s works. "Down with the
two-thirds!" was the cry that resounded through the streets of Paris.
The movement was not so much definitely royalist as vaguely
malcontent. The many were enraged by the existing dearth and by the
failure of the Revolution to secure even cheap bread. Doubtless the
royalists strove to drive on the discontent to the desired goal, and
in many parts they tinged the movement with an unmistakably Bourbon
tint. But it is fairly certain that in Paris they could not alone have
fomented a discontent so general as that of Vendemiaire. That they
would have profited by the defeat of the Convention is, however,
equally certain. The history of the Revolution proves that those who
at first merely opposed the excesses of the Jacobins gradually drifted
over to the royalists. The Convention now found itself attacked in the
very city which had been the chosen abode of Liberty and Equality.
Some thirty thousand of the Parisian National Guards were determined
to give short shrift to this Assembly that clung so indecently to
life; and as the armies were far away, the Parisian malcontents seemed
masters of the situation. Without doubt they would have been but for
their own precipitation and the energy of Buonaparte.

But how came he to receive the military authority which was so
potently to influence the course of events? We left him in Fructidor
disgraced: we find him in the middle of Vendemiaire leading part of
the forces of the Convention. This bewildering change was due to the
pressing needs of the Republic, to his own signal abilities, and to
the discerning eye of Barras, whose career claims a brief notice.

Paul Barras came of a Provencal family, and had an adventurous life
both on land and in maritime expeditions. Gifted with a robust frame,
consummate self-assurance, and a ready tongue, he was well equipped
for intrigues, both amorous and political, when the outbreak of the
Revolution gave his thoughts a more serious turn. Espousing the
ultra-democratic side, he yet contrived to emerge unscathed from the
schisms which were fatal to less dextrous trimmers. He was present at
the siege of Toulon, and has striven in his "Memoires" to disparage
Buonaparte's services and exalt his own. At the crisis of Thermidor
the Convention intrusted him with the command of the "army of the
interior," and the energy which he then displayed gained for him the
same position in the equally critical days of Vendemiaire. Though he
su