[1797 A.D.] Despite the exhortations of the Directory to crush the high priest of superstition, the French commander granted terms to the pope at Tolentino: deprived him, indeed, of the legations and Ancona; took from him a contribution, and more works of art; but still allowed him an ample political existence. Bonaparte, untainted by the bigotry of Jacobinism, which his high renown had set him far above, refused to gratify the Directory at the price of exciting a religious war. He even showed tolerance to the French emigrant priests, and ordered the Italian convents to nourish them.

THE INVASION OF AUSTRIA

Although defeated in Italy, where her eagles met the standards of Bonaparte, Austria was still triumphant over the French in Germany, and had driven them back over the Rhine. Some fresh success, a decisive advance, was requisite, in order to humble the imperial court and reduce it to sue for peace. Neither the Directory nor Bonaparte had yet extended their ambition to universal conquest. They had no longer any rancour against the humbled Austria. Their political hatred was now concentrated against England—a hatred born of national rivalry, and of the inability to strike a blow or inflict a wound. Already the Directory had succeeded in inducing Spain to form an offensive alliance. With the fleet of that country, of her own, and of Holland united, France hoped to dispute the empire of the sea. In this she but sacrificed the colonies and mariners of those unfortunate countries. England most dreaded the defection of Austria. Her defeat being foreseen, Lord Malmesbury was nevertheless despatched to Paris to propose a negotiation, by which France was to recover her colonies in return for Flanders being again ceded to Austria. The attempt was vain, except as a manifestation of a wish for peace; for Austria prized Flanders as the most troublesome of its possessions, and most difficult to defend. The Directory, aware that another victory would place Austria at its feet, and, calculating on this victory from the elation of the Italian army and the despondency of its foe, would hearken to no overture from Great Britain. Bernadotte was despatched with 30,000 troops of the army of the Rhine to reinforce Bonaparte; whilst Hoche, returned from a baffled expedition against Ireland, superseded Pichegru on the lower Rhine.

Ere leaving Italy behind, to pass the Alps of Tyrol and Friuli, it was requisite to be assured of the neutrality of Venice. This neutrality it promised, but found difficult to keep. The principles of the French were ever more hostile to aristocracy than to royalty; and though Bonaparte had tempered these in the republics of his institution, still the Cispadane and the embryo one of Milan teemed, as usual, with Jacobins and preachers of revolution. The Venetian cities of the mainland, ruled by the severe government of the state, from which even their nobles were excluded, adopted these new maxims of liberty. Those, especially, that adjoined the Milanese meditated an insurrection. The Venetians raised troops of Slavonians and of the peasant population, who were bigots, and as disinclined to the French as the townsmen were favourable to them. Thus two extreme parties were armed against each other. The government, in its defence, employed one whose zeal it was unable to temper, or prevent from confounding the French with their proselytes and admirers.

The French army marched ere the insurrection burst forth. The object of this was to appear spontaneous, and not to trouble their allies with acting either as defenders or police. Bonaparte crossed the Alps early in

[1797 A.D.]

March. The archduke Charles was now his opponent; but, as usual, the promised reinforcements had not arrived in time. The principal stand made by the Austrians was on the banks of the Tagliamento. The French forced the passage after a sharp action, drove back their enemies, occupied town after town, and, in little more than a fortnight's space, arrived within four and twenty leagues of Vienna. But to advance upon that capital, without the co-operation of the armies of the Rhine, would not have been wise. Their advance had been promised, and did actually take place in some time; but a despatch from the Directory had informed Bonaparte not to expect their support. Jealousy of his glory, or perhaps the dissensions then breaking forth in the Directory itself, occasioned this: and the French general, accordingly, wrote to the archduke Charles, proposing peace. After a considerable delay, the Austrian court replied by sending negotiators, who signed a preliminary treaty, or armistice, at Leoben, a town in Styria, on the 18th of April.c

Fear overtook Vienna where, within the memory of man, no enemy had ever come by way of Italy. The Austrian envoys wished to discuss the conditions for their recognition of the republic. Napoleon refused. "The French Republic has no need to be acknowledged," he told them; "her position in Europe is that of the sun on the horizon. Blind is he who cannot see it."

Austria ceded Belgium, a concession which had long been agreed upon. She also ceded the Rhine provinces, but these on condition of an indemnity. The restitution of Lombardy was asked as this indemnity; but that Bonaparte refused, proposing a part of the Venetian territory, for he had made up his mind to punish or sacrifice Venice. This offer was accepted. Bonaparte made peace in his own name with hardly a thought of the Directory, whom he accused of having badly seconded him, and of having through jealousy retarded the operations of the Rhine armies. He also complained of Moreau's tardiness. This was the first germ of the misunderstanding between them.

While these negotiations were still in progress the news reached Bonaparte that the inhabitants of Bergamo, Verona, and other towns in the Venetian territory had risen against the French, and were in a state of insurrection. Horrible excesses had been committed; many French, even the sick in the hospitals, had been murdered, and hundreds thrown into prison. Filled with a righteous fury, Bonaparte vowed the total annihilation of the ancient sovereignty of the Queen of the Adriatic, and declared war against Venice.

[1 Bonaparte returned to the Adige, to execute the boldest march whereof history makes mention. After having once passed the Alps to enter Italy, he now prepared to cross them a second time, to throw himself beyond the Drave and the Mur, into the valley of the Danube, and to advance on Vienna. No French army had ever appeared in sight of that capital. In the accomplishment of so mighty an undertaking he had to defy appalling dangers. He left Italy in his rear- Italy, absorbed in terror and admiration, it is true, but still impressed with the belief that the French could not hold it long. The governments of Genoa, Tuscany, Naples, Rome, Turin, and Venice, irritated at the spectacle of the Revolution planted on their confines in the Cispadane and Lombardy, would probably rise in hostilities on tidings of the first reverse. In the uncertainty of the result, the Italian patriots remained quietly observant, to avoid compromising themselves. The army of Bonaparte was much inferior in strength to what it ought to have been, considering the vast hazards his plan involved. The divisions of Delmas and Bernadotte, recently arrived from the Rhine, did not comprise above 20,000 men; the old army of Italy contained upwards of 40,000, which, with the Lombard troops, might make about 70,000 in all. But it would be necessary to leave 20,000 at least in Italy, 15,000 or 18,000 in guard of the Tyrol, and thus 30,000 or thereabouts would be left to march on Vienna-an incredible temerity!-THIERS."]

THE OVERTHROW OF VENICE

[1797 A.D.]

Bonaparte nourished the most hostile feelings against Venice. The republic hampered him, resisted his advice, his threats, and opposed him by an invincible passive resistance, and had allowed the Austrians to pass through its territory almost as they pleased. It was powerful enough to check Bonaparte for a while, to become a rallying-point at some time to the Italians. The aide-de-camp Junot, with all the bluntness of a soldier, conveyed a letter to the senate, which was dated the 9th of April, 1797, in which Bonaparte threatened them with war if the peasants were not disarmed, and if some hundreds of people arrested and imprisoned in the mines were not immediately set at liberty.

On the 17th, Easter Monday, four hundred French were massacred at Verona. This massacre was called the "Veronese Easter." The Slavonians and the insurgent peasants, knowing they were supported by the Austrians of Laudon, gave themselves over to every excess in revenge, killing even the sick in the hospitals. The Venetian authorities, either through complicity or impotency, did nothing. General Balland, who commanded the citadel, shut himself up inside it and threw shells into the town. Kilmaine hastened from Milan but was obliged to fight his way into Verona. He punished the town by levying an enormous tax upon it and ordered the peasants to be put to the sword.

Bonaparte encountered at Gratz two Venetian envoys, bearers of so-called explanations, in answer to Junot's letter. He was still in ignorance of the latest events. He spoke to them in the most violent language, and declared that if their government was incapable of disarming its subjects, he undertook to disarm them himself. "I have made peace," he said; "I have eighty thousand men, I will go and destroy your mines. I will be a second Attila for Venice. I will have no inquisition nor golden book—those are institutions of a barbarous epoch. Your government is too old, it must fall. I will no longer negotiate, I will dictate." On the 2nd of May, upon hearing of the scenes which had taken place in Verona, he published a declaration of war against the republic, and announced that the Venetian government had ceased to exist. He knew that the Directory was opposed to the idea of declaring war against Venice, and his own powers only extended to repulsing hostilities already commenced. But such considerations no longer stopped him. His arrangements with Austria demanded the sacrifice, or at least the remodelling, of the Venetian territory. The massacres of Verona, although punished, became for him a casus belli.

Venice was not without means of resistance, with her port and fortified lagunes, and the sea was open, as the French did not possess one man-of-war in the Adriatic. But Napoleon counted upon the terror of his name and of his victories. He also counted upon the faint-heartedness of a government which had shut itself up for two centuries in continued abstinence from action and had allowed all the activity of political life to die in its midst. This aristocracy had neglected or disdained Bonaparte's early threats, believing he would quickly exhaust his resources. His victorious return, his power, and the brilliancy of his victories struck the nobles dumb.

The grand council which, a few months earlier, had repulsed as an insult the idea of modifying the constitution, voted this modification almost unanimously and decided it should take place at the will of the general. The grand council then abdicated. Insurrections rose in other towns, the principles of the French Revolution were employed; that is to say, convents

[1797 A.D.] were suppressed, feudal rights were abolished, and national domains were created.

Bonaparte had gone to Milan. There on the 16th of May he signed a treaty with the agents of the fallen government, by which he laid tributes and requisitions on their country, took possession of the greater part of its navy and arsenals, and reserved to himself the right of effecting the territorial changes which he might judge necessary to his policy. He had this treaty ratified by the new municipality, which submitted to it.

Whilst it was his fixed intention to despoil the republic before handing it over to the Austrians, he spoke to the Venetians of the glory of Italy and of his wish to render her free and independent of foreigners. He spoke of the friendship and unity of the two republics and he imposed the same language on his agents. An analogous revolution took place at Genoa also under pressure from France. The patriots or democrats, supported by the French agent Faypoult and then by Bonaparte himself, forced the aristocratic party to abdicate and change the form of the government.d

CHAPTER XV

THE RISE OF NAPOLEON

[1797-1798 A.D.]

WHILST the army of Italy was immortalising itself by humbling the first power of the continent, the five directors of France could not vindicate for themselves the least share of its fame. They continued to hold their footing, indeed, as sovereigns, on the narrow pedestal of their immediate party, the conventionalists and regicides. They relied on the army, too, as auxiliaries; but they soon found that public opinion was irrevocably averse to their persons and their maxims; and that, with liberty of election still left to the country, they could never be friends with or stand before its representation.

The newly chosen third of the legislative body, all allowed to be re-elected, had, from the first, formed an opposition, together with the most respectable of the conventionalists; and it was evident, when the eighteen months, the interval fixed by the constitution for the re-election of another third, should elapse, a majority would be found against the old conventionalists. This was insufferable in their eyes; and they used every means to provide against it. Their principal weapon was the declaration that their opponents were royalists at heart, and consequently traitors to the constitution, and that they themselves were the only genuine republicans.

[Yet the Directory, although still the object of ruthless obloquy at home, inspired the European powers with a profound dread. "The half of Europe," wrote Mallet du Pan, to the court of Vienna, "is on its knees before this divan, to purchase the honour of becoming its vassal." Fifteen months of firm and glorious sway had rooted the five directors in power, but had at the same time developed their passions and characters. Men cannot long act in conjunction without experiencing individual distastes or predilections, and without associating conformably to their inclinations. Carnot, Barras, Rewbell, Larévellière-Lépeaux, and Letourneur were already divided, in accordance with this invariable result.—THIERS.C]