sea power was again assured and with it the replenishing of their treasury. These elements of the second coalition have been repeatedly described, but for all that, events would have been otherwise than they were, had there been anywhere in Europe a statesman with moral and material power at his bidding, who could have propagated a moderate, enlightened liberalism in the countries of the north. As a sorry radicalism had full play for some years in France, a blind reactionary conservatism prevailed among all the Teutonic peoples. The struggle of two extremes made the chaos. England was determined on war to destruction or exhaustion: France likewise. The system of national assassinations and territorial compensations begun in the partition of Poland was exemplified in the peace of Campo Formio. Then it was three to one against a nation with neither political nor military strength, and the decision was against nationality. Hereafter it was to be all absolute Europe against a nation with some political and immense military aptitudes. The struggle was to last fifteen years and be decided this time for, not against, nationality as a fact and a principle.

CHAPTER III

Bonaparte and Talleyrand[3]

Bonaparte in Switzerland — Arrival at Rastadt — A Royalist Portrait of Him — His Affectation of Simplicity — Reception by the Directory — First Threat of Invading England — Career of Talleyrand — His Relations with Bonaparte — Men and Parties in Paris.

In the complications of his far-reaching designs, the return of Bonaparte to Paris was a matter of consequence to him, an affair to be managed with diplomacy and an eye to dramatic effect. To appease the Directory, the insubordinate plenipotentiary explained in his despatches that he had acted as he did because Austria had made herself stronger than ever in the long interval, which was probably true; and that the possibility of further successful warfare had been jeopardized by the early arrival of winter, which had left him no choice in hastening the conclusion. This was not flatly untrue, for Marmont noted in his diary that it was October thirteenth when the first new snow fell on the mountain peaks, and that he had marked his general's surprise at the fact: the treaty was signed on the seventeenth. Nevertheless, the season was later than usual, and the plea of weather was a pretext to hide the negotiator's own purposes. In his rôle as an Italian deliverer, Bonaparte remained until the middle of November to consolidate the new republics and await the assembling of delegates at Rastadt. Then, traveling sedately by Turin and the Mont Cenis pass through Chambéry, he reached Geneva. Switzerland was ripe for his presence. The first step was to arrest Bontemps, a Genevese banker who had assisted Carnot in his flight to Nyon, where he was still in concealment. The second was to focus the revolutionary movement in the district of Vaud, and to strengthen its preparations for throwing off the Bernese dominion by organizing an ovation for himself at Lausanne: a democrat must be fêted only by democrats.

"Nothing too far" being manifestly his motto at this period, he then passed by easy stages to Rastadt, where he arrived on November twenty-fifth, and immediately asserted for himself a nominal supervision of the arrangements. The King of Sweden had claimed representation both as Duke of Pomerania and as a guarantor of the peace of Westphalia; for that reason he had sent as his delegate Count Fersen, a shrewd agent, once Swedish ambassador in Paris, the friend of Marie Antoinette, and known everywhere as an intimate counselor of the Bourbons. Bonaparte, outraged at such effrontery, summoned the envoy to his presence, and, trampling on the forms of a hollow politeness, informed him with a few biting words that his presence was not desired. The envoy tarried long enough to assure himself that Austria was quite as hostile as France, and returned to Stockholm. It annoyed Bonaparte even more to find that the imperial delegates had not yet arrived. But he passed the interval with considerable satisfaction in an exchange of pleasantries with the various personages who were on the ground. "How," said he to Stadion, garbed as a canon of Würzburg, "can the station of an ecclesiastical prince of the empire, a man who is both warrior and spiritual minister, accord with the precepts of the Scriptures, with the poverty and the lowliness of early Christianity?" "Where will your master live?" he said to the agent from the Bishop of Mainz, "when he loses his present residence?" The hollow shells of worn-out institutions rattled wherever this innovator stepped. At last Cobenzl arrived, and the urgent affair of the transfer of Mainz was promptly concluded. That fortress was to be occupied by French troops on the thirtieth, the day in which Austria was to take possession of Venice. Then, leaving Treilhard and Bonnier, the rude and insolent French plenipotentiaries, in a position of arrogant superiority to their colleagues, he set out for Paris, and after a triumphal progress throughout northern France, a region not before familiar to him, arrived, on December fifth, at his residence on Chantereine street. With its usual facility in that line, the Paris municipality soon after dubbed this rather insignificant byway the Street of Victory. Mme. Bonaparte, who had been visiting Rome, where her brother-in-law Joseph was now French minister, rejoined her husband at Christmas.

In the papers of the Comte d'Antraigues was found a pen-portrait of Bonaparte as he appeared at Venice, and it will no doubt, with due allowances, stand for the few months later when he became the idol of Paris. Sucy, a government commissioner of much sense, overpowered by the importance of passing events, wrote in August to a friend that he could not enter upon such voluminous details as would be necessary to depict Bonaparte, but warned his correspondent against supposing that the general had attained the height of his ambition, using the words previously quoted in another connection, "I can even add that I know no other end for him but the throne or the scaffold." But Antraigues was fortunately more communicative: "Bonaparte is a man of small stature, of sickly hue, with piercing eyes, and something in his look and mouth which is cruel, covert, and treacherous; speaking little, but very talkative when his vanity is engaged or thwarted; of very poor health because of violent humors in his blood. He is covered with tetter, a disease of such a sort as to increase his vehemence and his activity. He is always full of his projects, and gives himself no recreation. He sleeps but three hours every night, and takes no medicine except when his sufferings are unendurable. This man wishes to master France, and, through France, Europe. Everything else, even in his present successes, seems but a means to the end. Thus he steals without concealment, plunders everything, is accumulating an enormous treasure of gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones. But he cares for it only as a means. This same man, who will rob a community to the last sou, will without a thought give a million francs to any person who can assist him. If such a person has hate or vengeance to gratify, he will afford every opportunity to do so. Nothing stands in the way of his prevailing with a man he thinks will be useful; and with him a bargain is made in two words and two minutes, so great is his seductive power. The reverse side of his methods is this: the service rendered, he demands a complete servility, or he becomes