This was intended to overawe those citizens of Paris who were hostile to the Jacobins. They saw the trap set for them, and were angry. During the years of internal disorder and foreign warfare just passed the economic conditions of the land had grown worse and worse, until, in the winter of 1794-95, the laboring classes of Paris were again on the verge of starvation. As usual, they attributed their sufferings to the government, and there were bread riots. Twice in the spring of 1795--on April first and May twentieth--the unemployed and hungry rose to overthrow the Convention, but they were easily put down by the soldiers on both occasions. The whole populace, as represented by the sections or wards of Paris, resented this use of armed force, and grew uneasy. The Thermidorians further angered it by introducing a new metropolitan administration, which greatly diminished the powers and influence of the sections, without, however, destroying their organization. The people of the capital, therefore, were ready for mischief. The storming of the Tuileries on August tenth, 1792, had been the work of the Paris mob. Why could they not in turn, another mob, reactionary and to a degree even royalist, overthrow the tyranny of the Jacobins as they themselves had overthrown the double-faced administration of the King? A crisis might easily have been precipitated before Buonaparte's arrival in Paris, but it was delayed by events outside the city. The year 1794 had been a brilliant season for the republican arms and for republican diplomacy. We have seen how the Piedmontese were forced beyond the maritime Alps; the languid and worthless troops of Spain were expelled from the Pyrenean strongholds and forced southward; in some places, beyond the Ebro. Pichegru, with the Army of the North, had driven the invaders from French soil and had conquered the Austrian Netherlands. Jourdan, with the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, had defeated the Austrians at Fleurus in a battle decided by the bravery of Marceau, thus confirming the conquest. Other generals were likewise rising to eminence. Hoche had in 1793 beaten the Austrians under Wurmser at Weissenburg, and driven them from Alsace. He had now further heightened his fame by his successes against the insurgents of the west. Saint-Cyr, Bernadotte, and Kléber, with many others of Buonaparte's contemporaries, had also risen to distinction in minor engagements.