eturn for which she was to receive certain compensations.

Bonaparte was now negotiator as well as general. For the Directoire
was in great danger; it had come face to face with a situation in which
it required all the support its general could give, and in return
conceded to him a corresponding increase of powers. In March and April
the first election for the renewal of the Councils was held, and out of
216 outgoing ex-conventionnels who appealed to the electorate, 205 were
defeated at the polls. A more unanimous pronouncement of public
opinion was hardly possible.

But the Directors were not capable of accepting the verdict of the
country; power was theirs, and they were resolved it should remain
theirs. In the Councils an extreme party led by Boissy d'Anglas,
Pichegru and Camille Jordan, embarked on a policy of turning out the
Directors and repealing all the revolutionary legislation, especially
that directed against the _emigres_ and the Church. They formed the
Club de Clichy. In the centre of the house opinions were more
moderate,--moderate progressive, and moderate Jacobin; in the latter
party, Sieyes, Talleyrand, Benjamin Constant, {249} and as a social and
literary influence, the daughter of Necker, Mme. de Stael.

The first step in the struggle was marked by the election of
Barthelemy, the negotiator of the treaty of Bale and a moderate, to the
Directoire instead of Letourneur, who retired by rotation. Long
debates followed on the _emigres_ and the priests, and their course led
to an attack by the Councils, supported by Carnot and Barthelemy, on
the Ministry. Some changes were made, and it was at this moment that
Talleyrand secured the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The Five Hundred now became interested in some rather obscure
negotiations that Bonaparte was conducting in Italy with a view to
converting the peace preliminaries of Leoben into a definite treaty.
No sooner had he disposed of Austria than he had treacherously turned
on Venice and seized the city. He was now juggling with this and the
other French acquisitions in Italy in rather dubious fashion, and the
orators of the opposition fastened on this as a text. It was just at
this moment that Barras turned to his old protege and asked for his
help. Bonaparte's sword leapt from the scabbard instantly. He issued
a proclamation to his army denouncing the factious opposition {250} of
the Clichiens; and he sent Augereau, his grenadier ge