But the appointment to a command of a French army did not rest with Barras.

He was only one of the five Directors who now decided the chief details of administration.

His colleagues were Letourneur, Rewbell, La Reveilliere-Lepeaux, and the great Carnot; and, as a matter of fact, it was the last-named who chiefly decided the appointment in question.
He had seen and pondered over the plan of campaign which Buonaparte had designed for the Army of Italy; and the vigour of the conception, the masterly appreciation of topographical details which it displayed, and the trenchant energy of its style had struck conviction to his strategic genius.

Buonaparte owed his command, not to a backstairs intrigue, as was currently believed in the army, but rather to his own commanding powers.

While serving with the Army of Italy in 1794, he had carefully studied the coast-line and the passes leading inland; and, according to the well-known savant, Volney, the young officer, shortly after his release from imprisonment, sketched out to him and to a Commissioner of the Convention the details of the very plan of campaign which was to carry him victoriously from the Genoese Riviera into the heart of Austria.[35] While describing this masterpiece of strategy, says Volney, Buonaparte spoke as if inspired.