he added as general the excitable and meddlesome Augereau, who soon had his men quartered within striking distance. The Clichy Clubbites meantime grew more audacious, and on September 3rd they warmly cheered a proposal in the Chamber to destroy the executive. That night the streets of Paris rang with the unfamiliar tread of an army, a token to all that an unconstitutional act was afoot. The next morning the two Councils found themselves surrounded by 10,000 troops. Pichegru and 42 of his followers in the Five Hundred, Barbé-Mabois and eleven of the Ancients, and 148 other alleged conspirators, especially journalists, were arrested. The Directors had warned. Carnot and Barthélemy, whom they had no wish to injure personally. Carnot, who had long toyed with the Opposition, and had resisted every friendly overture, now fled. Barthélemy was arrested. Merlin de Douai, a lawyer, and Francois de Neufchateau, a literary man, took the places of Carnot and Barthélemy. The new Directorate obtained extensive powers from the newlyconstituted Councils, revived the old stringent decrees against emigrants and priests, and initiated a long series of deportations. They sent 65 of the worst conspirators to Guiana-the guillotine would have been more merciful-and the rest to the Isle of Oleron. In all some 10,000 Nonconformist priests and returned royalists were prescribed, but only a proportion of these were actually banished. There was another general flight to the frontier.

As I said, it is absurd to ascribe to Talleyrand very active share in these proceedings. The charge seems to rest chiefly on the authority of Miot de Melito and Pasquier; both are deeply prejudiced against Talleyrand (Miot de Melito had just been deposed from his embassy at Turin by the Foreign Minister), and both were hundreds of miles away from Paris at the time. It is a good instance of the levity with which the case against Talleyrand is conducted. Talleyrand was at Barras' house the night before the coup d'état; so were Constant and Mme. de Staël, who, Pasquier admits, "wished the day but not the morrow." It is admitted, moreover, that Talleyrand used every effort to moderate the execution of the laws, and saved several individuals from banishment. As to the defence of the proceedings in his letter to Napoleon and his circular letter to the government agents abroad, no one will be so foolish as to seek in these an expression of his judgment. Officially he had to present the case in optimistic language or resign. The only ground for a censure is, in fact, that he did not resign; and it would be to ascribe to Talleyrand a quite heroic degree of sensitiveness to expect him to resign on account of a procedure which Thiers soberly regards as having "prevented civil war, and substituted in its stead a stroke of policy executed with energy, but with all the calmness and moderation possible in times of revolution."

Probably one of the clearest proofs that the Directors were not much indebted to Talleyrand for their successful

extinction of the conspiracy lies in the fact that his relations with them became more strained than ever. In October the Prussian envoy wrote to his Government that Talleyrand could only retain his position "by a miracle of intelligence and conduct." Four of the Directors would not speak to him, and he was reduced almost to the position of a clerk in his department. It suits Michaud to imagine that Talleyrand took the initiative in important matters like the revolutionising of Switzerland, where there was money to be had. It is certain, however, that Talleyrand had no responsible part in forming the Roman and Helvetian Republics. In his Éclaircissements (July, 1799) he says he was not even present at a single discussion on the matter. On the other hand, he must have felt some satisfaction when he saw how Napoleon was ignoring the Directors. In October Napoleon concluded the treaty of Campo Formio with Austria, in complete opposition to the instructions Talleyrand had been sending him to the end of September. Talleyrand wrote him a letter of warm congratulation, which I give later. He secured the nomination of Napoleon as plenipotentiary at the subsequent Congress of Rastadt, but the instructions sent to him were always drawn up by the Directors. Talleyrand had been similarly slighted in the negotiations for peace with England. He had come into office at the time when Lord Malmesbury was conferring with the French envoys at Lille. Malmesbury was sincerely anxious to effect peace, though Talleyrand believes