could cede in exchange for any desired advantage.
    So far the preliminaries did not affect the German empire, but only the hereditary possessions of Austria. But they dealt also with the empire, and here they were recklessly and, as it proved, fatally ambiguous. On the one side France conceded the integrity of the empire, on the other side the Emperor agreed to recognise the limits of France as decreed by the laws of the republic. Perhaps neither party knew, but perhaps both parties suspected, that these concessions were inconsistent with each other.
    After so many defeats this arrangement, lawless as it was, must have seemed to Austria unexpectedly satisfactory. She had been studying for thirty years how to exchange Belgium for a province more conveniently situated. Bavaria had been her first object, but the Emperor Joseph had also cast his eyes on Venice. She had now lost Belgium by the fortune of war, but at the last moment the very equivalent she coveted was cast into her lap.
    The summer of 1797 was passed by Bonaparte at Montebello, near Milan. Here he rehearsed in Italy the part of emperor, formed his court, and accustomed himself to all the functions of government. He was chiefly engaged at this time in accomplishing the dissolution of the Venetian republic. He had begun early in the spring by provoking insurrections in Brescia and Bergamo. In April the insolence of a French officer provoked a rising against the French at Salo, for which Junot, sent by Bonaparte, demanded satisfaction of the senate on the 15th. The French now attempted to disarm all the Venetian garrisons that remained on the terra firma, and this led to a rising at Verona, in which some hundreds of Frenchmen were massacred (April 17). On the 19th a French sea-captain, violating the customs of the port at the Lido, was fired on from a Venetian fort. Bonaparte now declared that he would be a new Attila to Venice, and issued a manifesto in the true revolutionary style. The feeble government could only submit. A revolution took place at Venice, and French troops took possession of the town. On May 16 a treaty was concluded by Bonaparte 'establishing peace and friendship between the French republic and the republic of Venice', and providing that 'the French occupation should cease as soon as the new government should declare that it no longer needed foreign assistance'. 'A principal object of this treaty', as Bonaparte candidly explained to the Directory, 'was to obtain possession without hindrance of the city, the arsenal, and everything'. At the time that he was thus establishing friendship, he was, as we know ceding the territory of Venice to Austria.
    When we read the letters written by him at this period, we can see that already, only a year after he assumed for the first time command of an army, he has fully conceived the utmost of what he afterwards realised. Had he been shown in vision at this time what he was to be at his zenith in 1812, when he was the astonishment and terror of the world, he would probably have said that it fell short of his expectations.
    In the preliminaries of Leoben such essential matters had been left unsettled or dependent on doubtful contingencies, that they were tacitly abandoned by both parties. The fall of Venice in May suggested a different arrangement. Austria might now have the town as well as the terra firma, and in return for this might make new concessions. As she ceased now to look to England, which was entering on a separate negotiation, she consented to accept a new basis. The second negotiation began at the end of August, and produced the Treaty of Campo Formio in the middle of October.
    In return for Venice, Bonaparte is resolved to have the Rhine frontier towards Germany, and that of the Adige instead of the Oglio in Italy. But at early stage of the conferences occurred the revolution of Fructidor, which had the effect of reviving in the French Government the war-frenzy of the time of the Convention. The negotiation with England was broken off, and imperious orders were sent to Bonaparte to exact the utmost from Austria without ceding Venice. Much of the month of September is occupied with a struggle between the general and the Government. This ends, as might be expected, in the submission of the Directory, who are brought to see how much they need Bonaparte and how little he needs them.
    On September 27 begins a new diplomatic duel, that between Bonaparte and the eminent Austrian diplomatist, Cobenzl. Bonaparte is now residing at Passariano, in the villa belonging to the Doge Manin, and the conferences take place at Udine, in the neighbourhood. Cobenzl contends for the integrity of the Empire, but his government is secretly prepared to barter this for a sufficient indemnity to the Austrian house in Italy. His instructions rather than Bonaparte's imperious manner caused him to yield at last, and yet the famous story of the breaking of the porcelain vase is perhaps not entirely groundless. At least the despatches of Cobenzl abound in complaints of his outrageous behaviour and gasconades. At one time he 'kept on drinking glass after glass of brandy', at another he was 'evidently drunk', at another he confided to Cobenzl that 'he felt himself the equal of any king in the world'.
    In the end he overcame both his own Government and that of Austria, and the treaty which was signed on October 17, and takes its name from the little village of Campo Formio (more correctly Campo Formido) close to Udine, practically sealed the doom of the Holy Roman Empire. It gave Venice, Istria, Dalmatia, and all Venetian territory beyond the Adige to Austria, founded the Cisalpine republic, and reserved for France, besides Belgium, Corfu and the Ionian Islands. A congress was to open at Rastatt, and Austria bound herself by a secret article to do her best to procure for France from the Germanic body of the left bank of the Rhine. By retaining the Ionian Islands Bonaparte gave the first intimation of his design of opening the Eastern question.

    Meanwhile a new French revolution had taken place. A new reign of Jacobinical fanaticism had begun, which was to last until Bonaparte, who had done much to introduce it, should bring it to an end. This had happened in the following manner.
    The difficulty which Bonaparte had dissipated by his cannon in Vendemiaire had quickly returned, as it could not fail to do. A Jacobinical regicide republic had to support itself in the midst of a nation which was by no means Jacobinical, and which had representative assemblies. These assemblies, renewed by a third for the second time in the spring of 1797, placed Pichegru, suspected of royalism, in the chair of the Five Hundred, and Europe began to ask whether the restoration of the Bourbons was about to follow. Bonaparte at Montebello thought he perceived that the Austrian negotiators were bent upon delay.
    The rising party was not perhaps mainly royalist; its most conspicuous representative, Carnot, the Director, was himself a regicide. In the main it aimed only at respectable government and peace, but a minority were open to suspicion of royalism. This suspicion was fatal to the whole party, since royalism had at the time been thoroughly discredited by the follies of the emigres. An outcry is raised from the soldiers. We can measure the steady progress which had been made by the military power since Vendemiaire; it had been a tool in the hands of the government, now it gives the law and makes the Government its tool. The armies of the Rhine represented by Hoche, oppose the new movement; as to Bonaparte, he was driven to the same course by self-defence. Dumolard, a deputy, had called attention to this monstrous treatment of the Venetian republic, and had anticipated the judgement of history by comparing it to the partition of Poland. Bonaparte had already divulged to a friend the secret that he despised republicanism, but his attack made him once more, at least in profession, a republican and a Jacobin. It is, however, probable that he would in any case have sided with the majority of the Directory, since anything which favoured the Bourbons was a hindrance to his ambition. And thus the armies of the republic stood united against the tendency of public opinion at home. Imperialism stood opposed to parliamentary government, believing itself—such was the bewilderment of the time—to be more in favour of the sovereignty of the people than the people itself, and not aware that it was paving the way for a military despot.
    The catastrophe came on 18th Fructidor (September 4, 1797), when Augereau, one of Bonaparte's generals of division, who had been sent to Paris by Bonaparte, surrounded the Corps Legislatif with 12,000 men and arrested the most obnoxious representatives, while another force marched to the Luxembourg, arrested the Director Barthelemi, and would have arrested Carnot had he not received warning in time to make his escape. This stroke was followed by an outrageous proscription of the new party, of whom a large number, consisting partly of members of the Councils, partly of journalists, were transported to die at Cayenne, and the elections were annulled in forty-eight departments.
    Such was Fructidor, which may be considered as the third of the revolutions which compose the complex event usually known as the French Revolution. In 1789 the absolute monarchy had given place to a constitutional monarchy, which was definitively established in 1791. In 1792 the constitutional monarchy fell, giving place to a republic which was definitively established in 1795. Since 1795 it had been held that the revolution was over, and that France was living under a constitution. But in Fructidor this constitution also fell, and government became revolutionary once more. It was evident that a third constitution must be established; it was evident also that this constitution must set up a military form of government—that is, imperialism; but two years passed before this was done.
    The benefit of the change was reaped in the end by Bonaparte. Naturally he favoured it and took a great share in contriving it. But it seems an exaggeration to represent him as the exclusive or even the principal author of Fructidor. Hoche took the same side as Bonaparte; Augereau outran him (and yet Augereau at this time was by no means a mere echo of Bonaparte); the division of the Army of Italy commanded by Bernadotte, which had recently been detached from the Army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, and stood somewhat aloof from Bonaparte's influence, sided with him in this instance. the truth is that the rising party of Moderates gave offence to the whole military world by making peace their watchword. Outside the armies too there was profound alarm in the whole republican party, so that the circle of Madame de Stael was strongly Fructidorian, and this certainly was not guided by Bonaparte, though Madame de Stael was then among his warmest admirers. When the blow had been struck, Bonaparte knew how to reap the utmost advantage from it, and to exhibit it in its true light as mortal at the same time to the Moderates and to the republican Government itself, which now ceased to be legal and became once more revolutionary, and as favourable only to the military power and to the rising imperialism. He congratulated the armies on the fall of 'the enemies of the soldier and especially the Army of Italy', but accorded only the faintest approval of the Directory.
    The death of Hoche occurring soon after, removed from Bonaparte's path his only rival in the affectations of the already omnipotent soldiery. Hoche alone among the generals beside Bonaparte had shown political talents; had he lived longer, he might have played with success the part in which Moreau afterwards failed.

    Bonaparte now left Italy, setting out from Milan on November 17, made a flying visit to Rastatt, where the congress had already assembled and reached Paris on December 5. What next would be attempted by the man who at twenty-seven had conquered Italy and brought—momentarily at least—to an end the most memorable Continental war of modern times? From a speech delivered by him on the occasion of his reception by the Directory (Dec 10) it appears that he had two thoughts in his mind—to make a revolution in France ('when the happiness of the French people shall be based on the best [or on better] organic laws, all Europe will become free') and to emancipate Greece ('the two most beautiful parts of Europe, once so illustrious for arts, sciences, and the great men of whom they were the cradle, see with the loftiest hopes the genius of liberty issue from the tombs of their ancestors'). He had now some months in which to arrange the execution of these plans. The Directory, seeing no safety but in giving him employment, now committed the war with England to his charge. He becomes 'general-en-chief de l'armee d'Angleterre'. His study of internal politics soon landed him in perplexity. Should he become a Director, procuring an exemption from the rule which required the Directors to be more than forty years of age? He could decide on nothing, but felt himself unprepared to mingle in French party strife. He decided therefore that ' the pear was not ripe', and turned again to the military schemes, which might raise his renown still higher during the year or two which the Directory would require to ruin itself. It seemed possible to combine war against England with the Oriental plan, which had been suggested to him, it is said by Monge at Passariano. During the last war between Russia and Turkey some publicists (including Volney, an acquaintance of Bonaparte's) had recommended France to abandon her ancient alliance with the Turk and seek rather to share with Russia the spoils. Thus was suggested to Bonaparte the thought of seizing Greece, and the dissolution of the Venetian Empire seemed to bring it within the range of practical politics. Now, as head of the Army of England, he fixed his eyes on Egypt also. In India the game was not yet quite lost for France, but England had now seized the Cape of Good Hope. To save what remained of her establishments in India, France must occupy Egypt. She must not only conquer but colonise it ('if forty or fifty thousand European families fixed their industries, their laws, and their administration in Egypt, India would be presently lost to the English much more even by the force of events than by that of arms.') Such was the scheme according to which Turkey was to be partitioned in the course of a war with England, as Venice had disappeared in the course of the war with Austria.
    To this scheme it might be objected that it could scarcely fail to kindle a new European war more universal than that which had just been brought to a close. But it was already evident that the treaty of Campo Formio would lead to no real pacification, for the tide of militarism in France could not be arrested for a moment; scarcely a month passed but was marked by some new aggression and annexation. In the spring of 1798 the old constitution of Switzerland was overthrown, French troops entered Bern and seized a treasure of 40,000,000 francs. At the same time a quarrel was picked with the Papal Government, it was overthrown, the treasury plundered and the aged Pope Pius VI, carried into captivity. Thus, as Berthier said, money was furnished for the Egyptian campaign; but on the other hand Europe was thoroughly roused; England could meet the threatened attack by forming a new Coalition and at the beginning of May, three weeks before Bonaparte set sail, the probability of a new Continental war was already so great that he writes for the benefit of General Brune, a plan for defending Italy against an attack by a superior force of Austrians.
    But if so, was it not madness in the Directory to banish Bonaparte along with 30,000 men and Generals Murat, Berthier, Desaix, Kleber, Lannes, and Marmont on the eve of a new struggle with Europe? To us this criticism is irresistibly suggested by the event. We can see that the English fleet barred the return of the expedition and that Bonaparte himself only made his way back by miraculous good fortune. But had the French government been able to foresee this, they would have perceived that the undertaking was not merely rash at that particular moment, but essentially impracticable. For the English fleet did not merely detain the expedition, but frustrated all its proceedings, reconquered Egypt and Malta, and force Bonaparte to retire from Syria. It appears that the energetic interference of England was not at all anticipated. From Bonaparte's letters written aboard the 'L'Orient' it would seem that he scarcely realised the terrible risk he ran; it is to be considered that the superiority of the English marine had not yet been clearly proved, and that the name of Nelson was not yet redoubtable. But it also appears likely that the whole enterprise was based upon the assumption that England had retired from the Mediterranean. She had given up Corsica, and had been compelled by the alliance of the three maritime Powers, France, Spain, and Holland, to employ her whole naval force in blockading the western harbours from Cadiz to the Texel. Meanwhile France had advanced as England had retired. She controlled Corfu, Ancona, Genoa, Corsica. So much she had acquired without opposition from England, and she proceeded now with confidence to complete her empire over the Mediterranean by establishing stations at Malta and Alexandria. Bonaparte certainly did not mean to go into banishment; the vast plans which he paraded were not to be executed by himself in person, but only by the Egyptian colony which he was to found, for not only did he promise to return in October, but he actually directed his brother Joseph to prepare for him a country house in Burgundy against the autumn. He set sail on May 19, having stimulated the zeal of his army, which he called 'one of the wings of the Army of England', by promising that each soldier should return rich enough to buy six 'arpents' of land (the Directory were obliged to deny the genuineness of the proclamation), and, eluding Nelson, who had been driven by a storm to the island of St. Pietro near Sardinia, arrived on June 9 before Malta, where a squadron from Civita Vecchia and another from Ajaccio had preceded him. This island was in the possession of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who acknowledged the King of Naples as their feudal superior and the Czar as their protector. To attack them was the direct way to involve France in war both with Naples and Russia. Bonaparte, demanding admission into the harbour for his fleet, and receiving answer that the treaties which guaranteed the neutrality of Malta permitted only the admission of four ships, attacked at once, as indeed he had been expressly commanded by the Directory to do. The people rose against the Knights; the grand master, Hompesch, opened negotiations, and on the 12th Bonaparte entered La Valette. He is enthusiastic about the strength and importance of the position thus won. 'It is the strongest place in Europe; those who would dislodge us must pay dear'. He spent some days in organising a new Government for the island, and set sail on the 19th. On July 2 he issued his first order in Alexandria.
    During the passage we find him prosecuting his earlier scheme of the emancipation of Greece. Thus from Malta he sends Lavalette with a letter to Ali Pasha of Janina. His plan therefore seems to embrace Greece and Egypt at once, and thus take for granted the command of the sea, almost as if no English fleet existed. The miscalculation was soon made manifest. Bonaparte himself after occupying Alexandria, set out again on the 8th and marched to Cairo; he defeated the Mamelukes first at Chebreiss and then at Embabeh, within sight of the Pyramids, where the enemy lost 2,000 and the French about 20 or 30 killed and 100 wounded. He is in Cairo on the 24th, where for the most part he remains till February of 1799. But a week after his arrival in Cairo the fleet which had brought him from France, with its admiral Breuys, was destroyed by Nelson in Aboukir Bay. For the first time, in reporting this event to the Directory, it seems to flash on Bonaparte's mind that the English are masters of the sea. The grand design is ruined by a single stroke. France is left at war with almost all Europe, and with Turkey also (for Bonaparte's hope of deceiving the Sultan by representing himself as asserting his cause against the Mamelukes was frustrated), and her best generals with a fine army are imprisoned in another continent.
    It might still be possible to produce an impression on Turkey in Asia, if not on Turkey in Europe. The Turks were preparing an army in Syria, and in February 1799 Bonaparte anticipated their attack by invading Syria with about 12,000 men. He took El Arish on the 20th, then Gaza, and arrived before Jaffa on March 3. It was taken by assault, and a massacre commenced which, unfortunately for Bonaparte's reputation was stopped by some officers. The consequence was that upwards of 2,000 prisoners were taken. Bonaparte, unwilling either to spare food for them or to let them go, ordered the adjutant-general to take them to the sea-shore and there shoot them. Taking precautions to prevent any from escaping. This was done. 'Now ', writes Bonaparte, ' there remains St. Jean d'Acre'. This fortress was the seat of the pasha Jezzar. It is on the sea-shore, and accordingly England could intervene. Admiral Sir Sydney Smith, commanding a squadron on the coast, opened fire on the French as they approached the shore, and was surprised to find his fire answered only by musketry. In a moment he divined that the siege artillery was to come from Alexandria by sea, and very speedily he discovered and captured the ships that carried it. On March 19 Bonaparte is before Acre, but the place receives supplies from the sea, and support from the English ships, while his artillery is lost. He is detained there for two whole months, and retires at last without success. This check, he said, changed the destiny of the world, for he calculated that the fall of Jezzar would have been followed by the adhesion of all subject tribes, Druses and Christians, which would have given him an army ready for the conquest of Asia.
    The failure can be partially redeemed by a victory won in April over an army which had marched from the interior to the relief of Acre under Abdullah Pasha, and which Bonaparte defeated on the plain of Esdraelon (the battle is usually named from Mount Tabor). In the middle of May the retreat began, a counterpart on a small scale of the retreat from Moscow, heat and pestilence taking the place of frost and Cossacks. On the 24th he is again in Jaffa, from which he writes his report to the Directory, explaining that he had deliberately abstained from entering Acre because of the plague which he had heard, was ravaging the city. On June 14 his letters are again dated from Cairo. His second stay in Egypt lasts two months, which were spent partly in hunting the dethroned chief of the Mamelukes, Murad Bey, partly in meeting a new Turkish army, which arrived in July in the Bay of Aboukir. He inflicted on it an annihilating defeat near its landing place; according to his own account nearly nine thousand persons were drowned. This victory masked the final failure of the expedition. It was a failure such as would have given a serious blow to the reputation even of Bonaparte in a state enjoying publicity, where the responsibility could have been brought home to him and the facts could have been discussed.
    For a year of warfare, for the loss of the fleet, of 6,000 soldiers, and of several distinguished officers (Breuys, Caffarelli, Cretin), for disastrous defeats suffered in Europe, which might have been averted by Bonaparte and his army, for the loss for an indefinite time of the army itself, which could only return to France by permission of the English, there was nothing to show. No progress was made in conciliating the people. Bonaparte had arrived with the intention of appealing to the religious instinct of the Semitic races. He had imagined apparently that the rebellion of France against the Catholic Church might be represented to the Moslems as an adhesion to their faith. He declared himself a Mussulman commissioned by the Most High to humble the Cross. At the same time he had hoped to conciliate the sultan; it had been arranged that Tallyrand should go to Constantinople for the purpose. But Tallyrand remained in Paris, the Sultan was not conciliated, the people were not deluded by Bonaparte's religious appeals. Rebellion after rebellion had broken out, and had been repressed with savage cruelty. It was time for him to extricate himself from so miserable a business.
    It appears from the correspondence that he promised to be back in France as early as October 1798, a fact which shows how completely all his calculations had been disappointed. Sir Sydney Smith now contrived that he should receive a packet of journals, by which he was informed of all that had passed recently in Europe and of the disasters which France had suffered. His resolution was immediately taken. On August 22 he wrote to Kleber announcing that he transferred to him the command of the expedition, and that he himself would return to Europe, taking with him Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Andreossi, Marmont, Monge, and Berthollet, and leaving orders that Junot should follow in October and Desaix in November. After carefully spreading false accounts of his intentions, he set sail with two frigates in the night of the 22nd. His voyage occupied more than six weeks, during which he revisited Corsica. On October 9 he arrived in the harbour of Frejus.
    After his return the disastrous results of the expedition continued to develop themselves, Egypt was reconquered by the English, and Malta passed into their hands. Thus a plan which had aimed at excluding England from the Mediterranean ended in establishing her power there and in excluding France. We shall see how far Napoleon was ultimately led in the wild struggle to retrieve his failure.

    From this moment the tide of his fortune began to flow again. His reappearance seemed providential and was hailed with delight throughout France, where the Republican Government was in the last stage of dissolution. Since Fructidor French policy had been systematically warlike. A great law of military service had been introduced by General Jourdan, which was the basis of the Napoleonic armies; a series of violent aggressions in Switzerland and Central Italy had brought a new European war. But this policy was evidently inconsistent with the republican form of government established in 1795. A directory of civilians were not qualified to conduct a policy so systematically warlike. Hence the war of 1799 had been palpably mismanaged. The armies and the generals were there, but the presiding strategist and statesman was wanting. In Italy conquest had been pushed too far. Half the troops were locked up in fortresses, or occupied in suppressing rebellions; hence Macdonald at the Trebbia and Joubert at Novi were defeated by Suwaroff, Mantua fell, and the work of Bonaparte in Italy was well nigh undone. Government was shaken by these disasters. A kind of revolution took place in June. Four new members entered the Directory, of whom three—Gohier, Roger-Ducos and General Moulins—represented on the whole the revival of Jacobinism of 1793, while the fourth Sieyes, the most important politician of this crisis, represented the desire for some new constitutional experiment. The remedy which first suggested itself was to return to the warlike fury and terrorism of 1793. The Jacobin Club was revived, and held its sittings in the Salle de Manege. Many leading generals, especially Jourdan and Bernadotte, favoured it. But 1793 was not to be revived. Its passions had gone to sleep, and the memory of it was a nightmare. Nevertheless a sort of terror began. The hardship of recruitment caused rebellions, particularly in the West. Chouannerie and royalism revived, and the odious Law of Hostages was passed to check them. After seven years of misery France in the autumn of 1799 was perhaps more miserable than ever.
    If 1793 could not be revived, what alternative? Sieyes perceived that what was needed was a supreme general to direct the war. But, though he had ceased to believe in popular institutions, and had become a convert to a new kind of aristocracy, he did not wish his supreme general to control civilian affairs. He looked for an officer who should be intelligent without being too ambitious. His choice fell on Joubert, who was accordingly nominated for command of the Army of Italy, that he might acquire the necessary renown. But Joubert was killed in August at the battle of Novi. From this time Sieyes had remained uncertain. Advances were made in vain to Moreau. Who can say what might have happened in a few months? Some general of abilities not very commanding would have risen to a position in which he would have controlled the fate of France. Perhaps Massena, whose reputation at this moment reached its highest point through the victories of Zurich, but who was not made either for an emperor or for a statesman, might have come forward to play the part of Monk.
    Upon this perplexing gloom the reappearance of Bonaparte came like a tropical sunrise, too dazzling for Sieyes himself, who wanted a general, but a general he could control. On October 16 he arrived at his old Parisian house in the Rue de la Victoire, and on November 9 and 10 (Brumaire 18,19) the revolution took place. Bonaparte had some difficulty at first in understanding the position. He found a Jacobin party clamouring for strong measures and for a vigorous prosecution of the war; at the head of this party he saw military men, particularly Jourdan and Bernadotte. As an old Robespierrist, a Fructidorian, and a soldier, he was at first attracted to this faction. Sieyes the object of their most bitter attacks, he was at first disposed to regard as his principal enemy. Gradually he came to perceive that this time he was to rise not as a Jacobin but as the soldier sword at the service of Sieyes. For his part Sieyes could not but perceive that Bonaparte was not precisely the war-minister he sought. But by the efforts of Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, of Roederer, and Tallyrand, a coalition was at last effected between them, though Sieyes continued to predict that after the success Bonaparte would throw him over. The movement which now took place was the most respectable, the most hopeful, as for a long time it seemed the most successful, effort that had been made since 1792 to lift France out of the slough. Instead of reviving Jacobinism the proposal was to organise a strong and skilled Government. A grand party of respectability rallied round Sieyes to put down Jacobinism. Ducos among the Directors (he had been converted), the majority of the Council of Ancients, Moreau and Macdonald, the generals of purest reputation, Bonaparte and the generals personally attached to him, composed this party. On the other side the Jacobinical party consisted of the Directors Gohier and Moulins, the majority of the Council of Five Hundred, Generals Jourdan and Bernadotte. Which party would be followed by the rank and file of the army was an anxious question.
    It was determined to take advantage of a provision of the constitution which had originally been inserted by the Girondists as a safeguard against aggressions from the municipality of Paris, and to cause the Council of Ancients to decree a meeting outside Paris at the palace of St. Cloud. At this meeting it was intended to propose a reform of the constitution. The proposal would be supported by a majority in the Council of Ancients, and by many, but probably not a majority, in the Council of Five Hundred. It was foreseen that the Jacobins might give trouble, and might need to be eliminated, as they had themselves eliminated the Girondists. With a view to this, when the decree was passed on November 9, general Bonaparte, made commander of all the troops in Paris, was entrusted with the execution of it. It is carefully to be observed that he does not like Cromwell, act of his own free will against the assembly, but is appointed by the assembly to act in its name. No one thought of destroying the republic; the question was of introducing the famous perfect constitution of Sieyes. Bonaparte appeared surrounded by the generals of his part, in the Council of Ancients, where he skilfully evaded taking the oath to the constitution. He then reviewed the troops, and it became apparent that he could count on them. From this moment Brumaire may be said to have been decided. The next step was that Sieyes and Ducos resigned their places on the Directory; Barras was inclined to follow their example; but Gohier and Moulins were firm. Gohier was placed under ward of Moreau at the Luxembourg, while Moulins made his escape. It now only remained to deal with the Council of Five Hundred, the stronghold of Jacobinism.
    The revolution was consummated on the next day at St. Cloud. Bonaparte and Sieyes sat in a private room while the Councils began their deliberations; but being informed that it was proposed to renew the oath to the existing constitution, Bonaparte determined to interfere. There seems to have been some mismanagement here. Sieyes, not Bonaparte should have interfered, but probably he was rendered helpless, as often happened to him, by timidity. Bonaparte then entered the Council of Ancients, where he delivered a confused harangue, which did him little good, though the assembly was well-disposed to him. His position was a false one, though he urged very justly that the existing constitution had been practically destroyed by the illegalities of Fructidor, Floreal, and Prairial. He then passed to the hostile Council of Five Hundred, where he was received with cries of 'Hors la loi!' 'Abas le dictateur!' He was seized by the collar and attempts were made to push him out of the hall. He was now almost in despair, and no wonder! By the backwardness of Sieyes he had been pushed into the part of Cromwell. But Cromwell had soldiers devoted to him, and of theocratic rather than republican ideas; the soldiers of Bonaparte had only just been put under his command, and they were fanatical republicans. The false step must be retrieved. The soldiers must be persuaded that Bonaparte was no Cromwell, but a staunch republican, and that they were not called on to act against an assembly, but only against a traitorous minority, as at Fructidor. Lucien Bonaparte, who was president of the Five Hundred, performed this miracle. Bonaparte had sent grenadiers to rescue him. Lucien was at the tribune, where he was defending his brother amidst noisy interruption. At the appearance of the grenadiers he threw off his official dress and retired under their escort. In the hall he mounted on horseback and addressed the troops who were employed to guard the Legislature, declaring that the Council was oppressed by assassins, brigands paid by England; he charged the soldiers to deliver the majority from this oppression by clearing the hall. He brandished a sword and swore to stab his brother if ever he attacked the liberties of Frenchmen. On the clear understanding that no violence against the assembly was intended, and with the express sanction of its president, the soldiers then cleared the hall. In the evening at 9 o'clock Lucien reassembled a certain number of the members and proposed to them to nominate a committee which should report on the state of affairs. This committee was at once named, and speedily presented a report to the effect that Sieyes, Roger-Ducos, and Bonaparte should compose a provisional executive under the title of consuls, that the Legislature should adjourn till February 20 (1 Ventose), a committee of twenty-five members from each Council being left to deliberate along with the consuls upon changes to be made to the constitution; at the same time, as in Fructidor, a certain number of members (fifty-five) were to be expelled from the Councils.
    Thus the original plan was on the whole carried to effect. But it had been sadly marred by the unseemly appearance of Bonaparte and by his gasconades, in which he bade the Council remember that he 'marched under the escort of the god of fortune and the god of war'. An attempt was made to conceal these mistakes by publishing in the Moniteur a garbled report of his speech.