till retained their strongly
republican opinions. The news that their conduct towards Venice was
being sharply criticised by the moderates in Paris aroused their
strongest feelings, military pride and democratic ardour.

Nevertheless, Bonaparte's conduct was eminently cautious and reserved.
In the month of May he sent to Paris his most trusted aide-de-camp,
Lavalette, instructing him to sound all parties, to hold aloof from
all engagements, and to report to him dispassionately on the state of
public opinion.[84] Lavalette judged the position of the Directory, or
rather of the Triumvirate which swayed it, to be so precarious that he
cautioned his chief against any definite espousal of its cause; and in
June-July, 1797, Bonaparte almost ceased to correspond with the
Directors except on Italian affairs, probably because he looked
forward to their overthrow as an important step towards his own
supremacy. There was, however, the possibility of a royalist reaction
sweeping all before it in France and ranging the armies against the
civil power. He therefore waited and watched, fully aware of the
enhanced importance which an uncertain situation gives to the outsider
who refuses to show his hand.

Duller eyes than his had discerned that the constitutional conflict
between the Directory and the Councils could not be peaceably
adjusted. The framers of the constitution had designed the slowly
changing Directory as a check on the Councils, which were renewed to
the extent of one-third every year; but, while seeking to put a
regicide drag on the parliamentary coach, they had omitted to provide
against a complete overturn. The Councils could not legally override
the Directory; neither could the Directory veto the decrees of the
Councils, nor, by dissolving them, compel an appeal to the country.
This defect in the constitution had been clearly pointed out by
Necker, and it now drew from Barras the lament:

"Ah, if the constitution of the Year III., which offers so many
sage precautions, had not neglected one of the most important; if
it had foreseen that the two great powers of the State, engaged in
heated debates, must end with open conflicts, when there is no high
court of appeal to arrange them; if it had sufficiently armed the
Directory with the right of dissolving the Chamber!"[85]

As it was, the knot had to be severed by the sword: not, as yet, by
Bonaparte's trenchant blade: he carefully drew b