chmen. Let her remember that this civil strife was part of a fight
to the death between French patriots and the despots of Europe. That
was, indeed, the practical point at issue; the stern logic of facts
ranged on the Jacobin side all clear-sighted men who were determined
that the Revolution should not be stamped out by the foreign invaders.
On the ground of mere expediency, men must rally to the cause of the
Jacobinical Republic. Every crime might be condoned, provided that the
men now in power at Paris saved the country. Better their tyranny than
the vengeance of the emigrant _noblesse_. Such was the instinct of
most Frenchmen, and it saved France.

As an _expose_ of keen policy and all-dominating opportunism, "Le
Souper de Beaucaire" is admirable. In a national crisis anything that
saves the State is justifiable--that is its argument. The men of the
Mountain are abler and stronger than the Girondins: therefore the
Marseillais are foolish not to bow to the men of the Mountain. The
author feels no sympathy with the generous young Girondins, who, under
the inspiration of Madame Roland, sought to establish a republic of
the virtues even while they converted monarchical Europe by the sword.
Few men can now peruse with undimmed eyes the tragic story of their
fall. But the scenes of 1793 had transformed the Corsican youth into a
dry-eyed opportunist who rejects the Girondins as he would have thrown
aside a defective tool: nay, he blames them as "guilty of the greatest
of crimes."[20]

Nevertheless Buonaparte was alive to the miseries of the situation. He
was weary of civil strifes, in which it seemed that no glory could be
won. He must hew his way to fortune, if only in order to support his
family, which was now drifting about from village to village of
Provence and subsisting on the slender sums doled out by the Republic
to Corsican exiles.

He therefore applied, though without success, for a regimental
exchange to the army of the Rhine. But while toiling through his
administrative drudgery in Provence, his duties brought him near to
Toulon, where the Republic was face to face with triumphant royalism.
The hour had struck: the man now appeared.

In July, 1793, Toulon joined other towns of the south in declaring
against Jacobin tyranny; and the royalists of the town, despairing of
making headway against the troops of the Convention, admitted English
and Spanish squadrons to the harbour to hold the town for Louis XVII,