The conclusion of the Treaties of Basle in the spring and summer of 1795 brought France once more into a recognised position among the nations of Europe. The idea of a revolutionary propaganda had been entirely abandoned by the leading Thermidorians, who looked upon it as the first duty of the French Government to secure peace for France. All the great statesmen of the revolutionary period, from Mirabeau to Danton and Robespierre, had protested against the absurd notion that it was the mission of France to secure the pre-eminence of democratic ideas throughout the whole of Europe. Events had shown that it was a task of quite sufficient difficulty to secure the prevalence of such ideas in France. The abandonment of the revolutionary propaganda broke up the league of old Europe against new France. When the Prussian state, and still more the ancient monarchy of Spain, had consented to make peace with France, the rest of the powers of the Continent felt that they could no longer affect to treat the French republicans as beyond the pale of humanity, or the French Republic as having destroyed the title of France to be reckoned as a nation.

The Thermidorians, not satisfied with their diplomatic success, constructed a new government for France. The authors of the policy, which resulted in the Treaties of Basle, were also the sponsors of the ‘Constitution of the Year III.’ The task of drawing up the bases of a new Constitution was referred upon 14th Germinal, Year III. (3d April 1795) to a committee of seven deputies, but the details were worked out by a subsequent commission of eleven. Among the seven the most important were SieyÈs, CambacÉrÈs, and Merlin of Douai, who were also at this period the three principal members of the Committee of Public Safety. Just as in making the Treaties of Basle, they and their colleagues had recurred to the fundamental ideas and policy of the old French Monarchy, so in the new Constitution they exhibited the influence of bygone ideas. The experience of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, and of the Convention until the formation of the Committee of Public Safety, had shown the utter inadequacy of intrusting supreme executive and administrative authority to an unwieldy deliberative assembly. The power of the monarchy in all modern states has rested upon the conviction of the importance of consolidating, as far as possible, the executive authority; the founders of the United States of America understood this truth, and invested their President with power resembling that exercised by kings; and the Convention, when it yielded to the voice of Danton, and conferred supreme authority upon the Committee of Public Safety, had reaped the advantage in its victories upon all the frontiers. Even the most obtuse of the deputies who sat in the Convention had learnt this lesson. And the founders of the Constitution of the Year III. had no difficulty in carrying the most important point in their programme. This was the entire separation of the executive and legislative powers. The Constitution of 1791, in its jealousy of the monarchy, had practically deprived the king and his ministers of all real authority, while leaving him the entire responsibility. The Constitution of 1793 had placed all executive authority in the hands of the Legislature. The Constitution of the Year III. endeavoured to separate the executive and legislative authorities.

Under the new arrangement the executive was placed in the hands of five Directors. One was to retire every year and was not eligible for re-election; his successor was to be chosen by the Legislature. In order to secure an entire separation between the members of the Directory and of the Legislature, no member of the latter could be elected a Director until twelve months had elapsed after the resignation of his seat. The Directors were to appoint the Ministers, who were to have no connection whatever with the Legislature, and who were to act as the agents of the Directors. The individual Directors were to exercise no authority in their own names. They were to live under the same roof in the Palace of the Luxembourg at Paris. They were to meet daily, and the will of the majority was to be taken as the will of the whole. They were to elect a President every month, who was to act as their mouthpiece at the reception of foreign ambassadors and on all occasions of ceremony. The control of the internal administration, the management of the armies and fleets, and all questions of foreign policy were entirely left to the Directors. But treaties, declarations of war and similar acts had to be ratified by the Legislature. The Directors had nothing whatever to do with the work of legislation, and their assent was not needed to new laws. With regard to the revenue, the administration of the finances and of the treasury rested with the Directors, but they could not impose fresh taxes without the assent of the Legislature.

The Legislature, under the Constitution of the Year III. consisted of two chambers—the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred. It is a curious commentary upon the debates which took place in the Constituent Assembly in August 1789, when the establishment of two chambers was rejected with scorn as being an obvious imitation of the English Parliament, that in 1795 this very principle was almost unanimously adopted. The experience of the three great revolutionary assemblies had convinced SieyÈs and his colleagues of the inexpediency of leaving important measures to be decided in a single chamber. The delay necessitated by a law being obliged to pass before two distinct deliberative bodies now appeared most advantageous, when compared with the headlong precipitation which had marked all the earlier stages of the Revolution. The Council of Ancients was to consist of men forty-five years old and upwards, and, therefore, presumably not liable to be carried away by sudden bursts of enthusiasm. For the Council of Five Hundred there was no limitation of age, and elderly men were not precluded from being returned to it. The Council of Five Hundred consisted, as its name implies, of five hundred deputies; the Council of Ancients of two hundred and fifty. Dictated by experience, also, were the measures taken for the election of deputies. In order to avoid the inconvenience which had resulted from the election of an entirely new body of representatives at one and the same moment, as had happened in 1791, it was resolved that one-third of the two Councils should retire yearly. Deputies were to be chosen by an elaborate system of primary and secondary assemblies held in each department of France, and a property qualification was demanded both for the electors and the deputies. With these safeguards SieyÈs and his colleagues believed they had secured a practical means of obviating all the errors of the past. The Council of Five Hundred had allotted to it as its special function the initiation of all fresh taxation and the revision of all money bills. The Council of Ancients was the court of appeal in diplomatic questions, such as the declaration of war. In actual legislation the consent of the majority of both chambers was needed for a new law. For their most important function—the yearly election of a new Director—the two chambers were to form one united assembly.

By this Constitution, the conspicuous drawbacks of the two former Constitutions, namely, the enforced weakness of the executive and the undefined powers of the Legislature were avoided. But the local administration established by the Constitution of 1791 had proved so excellent that it was only slightly modified and not radically altered. The great achievement of the Constituent Assembly—the abolition of old provincial jealousies by the division of France into departments—was maintained. The wise step which had been taken by the Great Committee of Public Safety in abolishing the directories of the departments and of the districts was sanctioned, and the council-generals were left to act alone. The main distinction between the administrative systems of 1791 and 1795 was that the elected procureurs-syndics and procureurs-gÉnÉraux-syndics, established by the former, were replaced by officials nominated by the supreme executive at Paris. These officials went under the name of agents during the Directory, but possessed the same authority and carried out the same functions as the sous-prÉfets and prÉfets afterwards appointed by Napoleon. The courts of justice, whether local, appellant, or supreme, established by the Constitution of 1791, were left untouched by the Constitution of the Year III.

In spite of the glories of the conquest of Holland, the passage of the Rhine, the victory of Quiberon, and the invasion of Spain,—in spite of the even greater credit justly earned by the Treaties of Basle,—in spite of the new Constitution, which, if faulty in places, was superior to those which had preceded it—the Thermidorians were intensely unpopular in France. The recollection of the Reign of Terror weighed upon the imaginations of the people even after the death of Robespierre, the deportation of Billaud-Varenne, and the closing of the Jacobin Club. The Convention was still in the minds of men shrouded by the remembrance of the innocent blood that had been shed. The inauguration of the new constitutional system was looked upon as an opportunity for driving the members of the Convention from power, and threats of vengeance were everywhere heard against them. Intriguers, some of them possibly royalists, who desired the return of the Bourbons, but most of them bourgeois or aristocrats who had personal reasons for desiring revenge, hoped to take advantage of this general feeling to overthrow the Republic. But the mass of Frenchmen were sincerely republican, and were clear-sighted enough to perceive that the return of the Bourbons would be followed by the loss of the material advantages that had been gained by the sale of the lands of the Church and the nobility. The members of the Convention understood the intentions of the intriguers, and understood also that the French people sincerely loved the Republic. They proceeded to frustrate the designs of their enemies by decreeing that two-thirds of the new Legislature must be elected from among the deputies of the Convention. The intriguers in Paris, thus foiled in their expectations of a certain majority in the new Legislature, tried to rouse the people of Paris into active insurrection. There can be no doubt that not only in Paris, but throughout France, the action of the Convention in ordering the election of so large a proportion of the old deputies was profoundly unpopular, but it was one thing to dislike a measure and another thing to involve France in a fresh revolution. In the provincial towns there was universal grumbling but no active opposition. In Paris, however, where the intriguers abounded, it was hoped that the jeunesse dorÉe, who had played so great a part in the previous winter, assisted by the bourgeois Sections, would be able by making an imposing display of force to compel the Convention to revoke the obnoxious decree.

This project of the agitators in Paris was soon known in the Convention, and had the result of causing the divided forces of the Thermidorians to close up their ranks. The three chief groups in this party were the returned Girondins, the leaders of the Plain, and the former adherents of the Terror. The leaders of all these groups united in the presence of a common danger, for they felt that the dissolution of the Convention without some such measure of security as the re-election of the two-thirds to the forthcoming Legislature would lead to their own proscription. They therefore appointed Barras, who had commanded in the attack upon the HÔtel-de-Ville upon the 9th Thermidor of the previous year, and overthrown the supporters of Robespierre assembled there, to watch over their safety. Barras summoned to his assistance Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then in Paris engaged in protesting against his recall from the Army of Italy. The antecedents of this young general, his well-known Jacobin principles and his former friendship for Augustin Robespierre, had led to his recall and to his being placed upon the unemployed list. Barras had under his command the garrison of regular troops quartered in Paris and the armed guards of the Convention. The Royalist agitators counted on the jeunesse dorÉe and the bourgeois Sections. Bonaparte perceived that in numbers each party was evenly matched, and he at once sent for the artillery quartered at Meudon. The Convention declared itself en permanence, the troops were stationed round the Tuileries, Bonaparte’s guns were mounted in the gardens and the Place du Carrousel. The attack on the Convention was made on the 13th VendÉmiaire (5th October) in a very slovenly manner. No effort had been made to concentrate the force of the assailants at a given moment, and as the first column marched carelessly down without recognised leaders, it was fired upon and almost entirely cut to pieces by Bonaparte’s artillery. Nevertheless column after column of devoted national guards approached the Tuileries with the utmost gallantry to meet the same fate. The insurrection of 13th VendÉmiaire cannot be compared with the other famous insurrections of the 14th July 1789 and 10th August 1792, for not one of the defenders of the Convention was wounded. It was a butchery, not a battle.

The Convention, conscious of its unpopularity, and not desiring to increase it, made but slight efforts to discover and punish the leaders of the insurrection of 13th VendÉmiaire. Only a few military executions, after trial by court-martial, of a few prisoners taken with arms in their hands were permitted, and no vigour was shown in hunting down even the most conspicuous agitators. It was resolved at once to proceed to the election of the first Directors under the new system. SieyÈs refused to be one of them. It was generally agreed, though not formally declared, that the first Directors should all be deputies of the Convention who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., and who might therefore be presumed to be faithful to republican institutions, if not from inclination at least from fear. The five deputies actually elected were—Barras, whose conduct on the 9th Thermidor, and on the 13th VendÉmiaire, had obtained for him the gratitude of the majority of the deputies; Reubell, an ex-Constituant and an Alsatian, who was believed to have a special knowledge of foreign affairs; RevelliÈre-LÉpeaux, another ex-Constituant, a member of the Committee of Public Safety, a good lawyer, and the future inventor of a new religion; Carnot, the famous military member of the Great Committee of Public Safety, who was selected for his strategic ability; and Letourneur, an ex-officer of Engineers, like Carnot, who was expected to act as Carnot’s assistant. To the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred were elected among the two-thirds chosen from the Convention the more conspicuous Thermidorians, including SieyÈs, CambacÉrÈs, Tallien, and Treilhard. The six first ministers were appointed by the Directors on 14th Brumaire (5th November). They were Merlin of Douai and Charles Delacroix, two ex-deputies of the Convention who had not been elected to the new Legislature, appointed to the Ministries of Justice and of Foreign Affairs, Aubert-Dubayet, a distinguished general, to the Ministry of War, and Faypoult, Benezech and Admiral Truguet to the Ministries of Finance, the Interior, and the Marine.

The first Directors elected and the new Legislature constituted, the Convention had to decree its own dissolution. The three years during which it had sat are perhaps the most important and most critical in the whole history of France. The Convention had not merely witnessed the rise and fall of many cliques and many parties; it had allowed the Reign of Terror to be established, and had punished its inventors with death or deportation. It had passed through nearly every variety of government, and had seen France in her greatest degradation and at the height of her success. Its last act, passed on the very day on which it dissolved itself, 4th Brumaire (26th October), was worthy of its best and greatest days, for it was an act declaring a complete amnesty for all political offences, or supposed offences, since the declaration of the Republic.

The successful establishment of the Directory and the victory won over the royalist agitators on 13th VendÉmiaire had a profound effect upon the policy of England. Hitherto Pitt and Grenville, inspired by their agent in Switzerland, William Wickham, had believed in the vain promises of the royalist ÉmigrÉs, and had hoped by their means to restore the Bourbon monarchy in France. The headquarters of the royalist agitators were, as they had always been, in Switzerland. Neither the Comte de Provence, who, since his nephew’s death, called himself Louis XVIII., nor the Comte d’Artois were really deceived by the hopes held out by their royalist friends. But the English ministers, deluded by the extravagant promises of the ÉmigrÉs and by the reports of Wickham, considered the prospects of an overthrow of the Republic to be excellent. They had shown their confidence in the ÉmigrÉs by the active assistance they had given to the expedition to Quiberon Bay, and still more by the large sums of secret-service money which had been expended in Switzerland. The efforts of the royalist ÉmigrÉs took two directions; on the one hand, they had fomented the feeling of discontent in Paris which had culminated in the insurrection of 13th VendÉmiaire, and, on the other, they had attempted to affect the loyalty of the generals of the Republic. The general on whom they counted most was Pichegru, the conqueror of Holland. This general, like Dumouriez in 1793, was more ambitious to attain wealth and power for himself than success for the Republic. During his sojourn in Paris in the spring of 1795 he had formed a close alliance with the royalist agitators in the capital, and on proceeding to take up the command of the Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle he entered into direct communications with the Prince de CondÉ, the general commanding the ÉmigrÉ army in Germany. CondÉ promised Pichegru the government of Alsace, the ChÂteau of Chambord, a million livres in cash, an income of two hundred thousand livres a year, and the rank of Marshal of France, if he would undertake to restore the Bourbons. Great hopes were built upon these negotiations, and the Comte de Provence left Verona to take part in them. But the success of these intrigues was nullified by the victory of 13th VendÉmiaire; the Margrave of Baden-Baden refused to allow the Pretender to enter his territory; Wickham was unwillingly convinced that the purchase of the general did not include the purchase of his army; and the Directory, as soon as it had firmly seized the reins of power, recalled Pichegru, whose transactions with CondÉ had been more than suspected, and replaced him by a thorough republican, Moreau. These failures convinced Pitt and Grenville that there was no advantage to be gained in trusting to the promises of the ÉmigrÉs.

The Directory, on assuming power, resolved to continue the policy of the Thermidorians, and not to recur to the notions of the revolutionary propaganda. It desired to show Europe that France was ready to enter into the comity of nations, and did not presume for the future to interfere with the internal arrangements of other countries. It, therefore, on grounds of humanity, took up again the negotiations which had been commenced in July 1793 for the release of the children of Louis XVI., and, using Spain as an intermediary, entered into communications on this subject with the bitterest enemy of France—Austria. The death of the Dauphin, commonly called Louis XVII., had left only one of the children of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette in the hands of the Republic. The Thermidorians had, at the instigation of one of their leaders, Boissy-d’Anglas, seen the expediency of proving to Europe that the French republicans were not barbarians, by offering to surrender the person of Madame Royale to her Austrian relatives. This project was carried out by the Directory. On 20th December 1795 Madame Royale was exchanged in Switzerland for the four deputies and the Minister of War whom Dumouriez had handed over to the Austrians, and for another deputy, Drouet, the former postmaster at Sainte-Menehould, who had been taken prisoner by the Austrians in 1793.

The exchange of Madame Royale was a manifest evidence of the desire of the Directors to conclude peace. The Prussian ambassador at Paris reported to his government on 28th December 1795, ‘The general cry in Paris is, “Make peace and you will have money and bread.”’[10] Peace, indeed, was the desire not only of the people of Paris, but of the people of all France, of the majority in the new Legislature, and of the Directory. It was hoped that the Treaties of Basle were but the preliminaries of a general peace throughout Europe. But the two remaining enemies of the French Republic, England and Austria, did not see their way to meeting the Directory halfway. Pitt and Grenville argued that a peace made with the Directory would be only of the nature of a truce. They were ready enough to make peace, but considered it inadvisable to negotiate with a government which seemed to them in its essence unstable. Owing either to the intrigues of the ÉmigrÉs, or to their own knowledge of politics, they grasped the fact that the new government of France was constructed on a faulty basis, and that a peace concluded with it would not be lasting. The attitude of Austria was somewhat different. Thugut, the Austrian minister, believed that France was exhausted, and that by a continuance of war substantial concessions could be wrung from her. Reubell, the Director who took charge of the conduct of Foreign Affairs, expressed himself as follows to the Prussian ambassador at Paris: ‘The war with Austria troubles us less than the war with England. Our means for supporting the former are ready, but not without having exhausted all the resources of the Republic. It will be probably the last effort of the two belligerent powers.... Our plan of campaign is almost settled; the war will be defensive in Germany and offensive in Italy. It is important to us to detach Austria from England and Sardinia from Austria.’[11] Contrary to their wish, therefore, the Directors found themselves obliged to continue the war with England and Austria.

While continuing the war with these two powers, the French Directory, like the Thermidorians, hoped to obtain not only the neutrality of Prussia and Spain, which had been secured by the Treaties of Basle, but their active co-operation. One of its first diplomatic endeavours was to enter into close relations with Prussia. Some of the ministers of Frederick William II., notably Alvensleben, were in favour of an alliance with France; but the King himself, though he had been forced by the emptiness of his treasury, and his projects on Poland to make peace with the French republicans, looked on the idea of making an alliance with them with horror. In this attitude he was supported by his two ablest ministers, Haugwitz and Hardenberg. By the terms of the Treaty of Basle Hardenberg had secured the preponderance of Prussia in northern Germany. A line of demarcation or neutrality was drawn across Germany, and the northern states, which were thus freed from the fear of a French invasion, looked to Prussia as their leader and saviour. An excuse for not forming an offensive and defensive alliance with France was found in the occupation by the French troops of the Prussian territories on the left bank of the Rhine. Prussia would only negotiate on the basis of the restoration of the status quo ante bellum, and the French Directory, like its predecessors, the Thermidorian Committee of Public Safety and the Great Committee of Public Safety, insisted on the cession to France of all territory up to the Rhine. The Directors, had they wished, could not have opposed the universal feeling in France in favour of making the Rhine the frontier, and proposed that Prussia should take compensation for its cessions on the left bank of the Rhine, by secularising the bishoprics and abbeys of northern Germany and annexing their territories. This proposal, which would bring in its train the overthrow of the Constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, could not be sponsored by Prussia. The policy of Frederick the Great had been to assume that Prussia, not Austria, was the true defender of the rights of the Empire, and his nephew, in spite of Alvensleben’s representations, feared to break with the hereditary policy. The arrangement with regard to the line of demarcation had placed Prussia in the position of the guardian of the Empire; the acceptance of the French propositions would have made her seem its destroyer. The attempts of the Directory, and afterwards of the Consulate, to secure an alliance with Prussia, were therefore foredoomed to failure.

The victories of the French Republic were received with more than toleration in the smaller states of Europe, which feared the aggressions of Austria, Prussia, and Russia far more than any invasion by the French. Switzerland had profited greatly by the strict neutrality it had maintained. The wealth of France had poured freely into the cantons for the purchase of provisions and other necessaries; the residence of the diplomatists of Europe at Berne, the headquarters of Wickham, and at Basle, the headquarters of the French minister BarthÉlemy, had also been profitable to the country, while the Swiss, ready as ever to accept money from all sides, were enabled to make very considerable gains. Of the Princes of Italy, Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and brother of the Emperor, had, to the disgust of the Court of Vienna, made a separate peace with the French Republic in February 1795; Ferdinand of Naples had followed his example, and the King of Sardinia alone remained in armed opposition to France. With Portugal the Directory and the Committee of Public Safety, refused to treat, for, like the French statesmen throughout the eighteenth century, the Directors regarded Portugal as merely a province of England. With the smaller northern powers the Directory established the most friendly relations. Christian VII. of Denmark had always maintained his neutrality, and through the French minister, resident at his Court, many important secret negotiations had passed with Prussia. In Sweden, Charles, Duke of Sudermania, the guardian of the young King Gustavus IV., abandoned the policy of Gustavus III., and now made a treaty of friendship and a commercial treaty with the French Republic. The only other state to be mentioned is Turkey. The Turks looked upon the events which were passing in the West of Europe with unconcern; still they were inclined to be friendly with the French Republic, because it was engaged in fighting with Austria, and thus distracted the attention of one of the hereditary enemies of the Sublime Porte.

Catherine of Russia, now at the close of her long reign, still regarded the French Revolution as affording a happy opportunity for her to pursue her schemes on Poland without active interference from Prussia or Austria. Her one desire was that France should continue the war, and for this reason she cordially received at her court the Comte d’Artois, and encouraged the presence of French ÉmigrÉs. The Treaties of Basle had greatly offended her, for Prussia was thus left free to interfere in Poland, but Catherine was too wise to attempt to do more than intrigue with the affairs of Western Europe. She had no idea of intervening actively.

The campaign of 1795 on the Rhine frontier is chiefly important in regard to the treason of Pichegru. The Elector of Bavaria, who was at the same time the Elector Palatine, had, as has already been said, been uniformly friendly to the French. It was by his connivance that two of the most important fortresses upon the Rhine, Mannheim and DÜsseldorf, were surrendered to Pichegru and Jourdan respectively. Meanwhile Marceau besieged the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, and KlÉber the city of Mayence. There can be little doubt, though it is not absolutely proved by documents, that it was because of the negotiations he had commenced with the Prince de CondÉ that Pichegru did not advance into Germany. Jourdan, who did advance with the Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse, therefore found himself unprotected on his right, and was forced to retire with considerable loss. Marceau succeeded in taking Ehrenbreitstein, but the same treacherous inaction of Pichegru allowed the Austrian General Clerfayt to force KlÉber to raise the siege of Mayence. It was on 20th October 1795 that Jourdan recrossed the Rhine; on the 29th KlÉber was driven from before Mayence; and on the 30th Pichegru was defeated and driven behind the Queich. The first operations of the French armies under the Directory were, thus, owing to Pichegru’s treachery, unsuccessful, and on the 21st December an armistice was made between the French and the Austrians on the Rhine. In the north, owing to the Treaties of Basle, there were no military operations of importance during the autumn of 1795, and the French army maintained its position on the frontier of Holland. In the south considerable alterations were made. The treaty of peace with Spain enabled the experienced and warlike soldiers of the two armies of the Pyrenees to be despatched to reinforce the Army of Italy, which was also joined by the bulk of the troops of the Army of the Alps. General SchÉrer, who commanded the Army of Italy, pushed forward, and by a victory at Loano on the 24th November 1795, opened up a direct communication with Genoa and cut off the Sardinians from the sea. In the four armies of the Directory which had thus taken the place of the thirteen armies of the Republic, there were under arms at the close of 1795 about 300,000 men under experienced generals, excluding what was known as the Army of the Interior, which guarded Paris and garrisoned the chief cities of France.

Reubell, in his conversation with the Prussian ambassador at Paris, openly declared that the chief military effort of France in 1796 was to be made in Italy. Hitherto the Army of Italy had been overshadowed by the operations of the armies engaged upon the Rhine; but the Directory now desired to attack Austria in a vital place. Upon the Rhine they were in reality waging war with the Empire and not with Austria. Mayence, for instance, was the capital of an Elector, not an Austrian city, and blows struck in that quarter affected the Empire and the petty princes of the Empire far more than they did Austria. But in Italy the House of Austria owned an important possession in the Milanese. Between the Milanese and the French Army of Italy was Piedmont, the principal state of the King of Sardinia. Victor Amadeus III. of Sardinia was the only petty monarch in Europe who had not attempted to make peace with the French Republic. In his resentment at the loss of Savoy and Nice he had thrown himself into the arms of Austria, and had borrowed an Austrian general, Colli, to command his small but well equipped army. This was the situation when Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been nominated to the command of the Army of Italy by the Directory, on the proposition of Barras, to whom he had rendered such signal service on 13th VendÉmiaire, arrived to take up his new command on the 27th of March 1796. He understood the policy of the Directory, and determined to crush the King of Sardinia first, in order to be free to attack the Austrians in the Milanese. He therefore turned the Maritime Alps and separated the Austrian from the Sardinian army. The rapidity of his success was such as to surprise the Directors. After turning the Alps Bonaparte struck north and defeated the Sardinians at Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego on the 12th, 13th, and 15th April, stormed their camp at Ceva on 16th April, and finally defeated them at Mondovi on 22d April. He then threatened Turin, and the King of Sardinia signed an armistice with him at Cherasco on 28th April, abandoning to the French army his most important frontier fortresses. As the first result of these military operations the King of Sardinia sued for peace, which he was only granted on recognising the cession to France of Savoy and Nice, and as a second result General Bonaparte was enabled to attack the Austrians in Lombardy without leaving a hostile power behind him.

The operations of the second stage of the famous campaign of 1796 were as rapid and as completely successful. On the 8th May Bonaparte crossed the river Po by skilfully misleading the Austrians as to his intentions, and on 10th May he forced the passage of the Adda at Lodi, where he won one of his most famous victories. The Austrian General Beaulieu felt himself incapable of holding the lines of the other rivers, and fled into the Tyrol. Bonaparte first occupied Milan, and then forced the Dukes of Parma and of Modena to submit to his demands, and to send ambassadors to treat for peace at Paris. To these petty princelets Bonaparte behaved with the utmost arrogance; not satisfied with making large requisitions of money and provisions, he selected their finest pictures and works of art, and directed them to be sent to Paris. Far more important, from his spiritual position, though not of greater military strength, was the Pope. The French armies occupied the Legations of Ferrara and Bologna, and Bonaparte then threatened to march on Rome. In terror Pope Pius VI. concluded, on the 24th June 1796, an armistice at Foligno, by which he abandoned Ancona, and promised to send to Paris the large sum of 20,000,000 livres, with many manuscripts and works of art. The conquest of Italy revealed to Europe the French Republic in a new light. It showed the monarchs, and especially the rulers of little states, that the revolutionary propaganda which they had hated and dreaded so much had given way to an even more dangerous military policy, directed by a victorious and ambitious general.

But Austria was not going to be driven out of Italy by a single campaign. The beaten army of Beaulieu was reorganised by General Melas, and reinforced by 30,000 picked men from the Rhine. This army, amounting in all to 70,000 men, was placed under the command of Marshal WÜrmser, who, at the end of July, debouched from the Tyrol and invaded Italy by the two sides of Lake Garda. Bonaparte, whose army did not exceed 40,000 men, broke up the siege of Mantua which he had formed, and utterly defeated the Austrians in the great battle of Castiglione on 5th August 1796. WÜrmser fell back, but in September, the following month, he invaded Italy by the valley of the Brenta, and threw himself into Mantua. Bonaparte, now considering himself for a time freed from the danger of another Austrian attack, made an effort to reconstitute Northern Italy. Several of the cities, notably Modena, Bologna, and Ferrara, had declared themselves republics, but Bonaparte could see no advantage in little republics, and summoned a general assembly of deputies from the whole of Lombardy to meet at Milan. This assembly was disposed to form a Lombard Republic, but before it could complete its deliberations Bonaparte had to fight another Austrian army.

The Austrians, disgusted and surprised by these successive defeats, prepared to make a great effort. For the first time, the Emperor appealed directly to the patriotism of the people, and more especially of the nobility. A new army was equipped, which, if not so numerous, was more enthusiastic than the former armies, and was placed under the command of General Alvinzi. Bonaparte had received few or no reinforcements, and felt himself unable to face an army of 60,000 men. He waited, therefore, patiently in his headquarters at Verona while Alvinzi advanced slowly down the Brenta. Having learnt experience from their former defeats, the Austrians were in no hurry to come to blows, even with the small French army in front of them. Alvinzi entrenched himself in a formidable position on the heights of Caldiero, and repulsed a French attack upon the 12th of November. Another such check meant the ruin of the French army. Bonaparte decided to turn the position. Advancing along the causeway through the marshes upon Alvinzi’s left, he fought the celebrated battle of Arcola on the 16th of November, and Alvinzi, finding his position untenable, retreated into the Tyrol.

Even yet the Austrians were not finally discouraged. WÜrmser held out in Mantua; the Pope, incited by the Court of Vienna, did not observe the Armistice of Foligno, and determined to raise the Italian populace against the French; and it was resolved to make a final effort. In the depth of winter Alvinzi advanced down the eastern shore of Lake Garda, but was stopped and utterly defeated at Rivoli on the 14th January 1797. Provera, who had endeavoured to relieve WÜrmser by the Brenta, while Alvinzi occupied the main French army at Rivoli, was also defeated, and on 2d February 1797 Mantua surrendered. These successive blows destroyed the military power of Austria in Italy, and Bonaparte began to make plans for invading Austria itself. But before he started it was necessary to establish peace behind him. The behaviour of the Pope showed the general that His Holiness could not be trusted, and it was only under the pressure of a French advance upon Rome that Pius VI. signed a treaty of peace with the French at Tolentino on 19th February 1797. By this treaty Bonaparte’s lines of communication were secured; the people of Lombardy were his enthusiastic admirers, and everything promised a speedy and successful advance upon Vienna.

As Reubell had stated to the Prussian ambassador, the chief effort of the French armies was directed in the year 1796 against the Austrians in Italy. But the operations in Germany were nevertheless of extreme importance; not on account of what was achieved, but because of their effect on the policy of the Princes of the Empire. Carnot, who was left in entire charge of military affairs by the Directory, combined a skilful plan of campaign. He directed the Army of the Rhine-and-Moselle, now under the command of Moreau, and the Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse, still under the command of Jourdan, to make a simultaneous advance into the heart of Germany, and to unite their forces upon the Danube. The generals were sufficiently able, and the troops sufficiently experienced in war, to carry out this movement; but at the head of the Austrians, for the first time since the outbreak of the war, there appeared a general of real military genius. The Archduke Charles, the third son of the Emperor Leopold, and the brother of the reigning Emperor, Francis II., was only a young man, but he proved himself to be a profound strategist. On the 1st June 1796 he announced to the French generals that the armistice, which had lasted six months, was at an end. Jourdan at once advanced from DÜsseldorf, and after taking Frankfort and WÜrtzburg invaded Franconia. The Archduke Charles immediately opposed him with his whole army, and Jourdan had to fall back after a three weeks’ campaign. Moreau was not able to cross the Rhine until 24–25 June 1796. The operation was one of extreme difficulty, which was chiefly overcome by the skill and gallantry of Desaix. Moreau then proceeded to carry out Carnot’s orders; he advanced with great rapidity; he defeated the Prince de CondÉ and his army of ÉmigrÉs at Ettlingen; he occupied Stuttgart, and forced his way into Bavaria, reaching the Danube in the month of August. To oppose him the Archduke Charles marched rapidly to the south, and Jourdan once more left DÜsseldorf and invaded Franconia. The Archduke Charles soon understood the intentions of Carnot, and took up a central position between the two French armies at Ingolstadt. He waited until the French generals had penetrated far from their base of operations, and then, leaving but a weak division in front of Moreau, he attacked Jourdan in force. The French Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse was overcome by the weight of numbers; on the 3d of September it was driven from WÜrtzburg, and on the 20th of September defeated at Altenkirchen, where Marceau, one of the most renowned of the young generals of the republican period, was killed. Having driven back Jourdan, the Archduke Charles turned upon Moreau. That general had imprudently continued to advance into Bavaria, and did not perceive until late in September the critical position in which he had been left by the retreat of Jourdan. When he did perceive it, he extricated himself by one of the most famous retreats known in military history. For forty days he fell back through a hostile country, with bad roads, and offering almost innumerable difficulties from its lofty mountains and dense forests, and harassed by the presence of a victorious Austrian army attempting to cut off his retreat, and eventually he recrossed the Rhine on the 24th of October.

From a military point of view, apart from the intrinsic interest presented by the operations of the armies, the chief importance of the campaign of 1796 in Germany lay in the fact that it occupied a considerable force of Austrian troops, which were thus prevented from being sent as reinforcements to the Austrian army in Italy. From the diplomatic point of view, the campaign had results almost rivalling those achieved by Bonaparte in Italy. The advance of the French threw the states of Southern Germany into the hands of Prussia. They felt a natural sentiment of jealousy at perceiving the states of Northern Germany escaping the horrors of war, owing to the line of demarcation established by the Treaty of Basle. Many of the smaller states, and at least one of the larger states, Saxony, implored the intervention of Prussia. Frederick William II., only too glad to pose as the guardian of the Empire, made use of all his influence to induce the French Directory to consent to the further extension of the line of demarcation. Reubell, the Director who took charge of foreign policy, was possessed by the idea that Prussia and France were natural allies, and induced the Directory to meet the views of Frederick William II.; but in return he demanded that Prussia should enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with the French Republic. The King of Prussia, in his hatred of Jacobin principles, was inclined to reject this proposal, but his ministers, notably Haugwitz and Alvensleben, persuaded him that it was impossible to refuse entirely. A compromise was arranged, and on 5th August 1796 a secret supplement to the Treaty of Basle was signed between France and Prussia. By this secret convention Prussia definitely promised to recognise the limits of the Rhine for the French Republic, and in return France guaranteed that at a general peace not only the King of Prussia should receive compensation for the territories he surrendered, by the cession of some ecclesiastical states, but also that his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, should receive a sovereignty in Germany, to make up for the loss of the Stadtholderate in Holland. It proved impossible to extend the line of demarcation to the southern states of Germany as long as the Austrian army of the Archduke Charles remained there. And therefore the petty rulers endeavoured to make peace with France on their own account. The Duke of WÜrtemburg and the Margrave of Baden both opened negotiations, and since the Elector of Bavaria had fled into Saxony on the advance of Moreau, the Estates of Bavaria signed a treaty of peace with the French general at Pfaffenhofen on the 7th September 1796. But the successes of the Archduke Charles and the retreat of Moreau put an end to these peaceful dispositions. The Elector of Bavaria refused to ratify the treaty his Estates had made; the Duke of WÜrtemburg dismissed the minister who had conducted his negotiations; and in spite of all the efforts of Prussia, the predominance of Austria continued in Southern Germany.

The successes of Bonaparte in Italy, and the operations of the French armies in Germany which, though they had ended in retreat, had not been discreditable to the generals or soldiers, reacted very favourably upon the position of the Directory. The French, as a nation, have always been dazzled by military glory, and since the armies of the Directory were victorious, they were inclined to look upon the government of the Directory as excellent. But military successes did not merely add to the reputation of the Directors; by means of them their financial difficulties were relieved. The doctrine that invading armies should live upon the resources of the invaded countries was a most convenient one. Not only did the armies in Italy and Germany maintain themselves free of cost to the Directory, but the generals sent large sums of money to Paris. It was therefore unnecessary to impose fresh taxes or issue more paper money. But the relief of financial distress was not the only result of the government of the Directory in 1796; it restored internal peace. Hoche, after his defeat of the ÉmigrÉs at Quiberon Bay in 1795, devoted himself to the pacification of Brittany and La VendÉe. The chief credit due to the Directors is that they gave the young general a free hand. While putting down armed insurrection, and defeating the VendÉan chiefs whenever they appeared, Hoche used the most conciliatory measures towards individuals. His policy, as he himself declared in one of his proclamations, was to make the Republic loved. While punishing brigandage severely, he conveniently forgot all past offences as long as the offenders occupied themselves peacefully; and on the 15th of July 1796 the Directory was able to announce to the Legislature that the whole of France was at peace. In truth, all political disturbances were at an end. The majority of the French people frankly accepted the Republic, and seemed to care very little what was the actual form of the republican government. But though political disturbances were over, the troubled times through which France had passed had left only too much scope for private animosity. In the south armed bands, resembling the Companies of Jehu of 1795, pretended to be acting for the defence of religion, when they were really moved by desire of plunder and booty. In the centre the pretext of religion was not alleged, but armed bands of brigands collected in the forests and the mountains, and, like the banditti in Italy, pillaged travellers on the high roads, and held whole villages to ransom. These evils steadily diminished with the consistent enforcement of the law, but it was some years before France became absolutely safe for travellers. Of less importance were the insurrections fomented by the extreme democratic party. Democracy was discredited by the recollection of the Reign of Terror, and the plot of Babeuf in May, and an attack on the camp at Grenelle in November 1796, were easily suppressed.

By the terms of the Constitution of the Year III. no change in the Directory or the Legislature was to be made until February 1797. By this arrangement a period of consistent government was secured. The Directors, on the whole, acted harmoniously together. The pre-eminence of Reubell and Carnot was generally recognised; Barras occupied himself chiefly with his pleasures; RevelliÈre-LÉpeaux was engaged in establishing his new religion of Theo-philanthropy, which made some converts in the towns, but found no followers in the villages; and Letourneur simply acted as Carnot’s lieutenant. In the Legislature the chief leaders, such as SieyÈs, CambacÉrÈs, and Boissy-d’Anglas, showed occasionally their jealousy of their former colleagues in the Convention; but, on the whole, they did not try to interfere with their measures. The only heated debates which took place in the Council of Five Hundred were on the nature of the disturbances in the south of France. These were roundly asserted by the opposing parties to be caused by intrigues of priests, or by intrigues of Jacobins. FrÉron, who had been sent by the Directory to settle these troubles, was very violently attacked, and with difficulty exculpated himself from the charge of political partisanship. But, on the whole, the debates in both branches of the Legislature were very tame. Nevertheless there appeared, during 1796, the germ of what in 1797 was known as the Clichian party, so called from its meeting at the Club de Clichy. This party was not openly royalist, but the chiefs of the French ÉmigrÉs, supported by the funds supplied by Wickham, believed they could use it to serve their own purposes, as they had made use of the agitators in the Paris Sections in 1795. In the ministry no changes of great importance were made in 1796; Ramel, the former colleague of Cambon in the Financial Committee of the Convention, replaced Faypoult as Minister of the Finances; and PÉtiet, a former commissary-general, was appointed Minister of War in succession to Aubert-Dubayet. Of more importance was the creation of a seventh ministry, of General Police, in January 1796, for it was an evidence of a new spirit, and the first symptom of the elaborate scheme for muzzling public opinion, which was developed to its height by FouchÉ at a later date. Merlin of Douai left the Ministry of the Interior for three months to organise the new department, and was succeeded in April 1796 by Cochon de Lapparent, a former member of the Convention.

It has been said that the Directors endeavoured in vain to form an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. They were more successful with regard to Spain. The power of Godoy, who for the negotiations at Basle had been created Prince of the Peace, rose to its height. General PÉrignon, who had been sent as ambassador to Madrid by the Directory, skilfully flattered the vanity of the new prince, and, to the astonishment of all Europe, an offensive and defensive alliance was signed between the French Republic and the ancient Bourbon monarchy of Spain at San Ildefonso, on the 19th of August 1796, by which Spain agreed to declare war against England, and the French promised to assist in the conquest of Portugal, which was to be divided between the two allies. From a military point of view the alliance with Spain did not yield any advantage to France, but from a naval standpoint it proved of incalculable value. The English were obliged to abandon Corsica, their only foothold in the Mediterranean, and to concentrate their fleet at Gibraltar. The Spanish navy, to which much attention had been paid throughout the eighteenth century, had certainly improved, and, united with a few French men-of-war, far outnumbered the English Mediterranean Fleet. This was the year of the great English naval mutiny at the Nore, and the profound discontent which possessed the English sailors was equally perceptible at Gibraltar. But fortunately the English admiral, Sir John Jervis, was a man of singular ability, who understood the English sailor perfectly. He showed no mercy to ringleaders, but maintained discipline, and even made it popular by looking after the men’s food, and appealing to their patriotic feelings. He understood that, on the eve of a battle, the sailors would cease their disaffection. Accordingly he kept at sea for several months after the junction of the French and Spanish fleets, announcing his intention to offer battle; and when discipline was restored he utterly defeated the French and Spaniards off Cape St. Vincent, on the 14th of February 1797. By this victory, in which Nelson greatly distinguished himself, the Spanish fleet was practically destroyed for offensive purposes, and the high hopes that the Directory had built on the naval assistance of Spain were frustrated. England had promptly, as in former days, come to the help of Portugal, and sent an army under the Hon. Sir Charles Stuart to defend the country, and a general, the Prince of Waldeck, to reorganise the Portuguese army.

While the Directory made an alliance with Spain, and hoped to make one with Prussia, its sentiments of hostility towards England remained undiminished. It had been expected in France that the conquest of Holland and the formation of the Batavian Republic, in close alliance with the French Republic, would have struck a more serious blow at the prosperity of England than it had really done. As a matter of fact, the loss of Holland proved but a slight commercial disaster; the commerce of the North of Europe, which passed through English hands, merely moved from Amsterdam to Hamburg, and the English merchants suffered little. From a naval point of view, the French possession of Holland made it necessary for England to set on foot a powerful fleet to watch the Dutch navy in the Texel, while she also had to maintain a fleet blockading the French port of Brest in addition to her Mediterranean fleet. The English government was more profoundly affected by Bonaparte’s victories in Italy than by the loss of Holland. In November 1796 Lord Malmesbury was sent to Paris to discuss the bases of a peace. He began to negotiate for the restoration of the status quo ante bellum, and demanded the surrender of Belgium to the Emperor. Such terms were ridiculous; the French Directors, even had they wished, would not have dared to withdraw from their policy of making the Rhine the frontier of France. The diplomatic habitudes of Lord Malmesbury were regarded by the Directors as proofs of his double-dealing, and he was abruptly ordered to leave Paris on the 20th December 1796. There was little real expectation of peace on either side. At the very time Lord Malmesbury was in Paris the Directory was preparing a naval expedition in Brest harbour. It was announced that the expedition was intended for the West Indies, and it was placed under the command of Hoche. On the 16th of December it set sail for Bantry Bay, for the Directory had really recurred to the old French idea of attacking England through Ireland. But a terrible storm scattered the French Fleet, and only two or three ships reached Bantry Bay, and they returned to France without effecting a landing.

Though the history of Europe during the year 1796 is chiefly bound up in the policy and military achievements of France, the close of the year witnessed the disappearance of the greatest monarch of Eastern Europe. On the 17th November 1796, Catherine of Russia died. The importance of her reign belongs to the period prior to the French Revolution, and her attitude towards the series of events grouped under that title, was chiefly dictated by the course of events in Poland. She was succeeded on the throne of Russia by her son, the Emperor Paul. The new monarch soon gave evidence of the aberration of intellect which led him into the strange excesses that brought about his assassination. His first step in foreign politics was to decline to assist Austria with his armies, and he even withdrew a Russian fleet which his mother had recently sent to the assistance of England. In conversation he expressed his detestation of the French as Jacobins, but none the less he opened negotiations with the Directory by means of his ambassador at Berlin, Kolichev, who communicated freely with the French ambassador Caillard.

In the commencement of the year 1797 the interest of Europe was concentrated upon Bonaparte and his army. Being master of Italy he now determined to invade the home domains of the House of Austria. He begged the Directory to act with energy in Germany in order to prevent reinforcements being sent against him. The Emperor recalled his brother, the Archduke Charles, from the Rhine, and placed in him command of the Austrian army in the Tyrol. On the 16th of March 1797 Bonaparte forced the passage of Tagliamento. Joubert, who was acting independently in the district of Friuli, made his way by that route into the Tyrol, and joined his general-in-chief at Klagenfurt on the 13th of March. With the combined army Bonaparte pursued the Austrians. He defeated the Archduke Charles at Neumarkt and Unzmarkt, and on 7th April he entered Leoben. The Archduke Charles felt it impossible to oppose the French longer, and on the 17th of April 1797 preliminaries of peace were signed at Leoben.

Simultaneously with Bonaparte’s advance the Armies of the Rhine-and-Moselle under Moreau, and of the Sambre-and-Meuse under Hoche, were set in motion. The latter advanced from DÜsseldorf, defeated the Austrians in five engagements, took Wetzlar, and was already marching on Giessen in Hanover when his progress was stopped by the news of the signature of the Preliminaries of Leoben. Moreau, on his side, had not been able to cross the Rhine until 20th April, and had made no further offensive movement, when he was ordered to cease operations.

By the Preliminaries of Leoben the war between France and Austria, which had lasted without intermission for five years, came to a termination. By the Convention signed at that place, Austria agreed that the Rhine should be recognised as the frontier of France, which involved the cession of Belgium. In Italy the Emperor promised to give up the Milanese, and to receive Venice in compensation. These were the territorial bases agreed to, and General Bonaparte was intrusted by the Directory with the task of concluding a definitive peace with Austria. But this Convention only bound Francis II. as head of the House of Hapsburg, not as Emperor. It was therefore agreed that a congress should be held at Rastadt, at which terms of peace should be arranged between the French Republic and the Empire. The Preliminaries of Leoben crowned Bonaparte’s great victories, and the monarchs of Europe quickly recognised that they had no longer to deal with the French Republic, but with the young Corsican general.