a Corsican falcon, pining for action, and fretting its soaring spirit in that vapid town life.  Action Buonaparte might have had, but only of a kind that he loathed.  He might have commanded the troops destined to crush the brave royalist peasants of La Vendee.  But, whether from scorn of such vulture-work, or from an instinct that a nobler quarry might be started at Paris, he refused to proceed to the Army of the West, and on the plea of ill-health remained in the capital.  There he spent his time deeply pondering on politics and strategy.  He designed a history of the last two years, and drafted a plan of campaign for the Army of Italy, which, later on, was to bear him to fortune.  Probably the geographical insight which it displayed may have led to his appointment (August 20th, 1795) to the topographical bureau of the Committee of Public Safety.  His first thought on hearing of this important advancement was that it opened up an opportunity for proceeding to Turkey to organize the artillery of the Sultan; and in a few days he sent in a formal request to that effect—­the first tangible proof of that yearning after the Orient which haunted him all through life.  But, while straining his gaze eastwards, he experienced a sharp rebuff.  The Committee was on the point of granting his request, when an examination of his recent conduct proved him guilty of a breach of discipline in not proceeding to his Vendean command.  On the very day when one department of the Committee empowered him to proceed to Constantinople, the Central Committee erased his name from the list of general officers (September 15th).

This time the blow seemed fatal.  But Fortune appeared to compass his falls only in order that he might the more brilliantly tower aloft.  Within three weeks he was hailed as the saviour of the new republican constitution.  The cause of this almost magical change in his prospects is to be sought in the political unrest of France, to which we must now briefly advert.

All through this summer of 1795 there were conflicts between Jacobins and royalists.  In the south the latter party had signally avenged itself for the agonies of the preceding years, and the ardour of the French temperament seemed about to drive that hapless people from the “Red Terror” to a veritable “White Terror,” when two disasters checked the course of the reaction.  An attempt of a large force of emigrant French nobles, backed up by British money and ships, to rouse Brittany against the Convention was utterly crushed by the able young Hoche; and nearly seven hundred prisoners were afterwards shot down in cold blood (July).  Shortly before this blow, the little prince styled Louis XVII. succumbed to the brutal treatment of his gaolers at the Temple in Paris; and the hopes of the royalists now rested on the unpopular Comte de Provence.  Nevertheless, the political outlook in the summer of 1795 was not reassuring to the republicans; and the Commission of Eleven, empowered by the Convention to draft new organic