If a strong hand was wanted at home, the necessity of having a general who could bring back victory to the tricolor banners in the field had been not less deeply felt.

And hence the decisive revolution of Brumaire.
Of the allies of Austria, meanwhile, one had virtually abandoned her.
The Emperor Paul, of Russia, resenting the style in which his army under Suwarrow had been supported, withdrew it altogether from the field of its victories; and that hare-brained autocrat, happening to take up an enthusiastic personal admiration for Buonaparte, was not likely for the present to be brought back into the Antigallican league.

England appeared steadfast to the cause; but it remained to be proved whether the failure of her expedition to Holland under the Duke of York, or the signal success of her naval arms in the Mediterranean under Lord Nelson, had had the greater influence on the feelings of the government of St.
James's.

In the former case Napoleon might expect to find his advances towards a negotiation, in his new character of Chief Consul, received with better disposition than his predecessors of the Directory had extended to the last overtures of the English cabinet tendered by Lord Malmesbury.

He resolved to have the credit of making the experiment at least, ere the campaign with the Austrians should open; and, discarding, as he had on a former occasion,[33] the usual etiquettes of diplomatic intercourse, addressed a letter to King George III., in person, almost immediately after the new consulate was established in the Tuileries, in these terms (Dec.