[Footnote 11: There is a small library of books and pamphlets devoted to the subject. The latest is that of the Austrian officer, Criste, to which reference has already been made: he searched the Vienna archives to learn, if possible, the truth, and confesses that he cannot find it, though he discusses all the theories and asserts the innocence of Austria. Even finer, however, is the volume of Helfert: Der Rastadter Gesandten Mord. The other sources are Gentz: Ueber die Ermordung der Französisch Congress-gesandten, a contemporary opinion, 1799; Böhtlingk's three discussions in Napoleon, Seine Jugend and Sein Emporkommen; Napoleon Bonaparte und der Rastadter Gesandten Mord; Der Rastadter Gesandten Mord vor dem Karlsruher Schöffengericht; Hüffer: Der Rastadter Gesandten Mord. By Müller, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and von Reichelin Meldegg, there are monographs of the same title. Further material is contained in Schlitz: Denkwürdigkeiten; Obser: Politische Correspondenz Carl Friederich's von Baden; Delaure: Esquisses historiques; Gohier: Memoirs; Arnault: Souvenirs d'un Sexagénaire; Vivenot: Zur Geschichte des Rastadter Congresses; Jomini: Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon; Erzherzog Karl: Ausgewählte Schriften.] The second coalition was stronger than the first, because, although Prussia remained neutral for reasons already mentioned, it included not only England and Austria, but also both Turkey and Russia, with Portugal and Naples. The long frontier, from Holland to Naples, which France was called on to defend in the absence of her best troops and generals in Egypt, made her weak and vulnerable as never before. England appeared in Holland with an Anglo-Russian army; the Russians poured into Switzerland and Italy; the Austrians were again on the Rhine and the Adige; while Turkey was showing unexpected energy in repelling the invaders from lands which, slack as was the tie, she still considered her own. Worse than all, the false position of the French republic and the Church with reference to each other had kept alive smoldering coals of discontent, and as a result civil war again broke out in Brittany and Vendée. To meet this appalling emergency there was needed either a capable, homogeneous administration heartily supported by the nation, or else a military despotism such as was the logical result of Vendémiaire and Fructidor. The former did not exist. Instead of gaining strength by wise self-denial, the Directory had grown steadily weaker, usurping authority of every kind, and actually seating in the councils of 1798, by the basest arts, creatures of their own as representatives of no less than forty-nine departments. The May elections of 1799 expressed the popular discontent in an