he consciousness of
their own designs could they have fear? The troops, in every instance,
had been the gallant defenders of the Republic, and the openly declared
friends of the Constitution; the Directory had been the same, and if the
faction were not of a different description neither fear nor suspicion
could have had place among them.

All those manouvres in the Council were acted under the most
professional attachment to the Constitution; and this as necessarily
served to enfeeble their projects. It is exceedingly difficult, and next
to impossible, to conduct a conspiracy, and still more so to give it
success, in a popular government. The disguised and feigned pretences
which men in such cases are obliged to act in the face of the public,
suppress the action of the faculties, and give even to natural courage
the features of timidity. They are not half the men they would be where
no disguise is necessary. It is impossible to be a hypocrite and to be
brave at the same instant.

The faction, by the imprudence of its measures, upon the march of
the troops, and upon the declarations of the officers and soldiers to
support the Republic and the Constitution against all open or concealed
attempts to overturn them, had gotten itself involved with the army, and
in effect declared itself a party against it. On the one hand, laws were
proposed to admit emigrants and refractory priests as free citizens; and
on the other hand to exclude the troops from Paris, and to punish the
soldiers who had declared to support the Republic In the mean time all
negociations for peace went backward; and the enemy, still recruiting
its forces, rested to take advantage of circumstances. Excepting the
absence of hostilities, it was a state worse than war.

If all this was not a conspiracy, it had at least the features of one,
and was pregnant with the same mischiefs. The eyes of the faction could
not avoid being open to the dangers to which it obstinately exposed
the Republic; yet still it persisted. During this scene, the journals
devoted to the faction were repeatedly announcing the near approach of
peace with Austria and with England, and often asserting that it was
concluded. This falsehood could be intended for no other purpose than to
keep the eyes of the people shut against the dangers to which they were
exposed.

Taking all circumstances together, it was impossible that such a state
of things could continue long; and at length it was re