ed to his house and flung herself
at his knees, begging to be taken away from her husband; but the story
is exploded by the moral which the relator clumsily tacks on, as to
the good advice which he gave her.[126] While Bonaparte seems to have
found no grounds for suspecting Barras on this score, he yet
discovered his intrigues with various malcontents; and he saw that
Barras, holding the balance of power in the Directory between the
opposing pairs of colleagues, was intriguing to get the highest
possible price for the betrayal of the Directory and of the
constitution of 1795.

For Sieyes the general felt dislike but respect. He soon saw the
advantage of an alliance with so learned a thinker, so skilful an
intriguer, and so weak a man. It was, indeed, necessary; for, after
making vain overtures to Gohier for the alteration of the law which
excluded from the Directory men of less than forty years of age,
the general needed the alliance of Sieyes for the overthrow of the
constitution. In a short space he gathered around him the malcontents
whom the frequent crises had deprived of office, Roederer, Admiral
Bruix, Real, Cambaceres, and, above all, Talleyrand. The last-named;
already known for his skill in diplomacy, had special reasons for
favouring the alliance of Bonaparte and Sieyes: he had been dismissed
from the Foreign Office in the previous month of July because in his
hands it had proved to be too lucrative to the holder and too
expensive for France. It was an open secret that, when American
commissioners arrived in Paris a short time previously, for the
settlement of various disputes between the two countries, they found
that the negotiations would not progress until 250,000 dollars had
changed hands. The result was that hostilities continued, and that
Talleyrand soon found himself deprived of office, until another turn
of the revolutionary kaleidoscope should restore him to his coveted
place.[127] He discerned in the Bonaparte-Sieyes combination the force
that would give the requisite tilt now that Moreau gave up politics.

The army and most of the generals were also ready for some change,
only Bernadotte and Jourdan refusing to listen to the new proposals;
and the former of these came "with sufficiently bad grace" to join
Bonaparte at the time of action. The police was secured through that
dextrous trimmer, the regicide Fouche, who now turned against the very
men who had recently appointed him to office. Feeling