affords an insight into financial conditions to know that a gold piece
of twenty francs was worth seven hundred and fifty in paper. A project
for purchasing a certain property as a good investment for his wife's
dowry was submitted to Joseph, but it failed by the sudden repeal of
the law under which such purchases were made. The two themes were both
finished, and another, "A Study in Politics: being an Inquiry into the
Causes of Troubles and Discords," was sketched, but never completed.
The memoir on the Army of Italy was virtually the scheme for offensive
warfare which he laid before the younger Robespierre; it was now
revised, and sent to the highest military power--the new central
committee appointed as a substitute for the Committee of Safety. These
occupations were all very well, but the furlough was rapidly expiring,
and nothing had turned up. Most opportunely, the invalid had a
relapse, and was able to secure an extension of leave until August
fourth, the date on which a third of the committee on the reassignment
of officers would retire, among them the hated Aubry.

Speaking at St. Helena of these days, he said: "I lived in the Paris
streets without employment. I had no social habits, going only into
the set at the house of Barras, where I was well received.... I was
there because there was nothing to be had elsewhere. I attached myself
to Barras because I knew no one else. Robespierre was dead; Barras was
playing a role: I had to attach myself to somebody and something." It
will not be forgotten that Barras and Freron had been Dantonists when
they were at the siege of Toulon with Buonaparte. After the events of
Thermidor they had forsworn Jacobinism altogether, and were at present
in alliance with the moderate elements of Paris society. Barras's
rooms in the Luxembourg were the center of all that was gay and
dazzling in that corrupt and careless world. They were, as a matter of
course, the resort of the most beautiful and brilliant women,
influential, but not over-scrupulous. Mme. Tallien, who has been
called "the goddess of Thermidor," was the queen of the coterie;
scarcely less beautiful and gracious were the widow Beauharnais and
Mme. Recamier. Barras had been a noble; the instincts of his class
made him a delightful host.

What Napoleon saw and experienced he wrote to the faithful Joseph. The
letters are a truthful transcript of his emotions, the key-note of
which is admiration for the Paris women. "Carria