"With me from Paris, I have brought General Chauvet, our paymaster. With gold! With coin!" the young general added quickly, before his soldiers could jeer and whistle at the mention of "Paymaster."

"Funds with which to buy rations, boots and blankets, at last."

He lied well, did the young, diminutive general; there were but 8,000 Meres in gold coin, nearly all the bankrupt Treasury could give him, and 100,000 livres in bills of exchange-unfortunately drawn on the Bank of Cadiz, from a doubtful "friend," royalist Bourbon Spain-which no one might honour, not even the Savoians.

"France assigns this to you, soldiers, knowing even then they are still deeply in your debt for your past service," he continued, not even daring to turn and look at the commissioners, those civilian watchdogs and spies from the Directory, who could ruin a man, ranker or general, with a single letter-as damning as any lettre de cachet had imprisoned or murdered people before the Terror, when aristocratic back-stabbing was at its height in the days before the Revolution. A mention of "debt" owed could be construed as defeatist talk, spreading gloom and bitterness among his own troops!

"On all sides we are beset, soldiers," the general went on in a surprisingly powerful voice from such a wee frame; for he was deep-chested, if nothing else. "For now that is all that France has, and they send it to you, to ready you for another season's campaigning… to sustain you for a time, so we may defeat our foes, and protect all we cherish! All they have, to you, most of all!

"Soldiers of France, I have seen you… proud veterans of four years of fighting!" He bellowed. "We know each other, from earlier battles, hein? And I am most satisfied with your bearing… ragged though you are… because I see your pride! Your unflinching devotion to our Republic… and the steadiness of your eyes! Such men as you can never be beaten! With troops such as you, France will never be beaten! With hearts as stout as yours…!"