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expired on the 18th amidst the most distressing agonies. The whole army was in the deepest consternation, for it adored its young general. The mournful intelligence spread with rapidity and struck with affliction all true republicans, who placed the greatest hopes in the talents and patriotism of Hoche. The report of poison immediately circulated. The Directory instituted magnificent obsequies to his memory.

Thus closed one of the fairest and most interesting existences that adorned the Revolution. This time at least it was not by the scaffold. Hoche was only in his twenty-ninth year. As a private soldier in the French guards, a few months had sufficed to perfect his education. To the physical courage of the warrior, he added an energetic character, a superior intelligence, an accurate knowledge of men, an excellent capacity for political emergencies, and, moreover, the inspiring impulse of enthusiasm. This with him amounted to a passion, ardent and uncontrollable, which proved perhaps the predisposing cause of his death. The peculiar circumstances of his career increased the interest his manifold qualities excited. He had always met with untoward accidents to arrest his fortune. Conqueror at Weissenburg and ready to enter upon a glorious scene of action, he was suddenly thrown into a dungeon; released from imprisonment to prosecute the harassing warfare of La Vendée, he on that unpropitious stage played an evermemorable part, and at the moment he was about to execute his great project on Ireland, a tempest and failures in his combinations again defeated his expectations; removed to the army of the Sambre and Meuse, he gained an important victory at its head, and once more had his progress suspended by the preliminaries of Leoben; lastly, in command of the army of Germany, with Europe still disposed for war, he had a vast future before him when he was struck amidst his dazzling prospects, and hurried to the grave by a disease of forty-eight hours' virulence.

If, however, a cherished memory can compensate the loss of life, he might be well content to surrender his, even thus prematurely. A series of splendid victories, an arduous pacification, a universality of talent, a probity without stain, the belief general amongst republicans that he would have curbed the conqueror of Rivoli and the Pyramids, that his ambition would have remained republican and formed an insuperable obstacle to the imperious pride that aspired to a throne; in a word lofty deeds, noble inspirations, a youth of the fairest promise these are what constitute his renown. assuredly it is great enough! Let us not pity him then for dying young. It will always redound more to the glory of Hoche, Kléber, and Desaix, that they did not live to be marshals. They all bore the distinction of citizens and freemen to the tomb, and were not reduced like Moreau to become a fugitive in foreign armies.c

MARTIN ON THE MEANING OF HOCHE'S DEATH

And

The friends of Hoche have been divided in opinion as to whether a crime was in question in his death. The family always believed so. Who was the guilty person? Was there a guilty person? The truth will never be known.

What were the ideas of Hoche at the time of his death? His whole conduct attests that he remained to the end an impassioned republican. "A

[1To these should be added the name of Marceau, who was killed in protecting the retreat of Jourdan near Alterkirchen in 1796. He was only 27, and the Austrians took part in rendering his body military honours.]

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monarch," he wrote "would be forced to create a nobility and the resurrection of that nobility would cause a new revolution. We must have a government which will consecrate the principle of equality that government can be only a republic." He no longer had the Mountainist exaggeration of his first youth: he understood the necessity for a wisely organised government and desired the maintenance of the constitution of the year III modified by the substitution of a president for the five directors as in America. While tolerant of all beliefs, he was of the religion of Rousseau, as were most of the great men of the Revolution. His faith in the God of justice and goodness is attested both by his intimate correspondence with his wife and friends and by invocation which terminates the speech he pronounced before the army of the West on the occasion of the festival celebrated in honour of the first victories of the army of Italy. "God, who watches over the destinies of this empire, who hast directed our swords in the fight that man whom thou hast created should be free let not any dominion prevail to govern him! Root out the factions from the midst of the republic and protect our holy laws!"

If we would appreciate Hoche and Bonaparte at their true moral value we must compare what each has said of the other. Whilst Hoche was wearing himself out in his painful and dreary mission of the west, Bonaparte in Italy was winning the dazzling triumphs which Hoche felt himself capable of equalling. Many minds, otherwise great and noble, would have been soured by such a comparison, but Hoche entirely forgets himself to express in letters of a touching generosity his enthusiasm for a rival's glory: he defends with passion "ce brave jeune homme," against those who venture to accuse him of ambition! Napoleon at St. Helena has spoken of Hoche whose memory haunts him: he refers to him as a kind of inferior Bonaparte of a challenging ambition, "who dreamed of seizing the government by force and who would have obliged him to crush him by disputing with the supreme power or who would have come to terms, because he loved money and pleasures!" Hoche would have come to terms, that is, sold himself for money!-such words reveal in him who has said them how small a soul could be associated with great genius!

The death of Hoche was the greatest misfortune which could have befallen the republic and France. What might have been the future of that country if Bonaparte had disappeared instead of Hoche? In the state in which France at that time was it was inevitable that she should pass under military supremacy. But how different the conditions might have been! The good sense and disinterestedness of Hoche might have greatly tempered the dangers and abuses of that supremacy and France might have gradually returned to a regulated liberty by peaceful ways. Providence has been harsh toward France. She lost the man who might have helped her to salvation; she remained in the hands of him who was to ruin her h

BONAPARTE'S POLITICS

Bonaparte held, as we have seen, something like a monarch's court in Italy, waiting till the tardy diplomacy of Austria could make up its mind to accept peace at a disadvantage. At the different stages of victory he had parcelled out Italy, according to the probabilities of the hour, into Cispadane, Transpadane, Emilian, and other republics; but time rendered his projects, like his ambition, more vast; whilst the subjugation of Venice changed altogether the views which had dictated the preliminaries of

[1797 A.D.] Leoben. By these Austria, in recompense for the Netherlands, was to receive the Venetian provinces to the Oglio, including Mantua. Venice, neutral, was only to be robbed; but Venice, now in distress, was not only to be robbed, but murdered. Bonaparte proposed to make the Adige the boundary of Austria, giving her, in lieu of Mantua, Venice itself; thus sacrificing, with the apathy of a barbarian, the oldest republic in Europe, the only link of the kind left betwixt classic and modern times. But what was base in Bonaparte to sacrifice was still more base of Austria to accept -Austria, in whose behalf the hapless Venice had armed. It showed that in diplomacy the monarchy of old lineage and the upstart republic were equally selfish and Macchiavellian.

Westward of the Adige, Bonaparte amalgamated the Transpadane and Cispadane republics into one, which he called the Cisalpine. To complete its territory he took the Valtelline from the Grisons; whilst, to give this French colony (for it was no other) a friendly seaport, he revolutionised Genoa, which he made the capital of a Ligurian republic. The Directory insisted on the Cisalpine being organised in imitation of the French; which was completely effected, Bonaparte naming the five directors - who thus based their rights, as did Barras and Larévellière-Lépeaux, not on the people but on the soldiery. It must, however, be confessed that the general in all things thought to correct the narrow prejudices of the regicides. He was tolerant to priests and nobles, and chided the Genoese for proposing to imitate the bigotry of the French revolutionary laws. His opinion of Jacobinism in the Directory is sufficiently evinced by his impatience at finding his friend and secretary signing his surname Fauvelet, in lieu of his territorial title, De Bourrienne. A decree had so ordered it. A decree had so ordered it. "Sign as usual," ordered Bonaparte, "and never mind the lawyers."

He was strangely impeded in completing the negotiations for peace begun at Leoben. Austria hoped to profit by the royalist reaction which the coup d'état of Fructidor marred-one reason for the general's supporting the Directory; but that body threw equal obstacles in his way, and bade him demand the Isonzo as a limit, in lieu of the Adige. He determined to disobey."

On September 27th, began a fresh diplomatic duel, this time between Bonaparte and the astute Austrian diplomatist Cobenzl. According to Cobenzl's account of Napoleon's conduct at these meetings there is apparently good ground for believing the story of the breaking of the porcelain vase, for he complains that Bonaparte drank "glass after glass of brandy," and declared himself "the equal of any king in the world."

THE PEACE OF CAMPO-FORMIO

The meetings between Bonaparte and Cobenzl, the Austrian plenipotentiary, took place at Udine in Friuli. Hoche was no more; Bonaparte altered his tone towards the French government. He had, however, received a telegram on the 29th of September, written by Larévellière-Lépeaux in the name of the Directory, which does much honour to that director and cancels many of his faults. "The whole question," said Larévellière-Lépeaux, "reduces itself to whether or not we want to deliver up Italy to Austria. Now the French government ought not to do this, and it will not." And he proposed, as an ultimatum, that Italy should be free as far as the Isonzo, that is including the whole of Venetia. He protested against the shame of forsaking Venice. "It would be an inexcusable baseness, whose consequences," he

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Cer

added, "would be worse than the most unfavourable chance of war." tainly, if the war was to be continued, it was better for French interest, as well as for French honour, to fight so as to assure Italy's independence, instead of risking mishaps in Egypt, when France was not even mistress of the seas. Bonaparte absolutely ignored this despatch.

On the 10th of October he informed the Directory that the peace would be signed on the following evening or negotiations would be broken off. He did not once mention the ultimatum sent to him by the Directory.

On Bonaparte's definite refusal to give back Mantua, Cobenzl declared that the emperor was prepared to go to any length rather than to consent to such a peace. Bonaparte rose, and seizing a porcelain vase from a stand said, “Very well, let it be war then! Before the autumn is over I shall have shattered your monarchy as I smash this piece of porcelain." He went out and sent to inform the archduke Charles that hostilities would recommence in twenty-four hours. Cobenzl, terrified, sent after him to his headquarters, to tell him that his ultimatum was accepted. Bonaparte had counted upon this when acting the scene of anger. The treaty was signed on the following day (October 17th, 1797) at Campo-Formio, near Udine.h

France kept the boundary of the Rhine and Mainz subject to the ratification of the empire. The Cisalpine Republic had the boundary of the Adige. This republic was composed of Milan and Lombardy, of what had lately formed the Cispadane Republic, the territories of Bergamo, Brescia, and Mantua; Bonaparte soon afterwards added the Valtelline, taken from the Grisons. Austria received not only Friuli, Istria, and the Boccho di Cattaro as stipulated at Leoben, but also Venice and the Venetian territory as far as the Adige and the Po. France took for herself several Venetian establishments in Albania and the Ionian Islands. A special article stipulated the release of La Fayette who was taken from the prison of Olmütz with Maubourg and Pusy. Such was the celebrated Treaty of Campo-Formio which was so much vaunted; and deservedly so, since it gave France peace on the continent, now become so necessary, and secured her the Rhine frontier. From the Italian point of view it was less satisfactory. The ancient republic of Venice paid the whole cost. Bonaparte had sacrificed her to risky or interested schemes. Venetian patriots, comparing the lot of their country to that of Poland, were untiring in their imprecations on the man who had abandoned them.

By seizing the navy and arsenals of Venice under diverse pretexts, such as that of indemnifying himself for sums due and not paid; by joining the Venetian vessels to those of Admiral Brueys, which were summoned from Toulon, and thus establishing at Corfu a squadron ready for war, he meant to secure a maritime position and a naval force which would permit France to dominate the Adriatic and perhaps the Mediterranean. He meditated occupying Malta and dreamed of detaching Egypt from the Ottoman Empire projects which he expressed with a vague reserve, for they seemed chimerical; and yet he was to realise them.

The Treaty of Campo-Formio caused universal joy in Paris. The public, weary of the warlike ardour of the Directory, had but one voice to acclaim the disinterestedness of the young general who seemed to be renouncing the glory of a fresh campaign. The Directory, though displeased at the contempt shown for its instructions, dared not refuse ratification for fear of raising the whole public and the army of Italy against it. In giving that ratification, it nominated Bonaparte plenipotentiary at Rastatt and generalin-chief of the "army of England." Bonaparte left Berthier at Milan with

[1797 A.D.] 30,000 men who were to remain there until the general peace. He passed through Switzerland, where he was accorded the most brilliant reception, and presented himself at Rastatt, where was the congress of the empire. He did not stay there longer than was necessary to exchange ratifications of Campo-Formio with Cobenzl and to make sure of the acquisition of Mainz; he left Bonnier and Treilhard, who had been given to him as colleagues, to adjust the prolonged difficulties which arose in regard to the princes of the empire.

NAPOLEON IN PARIS

Bonaparte left Rastatt, traversed France incognito, and arrived at Paris on the evening of the 15th Frimaire, year VI (the 5th of December, 1797). He proceeded straightway to seclude himself in a small house he had purchased in the rue Chantereine. This singular man, in whom pride was so paramount a quality, had all a woman's art in keeping out of sight. At the surrender of Mantua, he evaded the honour of personally superintending Wurmser's evacuation; now at Paris, he sought to hide himself in an obscure dwelling. He affected, in his language, dress, and habits, a simplicity which struck the imaginations of men, and the more profoundly from the effect of contrast.

The Directory forthwith determined to prepare a triumphal festival for the formal presentation of the Treaty of Campo-Formio. It was appointed to be celebrated, not in the hall of audience, but in the great court of the Luxembourg. Everything was disposed to render this solemnity one of the most imposing of the Revolution.

The day selected for the ceremony was the 10th of December, 1797. The Directory, the public functionaries, and the spectators were all in their places awaiting with impatience the illustrious mortal whom few amongst them had yet seen. He appeared at length, accompanied by M. Talleyrand, who was deputed to present him; for it was the diplomatist to whom the immediate homage was tendered. All beholders were struck by the attenuated frame, the pallid yet Roman countenance, the bright and flashing eye, of the young hero. An extraordinary emotion thrilled through the assembly. A thousand acclamations burst forth as he advanced upon the arena. "Long live the Republic!" "Long live Bonaparte!" were the cries which resounded from all sides. When they subsided, M. de Talleyrand raised his voice, and, in a judicious and concise speech, affected to refer the glory of the general, not to himself but to the Revolution, to the armies, to the great nation, in fine. Everybody said and repeated that the young general was devoid of ambition, for great was the apprehension of the contrary. When M. de Talleyrand had ceased, Bonaparte spoke in a firm tone the disjointed sentences which follow : "CITIZENS:

"The French people, to be free, had kings to combat. To obtain a constitution founded on reason, they had eighteen centuries of prejudices to overcome. The constitution of the year III and you have triumphed over these obstacles. Religion, feudality, royalty, have successively during twenty centuries governed Europe; but from the peace you have just concluded dates the era of representative governments. You have succeeded in organising the great nation, whose vast territory is circumscribed only because nature herself has assigned it bounds. You have done more. The two fairest regions of Europe, formerly so celebrated for the arts, the sciences, the great men to whom they gave birth, behold with the loftiest hopes the genius of liberty arise from the ashes of their ancestors. They are two pedestals on which the fates will plant two powerful nations. I have the honour to present to you the treaty signed at Campo-Formio, and ratified by his majesty the emperor. Peace guarantees the liberty, prosperity, and glory of the republic. When the happiness of the French people shall repose on better organic laws, all Europe will become free."