The Directoire suffered heavily in prestige by the events of a war which it had so lightly provoked and was so incompetent to conduct. In June the Councils made a further successful attack on the Executive and succeeded, in quick succession, in forcing out three of the Directors, Treilhard, Larevelliere, and Merlin. For them were substituted Gohier, who was colourless; Moulin, who was stupid, and Ducos, who was pliable. Of the Thermidorians Barras alone remained, and Barras, after five years of uninterrupted power and luxury, was used up as a man of action; he was quite ready to come to reasonable terms with Sieyes, or, if matters should turn that way, with the Comte de Provence, whose agents were in touch with him. {258} Sieyes who owed his position in great part to the support of the Jacobins in the Council of Five Hundred, now found them an obstacle. The defeats of the armies were making them unruly. They had formed a club, meeting in the Manege, that threatened to develop all the characteristics of the old Jacobin Club, and that caused widespread alarm. The Ancients ordered the closing of the _Manege_. But the Jacobins, led by Jourdan, Bernadotte, minister of war, and others, continued their meetings in new quarters. They began to clamour for a new committee of public safety. Sieyes now selected Joubert to retrieve the situation. This young general had been one of Bonaparte's most brilliant divisional commanders. He had a strong following in the army, was a staunch republican, and was possibly a general of the first order. He was sent for, was told to assume command in Italy, and was given every battalion that could possibly be scraped together. With these he was to win a battle decisive not only of the fate of Italy but of that of the Republic and of the Directoire. Joubert left Paris on the 16th of July. A month later, having concentrated all that was left of the Italian armies together with his {259} reinforcements at Genoa, he marched north. At Novi, half way to the Po, Suvaroff barred his advance. A great battle was fought; the French were heavily defeated; and Joubert was killed. One week later, just as the disastrous news of Novi was reaching Paris, General Bonaparte with a few officers of his staff embarked at Alexandria, and risking the English men of war, set sail for France. Bonaparte now becomes the central figure on the historical stage, and the events that follow belong to his history more than to that of the Revolution. Here all that remains to be done is to indicate the nature of the change that now took place, his connection with the schemes of Sieyes for ridding France of the Directoire and placing something more effective in its stead.