- If, before Fructidor, his three
Jacobin colleagues, Reubell, Barras and La R?velli?re, broke with him,
it was owing not merely to inside matters, but also to outside
matters, as he opposed their boundless violent purposes. They were
furious on learning the preliminary treaty of Leoben, so advantageous
to France; they insulted Carnot, who had effected it;[109] when
Barth?l?my, the ablest and most deserving diplomat in France, became
their colleague, his recommendations, so sensible and so well
warranted, obtained from them no other welcome than derision.[110]
They already desire, and obstinately, to get possession of
Switzerland, lay hands on Hamburg, "humiliate England," and "persevere
in the unlucky system of the Committee of Public Safety," that is to
say, in the policy of war, conquest and propaganda. Now that the 18th
Fructidor is accomplished, Barth?l?my deported, and Carnot in flight,
this policy is going to be applied everywhere.
Never had peace been so near at hand;[111] they almost had)it in their
grasp; conference at Lille it was only necessary to take complete hold
of it. England, the last and most tenacious of her enemies, was
disarming; not only did she accept the aggrandizement of France, the
acquisition of Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, the avowed as
well as the disguised annexations, the great Republic as patron and
the smaller ones as clients, Holland, Genoa, and the Cis-Alpine
country, but, again, she restored all her own conquests, all the
French colonies, all the Dutch colonies, except the Cape of Good
Hope,[112] and all the Spanish colonies except Trinidad.
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