re done for on the Rhine. The Directory have sent Moreau.
The question is, Can he defend the frontier? I hope he may, but the
Coalition will end by invading us, and the only general able to save the
nation is, unluckily, down in that devilish Egypt; and how is he ever to
get back, with England mistress of the Mediterranean?"

"Bonaparte's absence doesn't trouble me, commandant," said the young
adjutant Gerard, whose intelligent mind had been developed by a fine
education. "I am certain the Revolution cannot be brought to naught.
Ha! we soldiers have a double mission,--not merely to defend French
territory, but to preserve the national soul, the generous principles
of liberty, independence, and rights of human reason awakened by our
Assemblies and gaining strength, as I believe, from day to day. France
is like a traveller bearing a light: he protects it with one hand, and
defends himself with the other. If your news is true, we have never the
last ten years been so surrounded with people trying to blow it out.
Principles and nation are in danger of perishing together."

"Alas, yes," said Hulot, sighing. "Those clowns of Directors have
managed to quarrel with all the men who could sail the ship. Bernadotte,
Carnot, all of them, even Talleyrand, have deserted us. There's not a
single good patriot left, except friend Fouche, who holds 'em through
the police. There's a man for you! It was he who warned me of a coming
insurrection; and here we are, sure enough, caught in a trap."

"If the army doesn't take things in hand and manage the government,"
said Gerard, "those lawyers in Paris will put us back just where we
were before the Revolution. A parcel of ninnies! what do they know about
governing?"

"I'm always afraid they'll treat with the Bourbons," said Hulot.
"Thunder! if they did _that_ a pretty pass we should be in, we
soldiers!"

"No, no, commandant, it won't come to that," said Gerard. "The army, as
you say, will raise its voice, and--provided it doesn't choose its words
from Pichegru's vocabulary--I am persuaded we have not hacked ourselves
to pieces for the last ten years merely to manure the flax and let
others spin the thread."

"Well," interposed Captain Merle, "what we have to do now is to act as
good patriots and prevent the Chouans from communicating with La Vendee;
for, if they once come to an understanding and England gets her finger
into the pie, I wouldn't answer for the cap of the Republic, one and