o be politically
serviceable to him. If he left behind the ardently republican Kleber,
he also left his old friend Junot: if he brought back Berthier and
Marmont, he also ordered the return of the almost Jacobinical Desaix.
Sir Sidney Smith having gone to Cyprus for repairs, Bonaparte slipped
out unmolested. By great good fortune his frigates eluded the English
ships cruising between Malta and Cape Bon, and after a brief stay at
Ajaccio, he and his comrades landed at Frejus (October 9th). So great
was the enthusiasm of the people that, despite all the quarantine
regulations, they escorted the party to shore. "We prefer the plague
to the Austrians," they exclaimed; and this feeling but feebly
expressed the emotion of France at the return of the Conqueror of the
East.

And yet he found no domestic happiness. Josephine's _liaison_ with a
young officer, M. Charles, had become notorious owing to his prolonged
visits to her country house, La Malmaison. Alarmed at her husband's
return, she now hurried to meet him, but missed him on the way; while
he, finding his home at Paris empty, raged at her infidelity, refused
to see her on her return, and declared he would divorce her. From this
he was turned by the prayers of Eugene and Hortense Beauharnais, and
the tears of Josephine herself. A reconciliation took place; but there
was no reunion of hearts, and Mme. Reinhard echoed the feeling of
respectable society when she wrote that he should have divorced her
outright. Thenceforth he lived for Glory alone.

* * * * *

CHAPTER X

BRUMAIRE

Rarely has France been in a more distracted state than in the summer
of 1799. Royalist revolts in the west and south rent the national
life. The religious schism was unhealed; education was at a
standstill; commerce had been swept from the seas by the British
fleets; and trade with Italy and Germany was cut off by the war of
the Second Coalition.

The formation of this league between Russia, Austria, England, Naples,
Portugal, and Turkey was in the main the outcome of the alarm and
indignation aroused by the reckless conduct of the Directory, which
overthrew the Bourbons at Naples, erected the Parthenopaean Republic,
and compelled the King of Sardinia to abdicate at Turin and retire to
his island. Russia and Austria took a leading part in forming the
Coalition. Great Britain, ever hampered by her inept army
organization, offered to supply money in pla