The Directory was by no means a homogeneous body. It is doubtful whether Barras was a sincere republican, or sincere in anything except in his effort to keep himself afloat on the tide of the times. It has been believed by many that he hoped for the restoration of monarchy through disgust of the nation with such intolerable disorders as they would soon associate with the name of republic. His friendship for General Bonaparte was a mixed quantity; for while he undoubtedly wished to secure for the state in any future crisis the support of so able a man, he had at the same time used him as a sort of social scapegoat. His own strength lay in several facts: he had been Danton's follower; he had been an officer, and was appointed for that reason commanding general against the Paris sections; he had been shrewd enough to choose Bonaparte as his agent so that he enjoyed the prestige of Bonaparte's success; and in the new society of the capital he was magnificent, extravagant, and licentious, the only representative in the Directory of the newly aroused passion for life and pleasure, his colleagues being severe, unostentatious, and economical democrats. Barras's main support in the government was Rewbell, a vigorous Alsatian and a bluff democrat, enthusiastic for the Revolution and its extension. He was no Frenchman himself, but a German at heart, and thought that the German lands--Holland, Switzerland, Germany itself--should be brought into the great movement. Like Barras, who needed disorder for his Orleanist schemes and for the supply of his lavish purse, Rewbell despised the new constitution; but for a different reason. To him it appeared a flimsy, theoretical document, so subdividing the exercise of power as to destroy it altogether. His rôle was in the world of finance, and he was always suspected, though unjustly, of unholy alliances with army contractors and stock manipulators. Larévellière was another doctrinaire, but, in comparison with Rewbell, a bigot. He had been a Girondist, a good citizen, and active in the formation of the new constitution; but he lacked practical common sense, and hated the Church with as much narrow bitterness as the most rancorous modern agnostic,--seeking, however, not merely its destruction, but, like Robespierre, to substitute for it a cult of reason and humanity. The fourth member of the Directory, Letourneur, was a plain soldier, an officer in the engineers. With abundant common sense and a hard head, he, too, was a sincere republican; but he was a tolerant one, a moderate, kindly man like his friend Carnot, with whom, as time passed by and there was gradually developed an irreconcilable split in the Directory, he always voted in a minority of two against the other three.