in those seas, and to fetter the action of the Austrian arms
in Northern Italy.[123]

Yet, though the schisms of the allies finally yielded a victory to the
French in the campaigns of 1799, the position of the Republic was
precarious. The danger was rather internal than external. It arose
from embarrassed finances, from the civil war that burst out with new
violence in the north-west, and, above all, from a sense of the
supreme difficulty of attaining political stability and of reconciling
liberty with order. The struggle between the executive and legislative
powers which had been rudely settled by the _coup d'etat_ of
Fructidor, had been postponed, not solved. Public opinion was speedily
ruffled by the Jacobinical violence which ensued. The stifling of
liberty of the press and the curtailment of the right of public
meeting served only to instill new energy into the party of resistance
in the elective Councils, and to undermine a republican government
that relied on Venetian methods of rule. Reviewing the events of those
days, Madame de Stael finely remarked that only the free consent of
the people could breathe life into political institutions; and that
the monstrous system of guaranteeing freedom by despotic means served
only to manufacture governments that had to be wound up at intervals
lest they should stop dead.[124] Such a sarcasm, coming from the
gifted lady who had aided and abetted the stroke of Fructidor, shows
how far that event had falsified the hopes of the sincerest friends of
the Revolution. Events were therefore now favourable to a return from
the methods of Rousseau to those of Richelieu; and the genius who was
skilfully to adapt republicanism to autocracy was now at hand. Though
Bonaparte desired at once to attack the Austrians in Northern Italy,
yet a sure instinct impelled him to remain at Paris, for, as he said
to Marmont: "When the house is crumbling, is it the time to busy
oneself with the garden? A change here is indispensable."

The sudden rise of Bonaparte to supreme power cannot be understood
without some reference to the state of French politics in the months
preceding his return to France. The position of parties had been
strangely complicated by the unpopularity of the Directors. Despite
their illegal devices, the elections of 1798 and 1799 for the renewal
of a third part of the legislative Councils had signally strengthened
the anti-directorial ranks. Among the Opposition were some royal