sions. The whole populace, as represented by the
sections or wards of Paris, resented this use of armed force, and grew
uneasy. The Thermidorians further angered it by introducing a new
metropolitan administration, which greatly diminished the powers and
influence of the sections, without, however, destroying their
organization. The people of the capital, therefore, were ready for
mischief. The storming of the Tuileries on August tenth, 1792, had
been the work of the Paris mob. Why could they not in turn, another
mob, reactionary and to a degree even royalist, overthrow the tyranny
of the Jacobins as they themselves had overthrown the double-faced
administration of the King?

A crisis might easily have been precipitated before Buonaparte's
arrival in Paris, but it was delayed by events outside the city. The
year 1794 had been a brilliant season for the republican arms and for
republican diplomacy. We have seen how the Piedmontese were forced
beyond the maritime Alps; the languid and worthless troops of Spain
were expelled from the Pyrenean strongholds and forced southward; in
some places, beyond the Ebro. Pichegru, with the Army of the North,
had driven the invaders from French soil and had conquered the
Austrian Netherlands. Jourdan, with the Army of the Sambre and Meuse,
had defeated the Austrians at Fleurus in a battle decided by the
bravery of Marceau, thus confirming the conquest. Other generals were
likewise rising to eminence. Hoche had in 1793 beaten the Austrians
under Wurmser at Weissenburg, and driven them from Alsace. He had now
further heightened his fame by his successes against the insurgents
of the west. Saint-Cyr, Bernadotte, and Kleber, with many others of
Buonaparte's contemporaries, had also risen to distinction in minor
engagements.

Of peasant birth, Pichegru was nevertheless appointed by
ecclesiastical influence as a scholar at Brienne. In the dearth of
generals he was selected for promotion by Saint-Just as was Hoche at
the time when Carnot discovered Jourdan. Having assisted Hoche in the
conquest of Alsace when a division general and only thirty-two years
old, he began the next year, in 1794, to deploy his extraordinary
powers, and with Moreau as second in command he swept the English and
Austrians out of the Netherlands. Both these generals were sensitive
and jealous men; after brilliant careers under the republic they
turned royalists and came to unhappy ends. Moreau was two years the
junio