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 Parthenopaean 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 organization, offered to supply money in place of the troops which she could not properly equip.
But under the cloak of legitimacy the monarchical Powers harboured their own selfish designs.