This call had exactly the effect desired. From the divisions of the army, and from the chief garrisons, came addresses declaring the adhesion of the troops to the principles of the Revolution. As for the reproaches heaped upon Bonaparte for the overthrow of Venice, he was little concerned. To pacify the clamor, however, he invented and printed a number of half-true explanations cleverly adapted to the charges brought, but of a sardonic nature. The real bolt, the weapon destined to crush his enemies, was one forged in that very city. On its fall, a leading emigrant--the Comte d'Antraigues--had been captured. Treated with the highest distinction by his captors, he was led to write a confession of all that concerned the hitherto suspected, but unproved, treachery of Pichegru two years before. From his refuge at Blankenburg, in the Hartz Mountains, the pretender--Louis XVIII--had slowly and painfully built up the party which has been mentioned, and from its meeting-place was known as the Clichy faction; he had also bought Pichegru's adhesion to his cause, and had laid the complicated train of a plot whereby, when the fated and foreseen moment should arrive in which the exasperated Directory would employ force with the legislative councils, Pichegru, now president of the Five Hundred, was to appear in his uniform as the conqueror of Holland, and, assuming the chief command, turn the army, the chosen bulwark of the directors, against them. The Paris royalists had talked and behaved so as to betray many details regarding this ingenious scheme; but the possession of such knowledge by the directors did not render the situation any less menacing. To save themselves and the constitution, the radical members felt that they must secure, and that speedily, a capable and devoted general to command in Paris.