he was turned by the prayers of Eugène and Hortense Beauharnais, and
the tears of Josephine herself. A reconciliation took place; but there
was no reunion of hearts, and Mme. Reinhard echoed the feeling of
respectable society when she wrote that he should have divorced her
outright. Thenceforth he lived for Glory alone.

* * * * *




CHAPTER X

BRUMAIRE


Rarely has France been in a more distracted state than in the summer
of 1799. Royalist revolts in the west and south rent the national
life. The religious schism was unhealed; education was at a
standstill; commerce had been swept from the seas by the British
fleets; and trade with Italy and Germany was cut off by the war of
the Second Coalition.

The formation of this league between Russia, Austria, England, Naples,
Portugal, and Turkey was in the main the outcome of the alarm and
indignation aroused by the reckless conduct of the Directory, which
overthrew the Bourbons at Naples, erected the Parthenopæan Republic,
and compelled the King of Sardinia to abdicate at Turin and retire to
his island. Russia and Austria took a leading part in forming the
Coalition. Great Britain, ever hampered by her inept army