being arrested. Safe for the moment, Macdonald threw himself heart and soul into his new duties, but still denunciations and accusations were hurled against him. Fresh Commissioners came from the Assembly, and it was only their fortunate recall to Paris that saved the general from arrest. Then came the decree banishing all "ci-devant" nobles. Macdonald, fearing after this order that if he met with the slightest check he would be greeted with cries of treachery, demanded written orders from the new Commissioners confirming him in his employment. These were refused, as also his resignation, with the curt reply, "If you leave the army we will have you arrested and brought to trial." In this dilemma he found a friend in the representative Isore, who, struck by his ability and industry, took up his cause, and from that moment Macdonald had nothing to fear from the revolutionary tribunal. [Illustration: JACQUES ETIENNE MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM FROM A LITHOGRAPH BY DELPECH] In November, 1794, he was quite unexpectedly gazetted general of division in the army of Pichegru, and took part in the winter campaign against Holland, where he proved his capacity by seizing the occasion of a hard frost to cross the Vaal on the ice and surprise the Anglo-Hanoverian force at Nimeguen. A few days later, during the general advance, he captured Naarden, the masterpiece of the great engineer Cohorn. Proud of his success, he hastened to inform the commander-in-chief, Pichegru, and was greeted by a laugh, and, "Bah! I pay no attention now to anything less than the surrender of provinces." The blase commander-in-chief a week or two later himself performed the exploit of capturing the ice-bound Dutch fleet with a cavalry brigade and a battery of horse artillery.