There were, however, two other men, Barras and Sieyès, who, after the eighteenth of Fructidor, were left in an unendurable position. Both these men were also boundlessly venal. The former was Bonaparte's "ancient friend"; Fructidor made him the general's creature. Like Talleyrand, both were for the present the devoted satraps of a master who could pay not only with prospective power, but with present cash; ultimately they also hoped to use him for their own ends in the restoration of monarchy. Sieyès, now president of the Ancients, was both weak and vain. But, posing as an oracular constitution-maker, he was admitted as such to the councils of Talleyrand and Barras. Both his pride and his interests being thus engaged, he had apparently become as ardent a follower of Bonaparte as were the other two. Rewbell was so occupied with the foreign policy of the Revolution, and Merlin with the internal administration on Jacobin lines, that neither one nor the other gave any thought to the ulterior consequences of Fructidor. François de Neufchâteau was posing as the wit of the epoch, Larévellière was its prophet; neither was of even the slightest importance. Augereau, seeing himself duped by the disbanding of the Rhine army, had been disenchanted, and was for a while the relentless enemy of his old chief. A few mediocrities both in the army and in politics were in sympathy with Augereau; but as England was the one foe left, the general of the Army of England was virtually the commander of the whole. Not one of the division generals disobeyed his orders. CHAPTER IV COMMOTIONS IN EUROPEAN POLITICS The Directory and the Legislature -- Motives of the French Army -- Augereau's Blunders -- Humiliation of the Batavian Republic -- Seizure of Piedmont -- Proclamation of the Roman Republic -- Swiss Territory Remodeled -- Antagonism of Prussia and Austria -- Bernadotte's Mission to Vienna -- Prussian Neutrality -- Unstable Equilibrium of Europe.