Miot de Melito, an unfavorable witness, declares that Napoleon already harbored designs for his own sovereignty, and made no secret thereof. “Do you think I am doing all this for those rascally lawyers of the Directory?” He may possibly have said so, but it is not probable. A man like Napoleon, meditating the seizure of power and the overturn of government, does not, as a rule, talk it to the Miots de Melito. Had Napoleon had any such clearcut design as Miot records, he would not have allowed the wealth of Italy to roll through his army chest, while he himself was left poor. Like Cæsar, he would have returned laden with spoil, to be used in furthering his plans. Napoleon doubtless took something for Napoleon out of the millions which he handled, but the amount was so inconsiderable that he keenly felt the burden of debt which Josephine had made in furnishing his modest home in Paris. And when the time _did_ come to overturn the “rascally lawyers,” he had to borrow the money he needed for that brief campaign. No; the simple truth is that Napoleon indulged no sordid appetites in his Italian campaign. He made less money out of it than any of his lieutenants, than any of the army contractors, than any of the lucky spoilsmen who followed in his wake. If he had harbored, the designs attributed to him by Miot, it was obviously a mistake for him to have declined the $800,000 in gold secretly offered him by the Duke of Modena. At St. Helena he uttered something which sounds like an admission that, in view of his subsequent necessities in Paris, he should have accepted the money. For wealth itself Napoleon had no longing--glory, power, fame, all these stood higher with him. The 7,000,000 francs Venice offered were as coolly refused as the smaller sum tendered by Modena, and the principality offered by the Emperor of Germany. * * * * * The elections of 1797 were not favorable to the Directory. Many royalists found seats in the Assembly, and the presiding officer of each legislative body was an opponent to the government. Two of the Directors, Carnot and Barthélemy, joined the opposition.