ho now commenced his chief life-work, the task of
guiding Napoleon. "The mere name of Bonaparte is an aid which ought to
smooth away all my difficulties"--these were the obsequious terms in
which he began his correspondence with the great general. In reality,
he distrusted him; but whether from diffidence, or from the weakness
of his own position, which as yet was little more than that of
the head clerk of his department, he did nothing to assert the
predominance of civil over military influence in the negotiations now
proceeding.

Two months before Talleyrand accepted office, Bonaparte had enlarged
his original demands on Austria, and claimed for France the whole of
the lands on the left or west bank of the Rhine, and for the Cisalpine
Republic all the territory up to the River Adige. To these demands the
Court of Vienna offered a tenacious resistance which greatly irritated
him. "These people are so slow," he exclaimed, "they think that a
peace like this ought to be meditated upon for three years first."

Concurrently with the Franco-Austrian negotiations, overtures for a
peace between France and England were being discussed at Lille. Into
these it is impossible to enter farther than to notice that in these
efforts Pitt and the other British Ministers (except Grenville) were
sincerely desirous of peace, and that negotiations broke down owing to
the masterful tone adopted by the Directory. It was perhaps
unfortunate that Lord Malmesbury was selected as the English
negotiator, for his behaviour in the previous year had been construed
by the French as dilatory and insincere. But the Directors may on
better evidence be charged with postponing a settlement until they
had struck down their foes within France. Bonaparte's letters at this
time show that he hoped for the conclusion of a peace with England,
doubtless in order that his own pressure on Austria might be
redoubled. In this he was to be disappointed. After Fructidor the
Directory assumed overweening airs. Talleyrand was bidden to enjoin on
the French plenipotentiaries the adoption of a loftier tone. Maret,
the French envoy at Lille, whose counsels had ever been on the side of
moderation, was abruptly replaced by a "Fructidorian"; and a decisive
refusal was given to the English demand for the retention of Trinidad
and the Cape, at the expense of Spain and the Batavian Republic
respectively. Indeed, the Directory intended to press for the cession
of the Channel Isla