Soon afterwards we find him exercising in this army the functions of _Chef d'Etat-Major General_; but on the 12th of October, 1793, the Commissioners of the National Convention, in virtue of a most unjust decree of that tyrannical assembly, deprived him of his rank, as he happened to be at that time on their secret list of the _suspected_. He received intelligence of this on the very evening before the Austrians stormed the French lines at Weissembourg, on the Lower Rhine, and he retired at once to Alsace, where he was confined on a species of parole; nor did he recover his military rank and position until after the downfall and death of the cruel and infamous Robespierre. Under the protection of M. Carnot, who was then Minister of Public Safety, Clarke was placed at the head of a committee of military topography; and in this service he exhibited the greatest talent as a director and instructor, and spared no pains to fulfil the duties imposed upon him. The restless and suspicious Directory, in thus maintaining M. Carnot at the head of their affairs as minister, caused also the retention of Clarke, whose importance seemed to increase with that of his patron. He was confirmed a General of Brigade in March, 1795; and on his appointment to the rank of General of Division, on the 17th of September, in the same year, our Irish exile could scarcely believe that fate had higher or more brilliant destinies in store for him; but now his talents as a diplomatist were about to be put in requisition. This was when the astonishing successes of Napoleon in Italy had alarmed the Directory, who dispatched Clarke to Vienna, entrusting to him the difficult mission of preparing the terms of the projected peace between Republican France and the Imperial Court; but, as he was adverse to the wishes of the Directory, and inimical to the task, his arrangements proved unfortunately disadvantageous to the French. After this he visited the army of Italy, the General-in-Chief of which, being influenced by the Directory, placed him in a subordinate position, alike repugnant to his love of freedom and authority. As simple plenipotentiary, Clarke, after traversing Germany, showed himself at Vienna to be the political confidant of the powerful Directory, and, above all, of M. Carnot. In the minute instructions given to General Clarke by the French Government we are enabled to trace him in his route, which lay through Piedmont, Milan, Medina, Bologna, and Venice; and by the Directory he--more than all their other diplomatic agents--was specially recommended to observe narrowly the secret purposes of the different great personages who held important positions at the court of Vienna.