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kept the French at bay from Acre for the space of two months, after which, despairing of the capture, Bonaparte retreated, first inflicting a severe bombardment on the town. In his despatch to the Directory it is stated that the presence of the plague in Acre induced him not to force his way into it. In the open field however the French had been victorious. The Turkish cavalry united with the remains of that of the beys, were defeated by French in the combat of Nazareth, and the battle of Monthabor. But this did not shake the constancy of the defenders of Acre. The French retreated from it to the valley of the Nile in June.

Much has been said of the vast schemes entertained by Bonaparte, and marred by his repulse from Acre. If victorious he represented that he might have marched on Constantinople, and from thence upon Vienna. He also spoke of invading India, and wrote to Tippoo in January proposing their co-operation. But his original 36,000 soldiers had dwindled to one-half the number. He proposed filling the void by enlisting young negroes.† But despite his patronage and almost adoption of Mohametanism, the religionists did not trust him, and he saw it accordingly to be impossible for the French ever to retain Egypt.

Liberated from the fear, even before they were quite rid of the presence of Bonaparte, the Directory pursued their way. Councillors of a deeper revolutionary stamp than even they, recommended them not to do things by halves. A large portion of the nation consisting of the better born and better educated, was hostile to them, and however crushed by the military, and their chiefs condemned to transportation, they still remained formidable.

Sièyés was for proscribing and turning out of the country all save the Sans-culottes. This pedant, who

Moniteur.

VOL. V.

E

† Napoleon to Desaix.

CHAP.

XLII.

CHAP.
XLII.

shrank silently in his cowardly skin all through the reign of Terror, dreamed of nothing less than renewing it for others the moment he had ceased to tremble for himself. And Siéyès was perhaps the most eminent man in France. Such scum did the revolutionary ebullition throw to the surface. The directors were not men to shrink from any amount of severity of proscription, if feasible. But such a scheme could not be realised without penal laws and enactments, equal to those of the Terror. This neither the public nor the army would have tolerated. The latter had mutinied in several places against the wholesale robbery of the government agents. Had murder been added, the country itself would have risen. The Directory was therefore compelled to prolong its sway not by proscription, but by coups d'état.

The victory of Fructidor had got rid of the moderates of the assemblies, and the decrees of that period had sufficiently terrified candidates and electors, so that few constitutionalists were likely to be returned. The majority of the electors were, however, bent upon returning members who, whatever their colour, should at least be enemies and opponents of the Directory. As they might not elect royalists, they were determined to choose Jacobins, such of them at least as detested the thermidoriens and Barras. The government could thus count but on its own little clique, with hostile majorities on either side of it. Less scrupulous men would have shrunk from such a position, but they, to whom constitutional guarantees were but playthings, soon invented a mode of getting rid of them. They directed that in every electoral district in which the government candidate was in a minority, the minority should secede, and proceed to a second election, leaving the majority to return their candidate also. A commission of five members was then appointed, all of course in the interests of the Directory, to enquire into,

and decide upon the elections; these presented a list in
which all those favourable to the Directory were de-
clared valid, those opposed to it cancelled.*
A more
barefaced annihilation of the electoral power could not
be imagined. The Cinq Cents and the Anciens since
the scheme of these Scissions had been sanctioned in
Floreal, and since the previous coup d'état of Fructidor,
could be regarded in no other light than as the no-
minees of the Directory.

Foreign affairs were conducted in the same cavalier manner as domestic administration. Bonaparte, before setting out for Egypt had offered to go to the Congress of Rastadt, and remove the difficulty that Bernadotte had created. The Directory would not permit him to do so. They feared he would conclude peace, and peace they did not want. War alone brought plunder and spoil. The proceeds of Italian ransom, church plate and robbery had been already dissipated. Bonaparte had required the treasure and the contributions taken from the unfortunate Swiss. Fresh countries to revolutionise and rob was all they wished.

Their chief eyesore was England. Bonaparte had declared their scheme for invading it vain, unless they were first masters of the sea, and of this there were less hopes every day. They made use of their military superiority to dominate over states which possessed navies. Holland they had conquered. Portugal they tried to bind by treaty. But the English soon annihilated the Dutch fleet at Camperdown. And their presence in the Tagus kept the court of Lisbon true to the maintenance of its own independence.

But if the Directory were averse to peace, the Continental powers, even those who had suffered most by the last war, grew less and less inclined to make sacrifices for it. Each day's news brought fresh provoca

* The list is in Buchez et Roux.

CHAP.

XLII.

CHAP.
XLII.

tion. The conquest of Switzerland, the republicanising of Rome as well as Lombardy, alarmed Austria, Sardinia, and Naples. The capture and appropriation of Malta was another cause of offence; whilst the departure of Bonaparte and his victorious legions, left the Directory without what seemed most formidable to its foreign enemies. This temptation to the courts of Vienna and Naples to break with the Directory was increased when news arrived of the destruction of the French fleet at Aboukir, and the isolation of Bonaparte and his forces in Egypt.

But what gave the strongest impulse to a new coalition against France was the change in the policy of Russia. The Czar Paul had brought a violent and capricious temper to influence affairs of State in lieu of the mild temporisation of Catherine. He embraced the project of restoring the Bourbons to their throne and their emigré followers to their possessions in France, and moved Austria and Prussia to join him in this new crusade. Emboldened by such offers the negotiators of Austria no longer lent an obsequious ear to the imperative demands of the French plenipotentiaries at Rastadt.

All at once the directors were alarmed by the prospect of the hostile coalition of Europe being renewed against them. A Russian envoy had come to persuade the court of Berlin. Siéyès offered to proceed thither. Bonaparte had been known to lean to an Austrian alliance. The Directory hoped to succeed better with a Prussian, and Siéyès went to Berlin. But no influential person, save the young king, would speak with a regicide envoy. Prussia would not coalesce with the enemies of France, but was determined to retain a neutral position. Another envoy, the ex-director, Francois de Neufchateau endeavoured then to renew Bonaparte's negotiations with Cobentzel, but without a victorious army at his back, his assumption of the dictatorial tone of the victorious general failed of its purpose (July, 1798).

XLII.

In a fortnight after the departure of Bonaparte and CHAP. his army for Egypt, it became evident that war was impending. The French government took steps to be prepared for it. The principal one was, the Law of Conscription. It had been often proposed. Jourdain had introduced it at the commencement of the year. In July, the necessity of adopting it was felt, and the law, subjecting every male of France at the age of 21 to a compulsory enrolment, was passed. It was acted upon by a decree to raise 200,000 men. The French population accepted the decree, but the Belgian provinces arose in insurrection, and had the European coalition been in time to support them, France would have found itself reduced to its ancient limits on the North. To employ the English at home a division of troops under General Humbert was sent to Ireland. More enterprising than Hoche, Humbert contrived to land, but it was only to be made prisoner with his little army.

The crime of the Directory in sacrificing the old republic of Switzerland to its rapacity met now with its punishment. The Grisons were not then numbered amongst the cantons, but formed a league apart. French agents laboured to persuade the more democratic of the Grisons to annex their valleys to Switzerland, now become French, whilst the Valteline, also appertaining to them, was to be left to the Cisalpine.

As violence and threats were employed to induce the vote, the Austrians from the Tyrol opposed it, and at last occupied the Grison territories: this was war. The Directory did not at once accept the challenge; they had armies to prepare not merely for the Rhine and for Italy, but for Switzerland, whose neutrality had hitherto rendered such augmentation of forces unnecessary.

Switzerland in fact became a kind of centre to both contending armies; those on the right of it being occupied with the attack or defence of Lombardy, those on the left with the campaign beyond the Rhine. The

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