with Charlotte Robespierre. After the 9th of Thermidor has passed, he
frees himself with bombast from this compromising friendship: "I
thought him sincere," says he of the younger Robespierre, in a letter
intended to be shown, "but were he my father and had aimed at tyranny,
I would have stabbed him myself." On returning to Paris, after having
knocked at several doors, he takes Barras for a patron. Barras, the
most brazen of the corrupt, Barras, who has overthrown and contrived
the death of his two former protectors.[27] Among the contending
parties and fanaticisms which succeed each other he keeps cool and
free to dispose of himself as he pleases, indifferent to every cause
and concerning himself only with his own interests. - On the evening
of the 12th of Vendémiaire, on leaving the Feydeau theatre, and
noticing the preparations of the sectionists,[28] he said to Junot:

"Ah, if the sections put me in command, I would guarantee to place
them in
the Tuileries in two hours and have all those Convention rascals
driven out! "

Five hours later, summoned by Barras and the Conventionalists, he
takes "three minutes" to make up his mind, and, instead of "blowing up
the representatives," he mows down the Parisians. Like a good
condottière, he does not commit himself, considers the first that
offers and then the one who offers the most, only to back out
afterwards, and finally, seizing the opportunity, to grab everything.
- He will more and more become a true condottière, that is to say,
leader of a band, increasingly independent, pretending to submit under
the pretext of the public good, looking out only for his own interest,
self-centered, general on his own account and for his own advantage in
his Italian campaign before and after the 18th of Fructidor.[29] He