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wound had caused him great pain, but by early in December the stump had healed; so he was now recovered and, report had it, pestering the life out of the Admiralty to be sent to sea again.
    In France the ‘Five Kings’—as the members of the Directory which had taken over the Government after the fall of Robespierre were called—were still all-powerful. Under the new Constitution which had elevated them to office there were two Chambers: the
Corps Législatif
, popularly known as the Five Hundred, and the
Anciens
, which consisted of two hundred and fifty older statesmen elected from the former body. But the two Houses were no more than forums for debating proposed changes in the law. They had no executive power and Ministers were neither allowed to be members of either House nor were in any way responsible to them.
    The Ministers were appointed by the Director and were little more than chief clerks of departments under them. The Directory also appointed all military officers of senior rank, all diplomatic representatives and all the principal civilian officials of the State. As the majority of the Directors wereunscrupulous men, the patronage in their gift had led to a degree of bribery and corruption never known in any country before or since.
    All five of the Directors had voted for the King’s death, so it was essential to their own safety that they should check the tide of reaction against the Terror that was sweeping France. To achieve this they secured agreement that one-third of the members of the new legislative body should consist of men who had sat in the old extremist Convention. Thus, against the will of the people, they ensured a majority which would refuse to pass any law which might bring retribution on themselves.
    Paul de Barras, a man of noble birth and a soldier of some ability, was the acknowledged figurehead of the Directory. He was handsome, brave, gay, utterly corrupt and shamelessly licentious. Jean-François Rewbell was its strength and brain. A dyed-in-the-wool terrorist, he was foul-mouthed, brutal and dictatorial, but possessed a will of iron and an indefatigable appetitite for work. Larevellière-Lépeaux was a lawyer, deformed, ill-tempered and vain, with one all-absorbing passion — a positively demoniacal hatred of Christianity. These three had united to form a permanent majority unshakably determined to oppose the popular movement for a greater degree of liberty and tolerance under a truly representative Liberal government.
    Nevertheless, the new Constitutional Movment, as it was called, had by the preceding year gained such momentum that it caused Barras and his cronies considerable alarm. They feared that General Pichegru was about to stage a
coup d’état
, and it was even rumoured that in the Club de Clichy, where the leaders of the Constitutional Party had their headquarters, a plot was being hatched to restore the Monarchy.
    When news of the landslide in public opinion percolated to the Armies in the field they too became disturbed, for a high proportion of the soldiers were former
sans-culottes
. The Divisions of the Army of Italy drew up fiery proclamations which they sent to Paris, declaring that if the
Corps Législaíif
‘betrayed the Revolution’ they would return and slaughter its members.
    Bonaparte had also shown his old colours. As the war was at a stalemate owing to the armistice with Austria, he could have gone to Paris and organised a
coup d’état
, but he was too shrewd a politician to lead personally a movement in support of the unpopular Directors. Instead he sent General Augereau, a huge, swashbuckling bully of a man imbued with violently revolutionary opinions.
    Augereau was not a man to take half-measures and on his arrival in Paris he immediately announced that he had come to kill the Royalists. Having concerted measures with Barras, he dealt with the
Corps Législatif
on 4th September—18th Fructidor,