France in large numbers, and made no secret of their design to overthrow the Republic. Two of the Directors-Carnot and Barthelemy-sided with the royalist majority in the Councils. The other three Directors-Barras, Rewbell and LareveillereLepaux-became alarmed for the security of their power, and resolved to maintain the Republic. These three Directors proceeded to break up the authority of the Councils, and caused several regiments from General Hoche's army to approach Paris. The Councils, with their royalist majorities, broke out into furious menaces; and the three republican Directors replied by threatening addresses from the armies. Carnot and Barthelemy vainly sought to restore harmony.

The

A plan was formed by which the Councils might obtain the victory; and Pichegru, as president of the Council of Five Hundred, was to execute it. Promptness and courage were necessary, but Pichegru hesitated. On the other hand, the Directory acted with the boldness which the crisis demanded. three republican Directors-Barras, Rewbell and Lareveillere-Lepaux-resolved upon a coup d'état on the morning of the 18th Fructidor, September 4, 1797. They sought aid from Generals Bonaparte and Hoche, the latter of whom then commanded one of the French armies on the Rhine. Hoche rapidly advanced on Paris with a large military force; while Bonaparte sent General Augereau, one of his most trusted officers, who was selected to command the army of Paris.

On the evening before the appointed day the troops stationed around Paris entered the city under Augereau's command. The coup d'état was finished between four and six o'clock in the morning of the 18th Fructidor. General Augereau surrounded the Tuileries with his troops, and ordered the royalist deputies to be arrested. Augereau himself arrested Pichegru, Willot and Ramel in the hall of session; and as the royalist members came hastily to the hall they were either arrested or refused admission. Augereau informed them that the Directory had

decided upon the Odeon as the place of meeting for the Council of Ancients, and upon the School of Medicine for the meeting of the Council of Five Hundred.

The two Directors who sided with the royalists-Carnot and Barthelemy-alongwith eleven members of the Council of Ancients and forty-two of the Council of Five Hundred, among whom was Pichegru, were arrested and imprisoned. The three republican Directors produced Pichegru's correspondence with the exiled Bourbon. princes, and the Councils sustained the action of these three Directors. The prisoners were banished to Cayenne, in French Guiana, in South America. The royalist elections were then annulled, the returned Emigrants were banished, and thirty-five newspapers were suppressed.

Thus the expressed will of the French: people was set aside by the military usurpation known as the Revolution of the Eighteenth Fructidor. This coup d'état ruined the royalist party, revived the republican party, taught the army the secret of its strength, and substituted military rule for the supremacy of law. Merlin de Douai. and François de Neufchateau were substituted as Directors in the places of Carnot and Barthelemy.

The Directory intrusted the whole conduct of the negotiations with Austria to General Bonaparte; and the Definitive Peace of Campo Formio, near Udine, in Venetian territory, October 17, 1797, left England as the only power at war with the French Republic. By this famous treaty a great part of Northern Italy-Mantua, Milan, Modena, Ferrara, Bologna and the Romagna, with their dependencies-were erected into theCisalpine Republic, which became a virtual dependency of France. The Austrian Netherlands, the German territory west of the Rhine with Mayence, and the Ionian Isles, were ceded to France; while Austria received Venice, with her provinces of Istria and Dalmatia. The Emperor Francis II. promised to withdraw the German imperial troops from the Rhine fortresses; and, in case the German Imperial Diet refused to

ratify these terms, he agreed to contribute only his contingent as Archduke of Austria. The German princes, prelates and nobles who suffered from this cession of the western Rhineland were to be indemnified on the east side of the river. These and other points were to be settled by a Congress of France and the German powers at Rastadt, in the territory of Baden.

Thus, by the Peace of Campo Formio, the Venetian Republic ceased to exist, after having lasted thirteen hundred and fortyfive years, A. D. 452-1797. Genoa and some of the adjacent territories were erected into the Ligurian Republic, which was also virtually under the control of France.

After opening the Congress of Rastadt, Bonaparte returned to France, December, 1797. He was received in Paris with a 'most magnificent ovation, and was by far the most popular man in France. Efforts were made to induce the government to give him some substantial recognition of his great military services, but the jealous Directory refused to make the well-merited reward.

England, the only power now at war with the French Republic, was anxious for peace. The other powers were at that time little disposed to attack Revolutionary France, every administration of which had been victorious, and which, upon every fresh victory, encroached farther on the territories of her neighbors. In 1792 the French Rev⚫olution extended only to the Austrian Netherlands. In 1794 it had advanced to Holland and to the Rhine. In 1796 it had overrun Northern Italy and penetrated into part of Germany. It was probable that, if its march were resumed, it would achieve more distant conquests; as it had become more aggressive with each new victory.

The States of the Church were infested with malcontents who were ready to join in a revolution there, and during the winter of 1797-'98 French influence occasioned republican outbreaks at Rome and at other places in the States of the Church. During the suppression of a republican riot at Rome by the papal troops the French General Duphot,

who was present, was killed. The French government, seizing upon this as a pretext, sent a force under General Berthier to Rome, February, 1798. The French were welcomed by the Romans as deliverers. The Pope was deprived of his temporal power; and General Berthier proclaimed the restoration of the Roman Republic with Senators, Consuls and Tribunes.

The gray-haired Pope Pius VI. made no resistance, though his personal property was inventoried, even to the rings upon his hands. He would not accept a pension from his captors, and was conveyed like a prisoner to a convent at Siena.

The French imposed severe military levies and imposts upon Rome, and carried the most valuable works of art to Paris; and Rome was subjected to a pillage unsurpassed by those of the Goths, Vandals or Normans centuries before. Priestly robes were burned for the gold in their embroidery, palaces and churches were ransacked, and their treasures of art were carried away or destroyed. The Romans, thus disappointed in the friends who had gained their favor by the high-sounding names of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity," rose against the French, but were reduced to submission with terrible loss of life. General Berthier was so disgusted by the violation of his own engagements to respect private property that he asked the Directory to recall him; and General Massena, who was appointed his successor, was so notorious a freebooter that the army itself refused to receive him, and mutinied.

Switzerland was also revolutionized by the French in 1798. The Cantons of Berne and Vaud were governed by an aristocratic council, all the members of which belonged to patrician families. The Vaudois, who spoke the French language and entertained French ideas, were infected with revolutionary doctrines. Excited by the French republicans, the Vaudois took up arms to cast off the assumed authority of the Bernese; but the revolted Vaudois were not a match for their antagonists, and they therefore claimed the assistance of the French.

Talleyrand, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, discovered a pretext for intervention in some old treaties of the times of Charles IX. and Henry III., by which France guaranteed the independence of Vaud. Accordingly a French force under General Brune was ordered into Switzerland from Italy. General Brune advanced into Switzerland without serious opposition, and at Lausanne he proclaimed the independence of Vaud. General Brune took possession of Berne, siezed the rich treasures and the arsenal, and extorted vast sums of money from the helpless country by military levies. The Forest Cantons made a heroic and stubborn resistance to the French invaders, and defeated them in several battles with heavy loss; but these Cantons were at length overpowered by superior numbers, and a frightful massacre was the punishment of their efforts.

With the support of the democratic party of Switzerland, headed by Ochs of Basle and Laharpe of Vaud, the French converted Switzerland into the one and indivisible Helvetic Republic, which, by a treaty of peace and alliance, was virtually placed under the supremacy of France, which thus secured two military roads, one into Southern Germany, and one over the Simplon into Northern Italy.

In the beginning of 1798 the French Directory threatened an invasion of England, the only country then at war with France. An army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, under the name of the Army of England, under the command of Bonaparte, the youthful conqueror of Italy, was assembled along the French side of the English Channel. A French force of a thousand men under General Humbert was sent to Ireland to assist the rebellion of the United Irishmen; but the Irish insurgents had already been overthrown by English troops in the battle of Vinegar Hill; and, after gaining a victory over the English at Castlebar, the French invaders surrendered to Lord Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

The invasion of England was not attempted; but an expedition was fitted out

for the conquest of Egypt, a province of the Ottoman Empire, notwithstanding that a state of peace existed between France and Turkey. The command of this expedition was given to Bonaparte, who intended to strike at the British possessions in India after effecting the conquest of Egypt.. Among the generals who served under Bonaparte in this expedition were many who afterward became famous--Berthier, Kleber, Murat, Junot, Desaix, Davoust, Lannes and others. Bonaparte's expedition, consisting of forty thousand land troops and ten thousand seamen, sailed from Toulon for Egypt on the 19th of May, 1798. A number of scientific men and artists accompanied the expedition.

Before the sailing of the expedition Bona-parte had been in secret correspondence with the Knights of St. John, who had then held possession of the island of Malta for almost three centuries. The Knights of St. John had outlived the valiant spirit of their ancestors. Their Grand Master, an unworthy heir and successor of La Valette, agreed to surrender the island to Bonaparte for a specified consideration. After sailing from Toulon, Bonaparte's expedition at once proceeded to Malta, and took possession of the island by a formal convention, June 10, 1798, after a mere pretense of resistance on the part of the Knights of St. John. Bonaparte left a garrison of three thousand of his troops at La Valetta, and then his expedition proceeded on its way to Egypt.

Eluding the British fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson, Bonaparte's expedition. landed before Alexandria, in Egypt, July 1, 1798. That city was carried by storm the next day and given up to plunder.

On the 6th of July, Bonaparte left Alexandria, and with thirty thousand of his troops he advanced toward Cairo, greatly annoyed on the way by the Mameluke horsemen. On the 21st (July, 1798) he arrived before the intrenched camp of thirty thousand Mamelukes under Mourad Bey, near the famous Pyramids. Eight thousand Mameluke horsemen advanced to attack the French troops, when Bonaparte exclaimed:

"Soldiers, from yonder Pyramids forty centuries look down upon you!" Then the conflict commenced. The French, who were formed into squares, easily repulsed the impetuous assaults of the Mamelukes, who rode up to the bayonets of their enemies, and threw their pistols at the heads of the French grenadiers. When the Mameluke cavalry were driven back, the French took by storm the camp of their enemy, with all their baggage and cannon; and the battle of the Pyramids ended in a complete victory for Bonaparte, who had lost less than two hundred men in the engagement. Hundreds of the enemy perished in the Nile. Mourad Bey and a small remnant of his Mamelukes fled into Upper Egypt. Cairo surrendered the next day, and the conquest of Lower Egypt was accomplished.

In the meantime a powerful English fleet under Admiral Nelson had been cruising in the Mediterranean sea in search of the French fleet. On the 1st of August (1798) Nelson discovered the French fleet under Admiral Brueyes anchored in the bay of Aboukir. At about sunset Nelson attacked the French ships. A fierce battle ensued, which continued until dawn the next morning. The thunders of the explosion of the French flag-ship L'Orient, of one hundred and twenty guns, which occurred about midnight, shook every vessel in both fleets; and for a moment there was a pause in the deadly conflict. The French admiral had been killed by a cannon-ball. The battle of the Nile, as this engagement is called, was one of the most terrific naval engagements on record; and it resulted in a complete victory for the English. Only a few of the French vessels escaped, the rest all being destroyed or taken by the English. By this disaster Bonaparte and his army were cut off from all resources from France. Said he: "To France the fates have decreed the empire of the land; to England that of the sea."

After taking possession of Cairo, Bonaparte established a new government there with a police and a system of taxation based upon the European model, and ordered the curiosities of that renowned ancient land to

pursued their researches among the palaces and tombs of the Pharaohs, Bonaparte contented his army by introducing into Cairo all the luxuries and amusements of Paris; and his soldiers found their diversion in French newspapers printed in the camp, as well as in cafés, lyceums and gaming-tables.

While constantly establishing himself more firmly in Egypt, Bonaparte sought to conciliate the Turks, Arabs and Mamelukes in that country by professing a belief in the Mohammedan religion. He and his troops treated the religious customs of the Moslems with every possible forbearance, and showed every outward respect to their dervishes, mosques, ceremonies and cus toms; but religious fanaticism was nevertheless rampant among the Mussulman population of Egypt, thus rendering Christian rule detestable.

The Moslem hatred of the French was increased when Bonaparte levied taxes and imposts; and Sultan Selim III. of Turkey, who was not deceived by Bonaparte's false shows of friendship and devotion, called upon the Mohammedans of Egypt to fight the Christian invaders. A formidable insurrection in Cairo against the French, Oc tober 21, 1798, was suppressed with great difficulty by the European tactics, after six thousand Mohammedans had lost their lives.

After the Revolution of the 18th Fructidor the Directory was obliged to struggle against the general discontent in France, as well as against the disordered condition of the finances and the intrigues of the republicans, who were as hostile to the govern ment as the royalists. The extreme republicans would have overthrown the Directory by a counter-revolution had not the Directors by a stretch of power annulled the elections of 1798. But the Directory was fast losing the support of public opinion by its efforts to oppose violence with violence.

The French Republic, by her victories