The menace of the second coalition had by this time been arrested by the victories of Masséna and the withdrawal of the Russians, but the Directorate was thoroughly discredited, and its enemies were alert and vigorous. All parties now turned towards Napoleon with intense interest. Royalists hoped he would make himself the instrument of a restoration. The Jacobins, who had become strong again, watched such a possibility with concern. The moderates felt that it would lead to civil war. Every malcontent in Paris knew that Napoleon held the key of the situation. The only one who seemed to be unconscious of his importance was Napoleon himself. After the inevitable round of fêtes was over—and it was remarked how he drank his wine from a private bottle at the public dinner—he seemed to forget that he was a soldier. He spent most of his time at the Institut, discussing questions of science and philosophy; and when visitors to Paris sought the great general, they had pointed out to them a quiet, pale little man in the dress of a scholar of the Institut. But his little house in the Rue de Victoire soon became the political centre of Paris. Talleyrand and Bruix (the Ex-Minister of Marine) were daily bringing members of the Councils to visit him. Presently Talleyrand reconciled him with Sieyès to a practicable extent—“you have to fill this priest to the neck with money to get anything out of him,” Napoleon said afterwards—and the definite intrigue began. Napoleon would accept Sieyès’ new constitution. The five Directors were to be replaced by three Consuls elected for ten years—but if he thinks I am going to be a “fatted pig” he is mistaken, said Napoleon. The Councils would be suspended for three months, and then replaced by a Senate (with life-membership), and an elective Chamber of Deputies.