much partiality to one side, still the preponderance of number would have rested with the popular choice. But the very reverse happened. Out of five directors, four were of the ruling faction. These were Reubel, Latourneur de la Manche, Barras, Sieyes, and Lareve lice Lepaux. Reubel was a man of strong, though not shining parts, born in the province of Alsatia, where he exercised the profession of the law, and early distinguished himself, by pleading the cause of the lower against the upper classes, and braving ministe. rial power under the old royal go. vernment. He had been employed in some arduous and intricate affairs by the opposition to the court, and had always conducted himself with an inflexible determination never to abandon that party. He now reap ed the reward of his attachment to it no man was more confided in by the republicans. He was one from principle, and his very man. ners displayed an austere simplicity that highly recommended him to them. Latourneur de la Manche was originally an officer in the army : his abilities were moderate; but he was of a steady and resolute disposition firmly and decidedly a republican, but averse to severity, and an avowed enemy to the violent measures pursued by the jacobins and terrorists. Barras was one of the most singular characters that have figured in the revolution. De. scended from a very ancient and noble family in Provence, and heir to the title of viscount, he entered young into the army, like most young noblemen, during the monarchy, Through a series of adventures that rendered him peculiarly remarkable, he rose into notice, and became at last a decided partisan of

the revolutionists. His invincible courage extricated him more than once from very difficult and dange, rous situations. This qualification recommended him to the convention upon three trying occasions: on the 27th of July, 1794, when Roberspierre was overthrown; on the 20th of May, this year, when the insurgents of the suburb of St. Antoine were suppressed; and on the 5th of October, when the Parisians were subdued. His courage and conduct on each of these emergen. cies were greatly serviceable to the convention, and they now thought it prudent to place a man in the directory, in whose attachment and intrepidity they could confide, and who, though not possessed of splendid parts, knew how to command attention, and make himself feared, if not respected. Sieyes is a name better known, perhaps, than that of any man in France, since the breaking out of the revolution. Bred a clergyman, he made a distinguished figure in that profession, and would probably have risen to the first ecclesiastical dignities, had not the church been overturned as well as the state. He stood forth an able champion against the seizure of the clergy's revenues. He was, how. ever, more conspicuous by the part he acted in favour of the revolution. From his ideas proceeded the famous declaration of the rights of man, and many other strong measures of the constituent assembly. His opinions on government have always carried much influence; yet he has often been suspected of indecision on these matters. The dexterity with which he had weathered all the storms of the revolution, wherein so many able men have been wrecked, subjected him to the suspicion of

having more pliancy than fortitude, and of being rather a time server*; but by those who had observed him more narrowly, he was reputed more cautious than timid, and seem. ed less desirous of life itself, than anxious to see in what manner those stupendous events would terminate, in which he bore so considerable a share. He was by the rigid republicans considered as a concealed royalist; but the stern and decisive manner in which he voted for the king's death ill agrees with such a suspicion. Though fond of influence, and not easily foiled in his pretensions and efforts to prescribe in matters of opinion, yet he studiously avoided ostensibility, and left to others the danger, as well as the honour, of acting an open and ex. plicit part; his known abilities made him a valuable acquisition to his party, but as he chose to guide unseen he never appeared as a leader; and his absence from the field of action, on many important occasions, had thrown a stigma of uncertainty upon his character, which he farther confirmed by refusing to accept of the high dignity now conferred upon him. This

refusal occasioned some perplexity. Though Sieyes could not be charged with the various enormities that either preceded or followed the king's death, yet his unequivocal assent to this deed, and his connec. tions with that sanguinary faction, styled the mountain, sufficiently recommended him to the jacobins and terrorists, as a man whose inclina. tion, as well as extraordinary ta lents, fitted him for the highest trusts in their power to confer. His

place, after some intrigues and difficulties, was supplied by Carnot, a man of whose capacity the most brilliant proofs had appeared in the arrangement and direction of mili-` tary affairs, during the three preceding campaigns. To him was originally attributed the constant success that attended the arms of the republic. He was in the cabinet what the celebrated Folard had been in the field; an oracle to all the generals that consulted him, and the author of those multifarious plans, in executing which they rose themselves to such celebrity: though bred in the army, and, in the progress of the revolution, necessarily connected with Roberspierre, in the time of his exaltation, yet he was wholly guiltless of his barbarities, and was only known by his utility to the public, which now beheld his preferment with general satisfaction.

These four members of the directory were avowedly of the ruling party, which would willingly have added another out of their own body; but the fear of disobliging the majority of the nation, by con fining these honours entirely to themselves, induced them to remit their partiality, and to allow a participation in the supreme power to one of their rivals. The man thus distinguished was Larevelliere Lepaux. He was professionally a law yer, yet eminent not only for his parts, but his integrity; he was remarkable for the plainness of his manners, and his aversion to intrigue; his disposition was calm and studi ous, and he had cultivated literature with uncommon success he

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had been elected to a seat in the convention entirely from the excellence of his character; and had acted invariably from principle. During the tyranny of Roberspierre, he was proscribed with the adherents of the Gironde party, to which he remained firmly attached; and his life was perpetually in danger. He would have declined the honour proffered him; and he accepted it merely in compliance with the earnest solicitations of the worthiest men in the minority.

His

There was a man who did not view these individuals so highly pro. moted without secret indignation; and who thought himself greatly neglected by his party, in not seating him in the directory. This was the famous Tallien, who had acted so conspicuous a part ever since the abolition of monarchy, and had signalized his courage in effecting the downfall of Roberspierre, at a time when few men had the bo'd. ness personally to encounter him. Ile was, in fact, at the head of the ruling party; but he had a number of secret enemies, who did not wish to see him so much exalted. abilities and his spirit were un. questionable, but though he had so materially contributed to destroy Robespierre, he had acted with him, and was supposed to have abetted his conduct till he was compelled to accelerate his destruction to save himself. He was in high favour with the terrorists, notwithstanding that he had endeavoured to ingratiate him-elf with the mo. derates; but he was always sus. pected by them; and he verified their suspicions by joining with their adversaries against the unhappy Parisians, on the fifth of October, in support of the decrce for a re-elec

tion of two-thirds of the conven. tion. His ambitions views were rendered manifest by the part he openly took in favour of that commission of five, which was to supersede the intended constitution, and to engross the whole government. Of that commission he had

the address to procure himself to be nominated a member; and he had also the audacity to load with invectives persons of irreproachable character in the convention, and to insinuate, that without such a commission the country was not safe. But his behaviour on this occasion had, it seems, exasperated both the parties. When the majority of the convention became, through dint of argument, con. vinced of the scandalous impropriety of that commission, Tallien lost at once almost all his influence; and, instead of a place in the directory, saw himself excluded from the hope of obtaining any post of importance. To this it may be added, that he was thought to have had a hand in the massacres of September, 1792, and in those of La Vendée. All these considerations operated so much to his disadvantage, that, though he had been occasionally a useful agent to the republic, he had acquired no confidence nor esteem, and was viewed as a man governed by no other principles than those of the most iniquitous ambition.

There were others of his party no less aspiring than himself; but much the same objections militated against them. It appeared, in truth, that the ruling party was inclined rather to establish its principles, than to invest its chiefs with much authority. Their personal dispositions were too much dreaded, and too well known, to command implicit reliance

reliance on the self-denying princi. ples they now so carefully professed. For this reason it was judged more consistent with the public peace and security, to fix them in secondary employments, than to constitute them the principal personages in the republic. Louvet, Legendre, Freren, Cambaceres, to mention no others, were individuals who answered exactly this description. Full of courage and parts, but no less of artifice and tergiversation, they had on several occasions acted undaunt edly and faithfully for the service of the state; but they had also exhibited so much unsteadiness in their principles, and such variations in their conduct, that they had forfeited that confidence which can only be secured by an unquestionable stability in both.

The members of the directory were installed in their high offices with great pomp. Guards and all the magnificence of royalty were annexed to them; and their appearance in public, and upon days of audience, was in a style of grandeur, nothing differing from that of the sovereigns of Europe. To a great number of people this was very ac ceptable; it retraced the former splendour of the monarchy, and encouraged those arts that conduce to the elegance of social life. It also proved an incentive to those ambitious spirits, whose chief motive for exerting their abilities is the prospect of rising to such personal distinctions as may point them out to the gaze of the multitude; and the number of these is much more considerable in France than, apparently, in any other country of Europe. During the regal govern ment, a prodigious proportion of the military had no other reward to

expect for their services than external decoration; and such was the temper of the French, that the highest value was set upon them, and they were preferred to more substantial recompense. To preserve such a spirit, appeared worthy of con sideration to those who framed the new constitution; but there were others who professed an utter dis like to what they called the relics of royalty: they viewed them as incentives and temptations to restore it, and would willingly have banished all formalities from the exercise of government, and have stripped it of every appendage that was not indispensably requisite for the transaction of business. These were the rigid republicans, who were ge nerally men of austere manners, foes to expensive gaieties, and desirous to reduce both public and private life to the rules of the plainest simplicity; through their influence, titles had been abolished, and the forms of social intercourse divested of complimentary phrases; no distinctions remained but those of public functions, and even to those no epithets were added; the official appellation was deemed sufficient, and to covet more was reputed the mark of a vain and frivolous dispo sition. To these men the superb ceremonial that encompassed the directory was extremely odious, and they laboured all in their power to depreciate it in the estimation of the public. The maxims they had so zealously inculcated came now to their aid: having for years inveighed against the luxurious pomp of courts, they had taught the people to look upon it as the trappings of vanity, purchased at the expence of the community. In purs suance of these maxims, their pro [14]

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