A, general feeling that King Alexander contemplated changing the situation by one of his bold and clever coups d'etat increased the political unrest.
After a short mission in the western provinces he returned to Paris, and took an active part in the coups d'etat of the 31st of May and the 2nd of June, which resulted in the overthrow of the Girondists.
He was one of the promoters of the constitutional club of Salm, formed to counterbalance the royalist club of Clichy, and he supported Barras in 1797 and 17 9 9 in the coups d'etat of 18 Fructidor, and of 18 Brumaire.
The men of the 14th century, who commanded armies and executed coups detat at eighteen, were often worn out by sixty.
Its internal weakness, between the danger of anarchy and the opposition of the monar chists, was extreme; and it soon became discredited by its own coups detat and by financial impotence in the eyes of a nation sick of revolution, aspiring towards peace and the resumption of economic undertakings.