e as distracting as ever, and the foundation of her
institutions more than ever unstable. There was hopeless division in
the executive, and no cooerdination under the constitution between it
and the other branches of the government, while the legislature did
not represent the people. The treasury was empty, famine was as
wide-spread as ever, administration virtually non-existent. The army,
checked for the moment, moped unsuccessful, dispirited, and unpaid.
Hunger knows little discipline, and with temporary loss of discipline
the morals of the troops had been undermined. To save the constitution
public opinion must be diverted from internal affairs, and
conciliated. To that end the German emperor must be forced to yield
the Rhine frontier, and money must be found at least for the most
pressing necessities of the army and of the government. If the
republic could secure for France her natural borders, and command a
peace by land, it might hope for eventual success in the conflict with
England. To this end its territorial conquests must be partitioned
into three classes: those within the "natural limits," and already
named, for incorporation; those to be erected into buffer states to
fend off from the tender republic absolutism and all its horrors; and
finally such districts as might be valuable for exchange in order to
the eventual consolidation of the first two classes. Of the second
type, the Directory considered as most important the Germanic
Confederation. There was the example of Catherine's dealing with
Poland by which to proceed. As that had been partitioned, so should
Germany. From its lands should be created four electorates, one to
indemnify the House of Orange for Holland, one for Wuertemberg; the
others according to circumstances would be confided to friendly hands.

The means to the end were these. Russia must be reduced to inactivity
by exciting against her through bribes and promises all her foes to
the eastward. Prussia must be cajoled into cooeperation by pressure on
King George of Hanover, even to the extinction of his kingdom, and by
the hope of a consolidated territory with the possibility of securing
the Imperial dignity. Austria was to be partly compelled, partly
bribed, into a continental coalition against Great Britain by
adjustment of her possessions both north and south of the Alps. Into a
general alliance against Great Britain, Spain must be dragged by
working on the fears of the queen's paramour