ont gathered his forces and hurled them at the
Pont Royal; three times they were swept back by the cross-fire of
artillery. The scene then changed like the vanishing of a mirage.
Awe-stricken messengers appeared, hurrying everywhere with the
prostrating news from both sides of the river, and the entire Parisian
force withdrew to shelter. Before nightfall the triumph of the
Convention was complete. The dramatic effect of this achievement was
heightened by the appearance on horseback here, there, and everywhere,
during the short hour of battle, of an awe-inspiring leader; both
before and after, he was unseen. In spite of Barras's claims, there
can be no doubt that this dramatic personage was Buonaparte. If not,
for what was he so signally rewarded in the immediate sequel? Barras
was no artillerist, and this was the appearance of an expert giving
masterly lessons in artillery practice to an astonished world, which
little dreamed what he was yet to demonstrate as to the worth of his
chosen arm on wider battle-fields. For the moment it suited
Buonaparte to appear merely as an agent. In his reports of the affair
his own name is kept in the background. It is evident that from first
to last he intended to produce the impression that, though acting with
Jacobins, he does so because they for the time represent the truth: he
is not for that reason to be identified with them.

Thus by the "whiff of grape-shot" what the wizard historian of the
time "specifically called the French Revolution" was not "blown into
space" at all. Though there was no renewal of the reign of terror, yet
the Jacobins retained their power and the Convention lived on under
the name of the Directory. It continued to live on in its own stupid
anarchical way until the "man on horseback" of the thirteenth
Vendemiaire had established himself as the first among French generals
and the Jacobins had rendered the whole heart of France sick. While
the events of October twenty-fifth were a bloody triumph for the
Convention, only a few conspicuous leaders of the rebels were
executed, among them Laffont; and harsh measures were enacted in
relation to the political status of returned emigrants. But in the
main an unexpected mercy controlled the Convention's policy. They
closed the halls in which the people of the mutinous wards had met,
and once more reorganized the National Guard. Order was restored
without an effort. Beyond the walls of Paris the effect of the news
was