He took command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse and advanced to the left bank of the Rhine with eighty thousand men. On the right bank was the enemy in still greater force but much scattered to prevent him from crossing. The bridges and fords for miles bristled with cannon. But he outmanoevred his opponent and repeated the noted feat of Condé by crossing the Rhine in face of the enemy. A series of battles followed in which Hoche was victorious. He was pursuing the beaten allies, and had written to the Directory that he expected to bring them to bay on the banks of the Danube, when he received news of the armistice of Léoben signed by Bonaparte and the archduke Charles; and he had nothing to do but to lead back his troops foiled of their prey. All misgiving as to the fidelity of Hoche to the Republic had vanished, while Bonaparte had already betrayed qualities which excited the distrust of the Directory just as Cromwell had excited the distrust and more of the Rump and of the Barebones parliament. The army of the Rhine was added to the army of the Sambre and Meuse; and the joint command given to Hoche, placed him in effect at the head of the military force of the nation. He was soon called to Paris to overawe the same uneasy spirits who had tried to overturn the Convention, and it is noteworthy that it was Hoche and not Bonaparte who was thus summoned, although it was the latter who had demonstrated as we have seen, the true method of arguing with those philanthropists. The approach of Hoche to the Capital exposed him to a curious accusation which illustrates the taste of the revolutionists for mimicking the ancient Romans. The Directory had decreed a line of circumference around Paris within which no armed force must pass without special permission. Hoche had mistaken the boundary of this new Rubicon and had crossed it at the head of his men. He was arraigned before the Directory, but his explanation was accepted and he was more popular than ever. This preference for Hoche over Bonaparte gave rise to jealousy which had no time to develop into action. Hoche returned to his camp at Wetzlar only to die. He who had faced death in so many pitched battles, was reserved to yield up his soul in peace, his wife and child kneeling at his bed-side. He was twenty-nine years old. His death was so sudden that there was talk of poison, to which the autopsy it seems lent some color. Alexander Dumas makes no doubt that he was poisoned, and that it was done at the instigation of Bonaparte. But Dumas is not to be trusted. He had inherited the prejudices of his father a general of division who had served under Bonaparte and had had a bitter quarrel with him. Hoche had gone back to Wetzlar with a cough, and he probably died of pneumonia.