Moreau, after prolonged difficulties caused by want of funds and material, had in 1797 again crossed the Rhine but his operations were checked by the conclusion of the preliminaries of Peace of Leoben between Bonaparte and the Austrians.
It was at this time that he had found a traitorous correspondence between his old comrade and commander Charles Pichegru and the émigré Prince de Condé.
He had already appeared as Pichegru's defender against imputations of disloyalty, and now he foolishly concealed his discovery, with the result that he has ever since been suspected of at least partial complicity.
Too late to clear himself, he had sent the correspondence to Paris and had issued a proclamation to the army denouncing Pichegru as a traitor.
Moreau had been dismissed and only re-employed in 1799, when the absence of Bonaparte and the victorious advance of the Russian commander Aleksandr Suvorov had made it necessary to have some tried and experienced general in Italy.
He had commanded the Army of Italy (France), with little success, for a short time before being appointed to the Army of the Rhine, and remained with Barthelemy Catherine Joubert, his successor in Italy, until the battle of Novi had been fought and lost.
Joubert had fallen in the battle, and Moreau had then conducted the retreat of the army to Genoa, where he had handed over the command to Jean Étienne Championnet.
When Bonaparte returned from Egypt, he had found Moreau at Paris, greatly dissatisfied with the French Directory government both as a general and as a republican, and had obtained his assistance in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, when Moreau had commanded the force which confined two of the directors in the Luxembourg Palace.
In reward, Napoleon had again given Moreau command of the Army of the Rhine, with which he had forced back the Austrians from the Rhine to the Isar.
On his return to Paris he had married Mlle Hullot, a Creole woman and friend of Joséphine de Beauharnais, an ambitious woman who has gained a complete ascendancy over him.
After spending a few weeks with the army in Germany and winning the celebrated battle of Hohenlinden on December 3, 1800, he settles down to enjoy the fortune he had acquired during his campaigns.
