After Hoche's death, the Irish mission to France began to fall apart. The successful coup d’état of 18 Fructidor (4 September) against the royalists ushered in a more cynical Directorial regime. Gone were those remnants of idealism and internationalism which had assisted Tone's negotiations in 1796. Established communication channels had been ruptured by Hoche's death and by the extensive changes in personnel in the political upheavals of 1797. The Irish played their part by exporting their domestic disagreements.

I

Barras assured Lewines that Hoche's death changed nothing. But the Irish would have to wait until the spring before France could send help. Nor could he undertake to include Irish independence as a condition in any peace treaty, even though he promised that they would have their independence. Those assurances became the basis for a disastrous United Irish strategy, permitting the Irish authorities to demolish the movement's strength while it continued to hold back in expectation of a French force which never materialised. Although the French assurances were not entirely groundless, Lewines and his compatriots were ill advised in placing so much store by them. Barras was not to be trusted. His deviousness, cynicism and corruption have come to be associated generally with the second Directory, which was inaugurated in September 1797.

But neither Tone nor Lewines were to know that. They must have been relieved to receive any communication from the Directory at a time when Tone felt he was having to start all over again. Almost everyone with whom he had worked since 1796 was gone. Clarke's old bureau, Carnot's particular enclave, had become a source of serious security leaks. It was in ill odour with the generals and possessed little of its former power. Clarke too was one of the casualties of Fructidor. His Orléanist past and attachment to Carnot rendered him suspect. Only Bonaparte's intervention saved him from prison, and he remained under a cloud for the next two years. Most of the familiar ministers had been removed. An old enemy of Hoche, Schérer, was at the War Ministry, and Lewines could get nowhere with Truguet's replacement at the Ministry of Marine, Pléville le Peley.