rectoire were cut off in Egypt.

Meanwhile Nelson, returning to Italy to refit his ships, decided the
court of Naples to join in the war against France, and determined the
march of Ferdinand and his army against Rome, which city he occupied on
the 29th of November. Championnet, commander of the French forces in
southern Italy, brought one more flash of triumph to his country's
arms; though heavily outnumbered, he drove Ferdinand out of Rome,
followed him to Naples, and took the city by storm after desperate
street fighting at the end of December.

At Naples, as elsewhere, France set up a vassal state, the Parthenopean
Republic, that lived but few weeks and ended in tragedy. For early in
the year 1799, Austria and Russia placed an army in the field in
northern Italy, the war with Austria beginning in March. Its first
events took place in Germany, where Jourdan, for the fourth time
attempting to force his way through the valley of the Danube, once more
met with failure. The Archduke Charles fought him at Stockach, and
there defeated him. This defeat gave the northern command to Massena
and sent Jourdan {255} back to politics. When, some years later, the
victor of Fleurus was again entrusted with the command of large armies,
it was only to lead them to failure at Talavera, and to disaster at
Vittoria.

Just as the war with Austria broke out again, the yearly elections for
the Councils were being held. The war brought about a recurrence of
revolutionary fever, which resulted in great Jacobin successes at the
polls. But the new deputies, like the old, were hostile to the
discredited Directoire. France wanted some stronger, abler, more
honest, more dignified executive than she had; she would no longer
tolerate that a gang of shady politicians should fatten in an office
they did nothing to make effective. And as the war cloud grew blacker
and the national finances more exhausted, the Jacobins themselves
undertook to reform the Republic. The first step was to get a strong
foothold in the enemy's camp. This was effected by electing Sieyes to
fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Rewbell from the
Directoire,--Sieyes, who was known for his hostility to the existing
system, whose reputation for solidity and political integrity was wide,
whose capacity as a constitutionalist and reformer was extraordinarily
overrated.

{256} With Sieyes on the Directoire there comes into existence an
ill-defined, vague conspi