The condition of France was then desperate; assignats were at 6500 livres the louis; she had to maintain a million of men in arms from an empty treasury; the ruffian demagogues and savage soldiers of the Republic, men steeped to the lips in the blood of women and priests, nobles and aristocrats, hardened by the atrocities in La Vendée, and trained to the war in the campaigns of Austria and Italy, occupied every post and place under the unstable government; a rabble of brutal ministers occupied the palaces of the fallen line of St. Louis, armed with sabres and pistols, to which they resorted in every trivial dispute and on every difference of opinion, and while warring against all manner of title and form, appeared on the rostrum in cassocks and stockings of rose-coloured silk, with knots of scarlet ribands in their shoes; and, with that mixture of ferocity and tom-foolery which caused Paris to be characterized as a city of monkeys and tigers, debated on the cut of a coat and the massacre of a city.
In April, Kilmaine repaired to Paris, after having executed, by order of the government, a survey of the coasts of France and Holland, then reduced to a province of the former; and the chief command of this famous Armée d'Angleterre on which the eyes of all Europe were fixed, and the command of which had been given to the noble Dessaix, the hero of Marengo, was now bestowed upon him.
A French writer asserts that this expedition was destined, not for Britain, but for Egypt; and that Kilmaine received the command of it, not so much for his great military skill, as to deceive our ministry; supposing that the name of an Irishman would cause them to believe that the armament was destined for Ireland; and so they named him General in Chief of the Armée d'Angleterre, which never existed at all. Unfortunately for this writer, history affords abundant proof to the contrary. The number of transports was soon increased to a thousand, and all the naval and military resources of Holland were pressed into the French service.
Colonel Shee, Wolfe Tone, Generals Clarke and Kilmaine, were by this time well acquainted with the extent of the military organization of the United Irishmen, and knew that by the close of the preceding year the people were well provided with arms, and knew the use of them. In the beginning of 1797, great quantities were discovered and seized by the British Government, who, in Leinster and Ulster alone, captured 70,630 pikes, with 48,109 muskets. Had the Irish managed their projected rising with the vigour which has ever characterized the Scottish insurrections, we cannot for a moment doubt what would have been the result, had this formidable expedition once landed in Ireland, where no yeomanry were organized; where the militia were not to be depended upon; and where the king's troops, on whom the ministry mainly relied, were so little superior to the French in tact and skill, that Humbert, with less than a thousand men, was able to defeat double that number, and immediately after received into his ranks 250 of the drilled and attested Irish militiamen.
On the 12th April, Kilmaine, with General Bonaparte, had a long audience with the Directory at Paris, reporting on the state of their armaments. The appointment of the former to the chief command relieved Britain of the apprehension that the conqueror of Italy would cross the Channel in person, and great was the disappointment of the malcontents at home.
The duties of Kilmaine were alike harassing and arduous, as he had to superintend the equipment and organization of this vast force, composed of men of all arms and several nations; and he was repeatedly summoned to Paris, even in the middle of the night, by couriers who overtook him in his progresses; thus, though suffering under severe ill health, the Directory once brought him on the spur from Bruges early in July, and again from Brest about the end of the same month.
Citizen d'Arbois, an officer on the staff of Kilmaine, in a letter published in the Parisian papers of the 7th August, 1798, states that his general "is on his return," after having made a tour of the coast, from Port St. Malo to L'Orient; that he was well satisfied with the state of the French ports and armaments, and had enjoyed with delight the magnificent aspect of Brest, in the harbour of which he saw thirty sail of the line, with a fleet of frigates and transports. D'Arbois states that Kilmaine had been surveying Brittany, where all was then peaceful, by the "wise measures" of the constituted authorities. "The eagerness with which our troops, both by sea and land, await the moment when, under the brave Kilmaine, they will engage the English, is the best pledge of our approaching success, and the ruin of our enemies."
It is evident that Citizen d'Arbois had then no thought of fighting in Egypt.
But doubts hovered in the minds of the Directory, if there were none in the hearts of their generals, and long delays ensued. General Hoche, under whom the future Dukes of Rovigo and of Vicenza were serving as private soldiers, and who was the main spring of the projected movement in favour of Ireland, died in September, 1797; and Bonaparte, to whom Kilmaine, Tone, Shee, and others of the Irish patriots turned, had no sympathy with their cause, as all his views were now directed towards a warfare in the East. By the beginning of autumn the Directory began to break up their boasted Armée d'Angleterre, and withdrew their troops to reinforce their columns on the Rhine. Upon this, Kilmaine came anxiously and hastily to Paris to confer with the government and the Minister of Marine concerning the embarkation of the troops and departure of the fleet from Brest; but his questions were waived, or left unanswered, although the division of Bompard, consisting of the Hoche of 74 guns and eighteen frigates, filled with troops under General Hardy, destined for Ireland, remained with their cables hove short, and all ready for sea at a moment's notice.
Of the forces that really sailed for Ireland, and their fate, we need not inform the reader. For a time all Britain supposed they were led by the commander-in-chief in person; and all the press of England and Scotland teemed with blustering or scurrilous remarks on "Paddy Kilmaine and his followers;" but the general never embarked, though he certainly superintended the departure of a body of troops from Rochfort.