powerful and far-reaching conspiracy against them. At the head of it was the royalist General Pichegru, who was believed to have a following of 180 deputies. The Clichy Club at Paris had become a notorious rallyingplace for malcontents, and Director Carnot was patronising it in a very compromising way. On the other hand, the Constitutional Club-with Talleyrand and Constant and Mme. de Staël-could naturally be relied on to oppose a counter-revolution, little as it respected the Directorate. Napoleon, too, made it clear that his assistance could be had.

It is, however, in complete opposition to the evidence, that Lytton accuses Talleyrand of taking the initiative; and still worse is Michaud's reckless statement that Talleyrand "arranged everything." A sober inquiry into the coup d'état of Fructidor only discovers that Talleyrand supported it in advance, but was not implicated in the violent manner of its execution, which, indeed, he used his influence to moderate. On the information supplied to the Directors no legal action could be taken. Reveillère, whose life was threatened, then conceived the idea of acting by force, though without unnecessary severity. He approached Rewbell, who consented, and the two easily induced Barras to join. It is absurd to suppose that these officials, who hampered Talleyrand in his own department and kept him in habitual ignorance of other affairs, should do more than secure his support as a Constitutionalist. Napoleon was requested to send troops, and to these

he added as general the excitable and meddlesome Augereau, who soon had his men quartered within striking distance. The Clichy Clubbites meantime grew more audacious, and on September 3rd they warmly cheered a proposal in the Chamber to destroy the executive. That night the streets of Paris rang with the unfamiliar tread of an army, a token to all that an unconstitutional act was afoot. The next morning the two Councils found themselves surrounded by 10,000 troops. Pichegru and 42 of his followers in the Five Hundred, Barbé-Mabois and eleven of the Ancients, and 148 other alleged conspirators, especially journalists, were arrested. The Directors had warned. Carnot and Barthélemy, whom they had no wish to injure personally. Carnot, who had long toyed with the Opposition, and had resisted every friendly overture, now fled. Barthélemy was arrested. Merlin de Douai, a lawyer, and Francois de Neufchateau, a literary man, took the places of Carnot and Barthélemy. The new Directorate obtained extensive powers from the newlyconstituted Councils, revived the old stringent decrees against emigrants and priests, and initiated a long series of deportations. They sent 65 of the worst conspirators to Guiana -the guillotine would have been more merciful-and the rest to the Isle of Oleron. In all some 10,000 Nonconformist priests and returned royalists were prescribed, but only a proportion of these were actually banished. There was another general flight to the frontier.

As I said, it is absurd to ascribe to Talleyrand a very active share in these proceedings. The charge seems to rest chiefly on the authority of Miot de Melito and Pasquier; both are deeply prejudiced against Talleyrand (Miot de Melito had just been deposed from his embassy at Turin by the Foreign Minister), and both were hundreds of miles away from Paris at the time. It is a good instance of the levity with which the case against Talleyrand is conducted. Talleyrand was at Barras' house the night before the coup d'état; so were Constant and Mme. de Staël, who, Pasquier admits, "wished the day but not the morrow." It is admitted, moreover, that Talleyrand used every effort to moderate the execution of the laws, and saved several individuals from banishment. As to the defence of the proceedings in his letter to Napoleon and his circular letter to the government agents abroad, no one will be so foolish as to seek in these an expression of his judgment. Officially he had to present the case in optimistic language or resign. The only ground for a censure is, in fact, that he did not resign; and it would be to ascribe to Talleyrand a quite heroic degree of sensitiveness to expect him to resign on account of a procedure which Thiers soberly regards as having "prevented civil war, and substituted in its stead a stroke of policy executed with energy, but with all the calmness and moderation possible

in times of revolution."

Probably one of the clearest proofs that the Directors were not much indebted to Talleyrand for their successful