There was, however, the possibility of a royalist reaction sweeping all before it in France and ranging the armies against the civil power.

He therefore waited and watched, fully aware of the enhanced importance which an uncertain situation gives to the outsider who refuses to show his hand.
Duller eyes than his had discerned that the constitutional conflict between the Directory and the Councils could not be peaceably adjusted.

The framers of the constitution had designed the slowly changing Directory as a check on the Councils, which were renewed to the extent of one-third every year; but, while seeking to put a regicide drag on the parliamentary coach, they had omitted to provide against a complete overturn.

The Councils could not legally override the Directory; neither could the Directory veto the decrees of the Councils, nor, by dissolving them, compel an appeal to the country.
This defect in the constitution had been clearly pointed out by Necker, and it now drew from Barras the lament: "Ah, if the constitution of the Year III., which offers so many sage precautions, had not neglected one of the most important; if it had foreseen that the two great powers of the State, engaged in heated debates, must end with open conflicts, when there is no high court of appeal to arrange them; if it had sufficiently armed the Directory with the right of dissolving the Chamber!"[85] As it was, the knot had to be severed by the sword: not, as yet, by Bonaparte's trenchant blade: he carefully drew back; but where as yet he feared to tread, Hoche rushed in.

This ardently republican general was inspired by a self-denying patriotism, that flinched not before odious duties.