bsequently carped at the conduct of Buonaparte, his action proved
his complete confidence in that young officer's capacity: he at once
sent for him, and intrusted him with most important duties. Herein
lies the chief chance of immortality for the name of Barras; not that,
as a terrorist, he slaughtered royalists at Toulon; not that he was
the military chief of the Thermidorians, who, from fear of their own
necks, ended the supremacy of Robespierre; not even that he degraded
the new _regime_ by a cynical display of all the worst vices of the
old; but rather because he was now privileged to hold the stirrup for
the great captain who vaulted lightly into the saddle.

The present crisis certainly called for a man of skill and
determination. The malcontents had been emboldened by the timorous
actions of General Menou, who had previously been intrusted with the
task of suppressing the agitation. Owing to a praiseworthy desire to
avoid bloodshed, that general wasted time in parleying with the most
rebellious of the "sections" of Paris. The Convention now appointed
Barras to the command, while Buonaparte, Brune, Carteaux, Dupont,
Loison, Vachot, and Vezu were charged to serve under him.[32] Such was
the decree of the Convention, which therefore refutes Napoleon's later
claim that he was in command, and that of his admirers that he was
second in command.

Yet, intrusted from the outset by Barras with important duties, he
unquestionably became the animating spirit of the defence. "From the
first," says Thiebault, "his activity was astonishing: he seemed to be
everywhere at once: he surprised people by his laconic, clear, and
prompt orders: everybody was struck by the vigour of his arrangements,
and passed from admiration to confidence, from confidence to
enthusiasm." Everything now depended on skill and enthusiasm. The
defenders of the Convention, comprising some four or five thousand
troops of the line, and between one and two thousand patriots,
gendarmes, and Invalides, were confronted by nearly thirty thousand
National Guards. The odds were therefore wellnigh as heavy as those
which menaced Louis XVI. on the day of his final overthrow. But the
place of the yielding king was now filled by determined men, who saw
the needs of the situation. In the earlier scenes of the Revolution,
Buonaparte had pondered on the efficacy of artillery in
street-fighting--a fit subject for his geometrical genius. With a few
cannon, he knew that h