LEOBEN TO CAMPO FORMIO
In signing the preliminaries of peace at Leoben, which formed in part
the basis for the Treaty of Campo Formio, Bonaparte appears as a
diplomatist of the first rank. He had already signed similar articles
with the Court of Turin and with the Vatican. But such a transaction
with the Emperor was infinitely more important than with the
third-rate powers of the peninsula. He now essays his first flight to
the highest levels of international diplomacy. In truth, his mental
endowments, like those of many of the greatest generals, were no less
adapted to success in the council-chamber than on the field of battle;
for, indeed, the processes of thought and the methods of action are
not dissimilar in the spheres of diplomacy and war. To evade obstacles
on which an opponent relies, to multiply them in his path, to bewilder
him by feints before overwhelming him by a crushing onset, these are
the arts which yield success either to the negotiator or to the
commander.
In imposing terms of peace on the Emperor at Leoben (April 18th,
1797), Bonaparte reduced the Directory, and its envoy, Clarke, who was
absent in Italy, to a subordinate _rôle_. As commander-in-chief, he
had power only to conclude a brief armistice, but now he signed the
preliminaries of peace. His excuse to the Directory was ingenious.
While admitting the irregularity of his conduct, he pleaded the
isolated position of his army, and the absence of Clarke, and that,
under the circumstances, his act had been merely "a military
operation." He could also urge that he had in his rear a disaffected
Venetia, and that he believed the French armies on the Rhine to be
stationary and unable to cross that river. But the very tardy advent
of Clarke on the scene strengthens the supposition that Bonaparte was
at the time by no means loth to figure as the pacifier of the
Continent. Had he known the whole truth, namely, that the French were
gaining a battle on the east bank of the Rhine while the terms of
peace were being signed at Leoben, he would most certainly have broken
off the negotiations and have dictated harsher terms at the gates of
Vienna. That was the vision which shone before his eyes three years
previously, when he sketched to his friends at Nice the plan of
campaign, beginning at Savona and ending before the Austrian capital;
and great was his chagrin at hearing the tidings of Moreau's success
on April 20th. The news reached him on his return from Leoben to
Italy, when he was detained for a few hours by a sudden flood of the
River Tagliamento. At once he determined to ride back and make some
excuse for a rupture with Austria; and only the persistent
remonstrances of Berthier turned him from this mad resolve, which
would forthwith have exhibited him to the world as estimating more
highly the youthful promptings of destiny than the honour of a French
negotiator.
The terms which he had granted to the Emperor were lenient enough. The
only definitive gain to France was the acquisition of the Austrian
Netherlands (Belgium), for which troublesome possession the Emperor
was to have compensation elsewhere. Nothing absolutely binding was
said about the left, or west, bank of the Rhine, except that Austria
recognized the "constitutional limits" of France, but reaffirmed the
integrity of "The Empire."[73] These were contradictory statements;
for France had declared the Rhine to be her natural boundary, and the
old "Empire" included Belgium, Trèves, and Luxemburg. But, for the
interpretation of these vague formularies, the following secret and
all-important articles were appended. While the Emperor renounced that
part of his Italian possessions which lay to the west of the Oglio, he
was to receive all the mainland territories of Venice east of that
river, including Dalmatia and Istria, Venice was also to cede her
lands west of the Oglio to the French Government; and in return for
these sacrifices she was to gain the three legations of Romagna,
Ferrara, and Bologna--the very lands which Bonaparte had recently
formed into the Cispadane Republic! For the rest, the Emperor would
have to recognize the proposed Republic at Milan, as also that already
existing at Modena, "compensation" being somewhere found for the
deposed duke.
From the correspondence of Thugut, the Austrian Minister, it appears
certain that Austria herself had looked forward to the partition of
the Venetian mainland territories, and this was the scheme which
Bonaparte _actually proposed to her at Leoben_. Still more
extraordinary was his proposal to sacrifice, ostensibly to Venice but
ultimately to Austria, the greater part of the Cispadane Republic. It
is, indeed, inexplicable, except on the ground that his military
position at Leoben was more brilliant than secure. His uneasiness
about this article of the preliminaries is seen in his letter of April
22nd to the Directors, which explains that the preliminaries need not
count for much. But most extraordinary of all was his procedure
concerning the young Lombard Republic. He seems quite calmly to have
discussed its retrocession to the Austrians, and that, too, after he
had encouraged the Milanese to found a republic, and had declared that
every French victory was "a line of the constitutional charter."[74]
The most reasonable explanation is that Bonaparte over-estimated the
military strength of Austria, and undervalued the energy of the men of
Milan, Modena, and Bologna, of whose levies he spoke most
contemptuously. Certain it is that he desired to disengage himself
from their affairs so as to be free for the grander visions of
oriental conquest that now haunted his imagination. Whatever were his
motives in signing the preliminaries at Leoben, he speedily found
means for their modification in the ever-enlarging area of negotiable
lands.
It is now time to return to the affairs of Venice. For seven months
the towns and villages of that republic had been a prey to pitiless
warfare and systematic rapacity, a fate which the weak ruling
oligarchy could neither avert nor avenge. In the western cities,
Bergamo and Brescia, whose interests and feelings linked them with
Milan rather than Venice, the populace desired an alliance with the
nascent republic on the west and a severance from the gloomy
despotism of the Queen of the Adriatic. Though glorious in her prime,
she now governed with obscurantist methods inspired by fear of her
weakness becoming manifest; and Bonaparte, tearing off the mask which
hitherto had screened her dotage, left her despised by the more
progressive of her own subjects. Even before he first entered the
Venetian territory, he set forth to the Directory the facilities for
plunder and partition which it offered. Referring to its reception of
the Comte de Provence (the future Louis XVIII.) and the occupation of
Peschiera by the Austrians, he wrote (June 6th, 1796):
"If your plan is to extract five or six million francs from Venice,
I have expressly prepared for you this sort of rupture with her....
If you have intentions more pronounced, I think that you ought to
continue this subject of contention, instruct me as to your
desires, and wait for the favourable opportunity, which I will
seize according to circumstances, for we must not have everybody on
our hands at the same time."
The events which now transpired in Venetia gave him excuses for the
projected partition. The weariness felt by the Brescians and
Bergamesques for Venetian rule had been artfully played on by the
Jacobins of Milan and by the French Generals Kilmaine and Landrieux;
and an effort made by the Venetian officials to repress the growing
discontent brought about disturbances in which some men of the
"Lombard legion" were killed. The complicity of the French in the
revolt is clearly established by the Milanese journals and by the fact
that Landrieux forthwith accepted the command of the rebels at Bergamo
and Brescia.[75] But while these cities espoused the Jacobin cause,
most of the Venetian towns and all the peasantry remained faithful to
the old Government. It was clear that a conflict must ensue, even if
Bonaparte and some of his generals had not secretly worked to bring it
about. That he and they did so work cannot now be disputed. The circle
of proof is complete. The events at Brescia and Bergamo were part of
a scheme for precipitating a rupture with Venice; and their success
was so far assured that Bonaparte at Leoben secretly bargained away
nearly the whole of the Venetian lands. Furthermore, a fortnight
before the signing of these preliminaries, he had suborned a vile
wretch, Salvatori by name, to issue a proclamation purporting to come
from the Venetian authorities, which urged the people everywhere to
rise and massacre the French. It was issued on April 5th, though it
bore the date of March 20th. At once the Doge warned his people that
it was a base fabrication, But the mischief had been done. On Easter
Monday (April 17th) a chance affray in Verona let loose the passions
which had been rising for months past: the populace rose in fury
against the French detachment quartered on them: and all the soldiers
who could not find shelter in the citadel, even the sick in the
hospitals, fell victims to the craving for revenge for the
humiliations and exactions of the last seven months.[76] Such was
Easter-tide at Verona--_les Pâques véronaises_--an event that recalls
the Sicilian Vespers of Palermo in its blind southern fury.
The finale somewhat exceeded Bonaparte's expectations, but he must
have hailed it with a secret satisfaction. It gave him a good excuse
for wholly extinguishing Venice as an independent power. According to
the secret articles signed at Leoben, the city of Venice was to have
retained her independence and gained the Legations. But her contumacy
could now be chastised by annihilation. Venice could, in fact,
indemnify the Hapsburgs for the further cessions which France exacted
from them elsewhere; and in the process Bonaparte would free himself
from the blame which attached to his hasty signature of the
preliminaries at Leoben.[77] He was now determined to secure the Rhine
frontier for France, to gain independence, under French tutelage, not
only for the Lombard Republic, but also for Modena and the Legations.
These were his aims during the negotiations to which he gave the full
force of his intellect during the spring and summer of 1797.
The first thing was to pour French troops into Italy so as to extort
better terms: the next was to declare war on Venice. For this there
was now ample justification; for, apart from the massacre at Verona,
another outrage had been perpetrated. A French corsair, which had
persisted in anchoring in a forbidden part of the harbour of Venice,
had been riddled by the batteries and captured. For this act, and for
the outbreak at Verona, the Doge and Senate offered ample reparation:
but Bonaparte refused to listen to these envoys, "dripping with French
blood," and haughtily bade Venice evacuate her mainland
territories.[78] For various reasons he decided to use guile rather
than force. He found in Venice a secretary of the French legation,
Villetard by name, who could be trusted dextrously to undermine the
crumbling fabric of the oligarchy.[79] This man persuaded the
terrified populace that nothing would appease the fury of the
French general but the deposition of the existing oligarchy and the
formation of a democratic municipality. The people and the patricians
alike swallowed the bait; and the once haughty Senate tamely
pronounced its own doom. Disorders naturally occurred on the downfall
of the ancient oligarchy, especially when the new municipality ordered
the removal of Venetian men-of-war into the hands of the French and
the introduction of French troops by help of Venetian vessels. A
mournful silence oppressed even the democrats when 5,000 French troops
entered Venice on board the flotilla. The famous State, which for
centuries had ruled the waters of the Levant, and had held the fierce
Turks at bay, a people numbering 3,000,000 souls and boasting a
revenue of 9,000,000 ducats, now struck not one blow against
conquerors who came in the guise of liberators.
On the same day Bonaparte signed at Milan a treaty of alliance with
the envoys of the new Venetian Government. His friendship was to be
dearly bought. In secret articles, which were of more import than the
vague professions of amity which filled the public document, it was
stipulated that the French and Venetian Republics should come to an
understanding as to the _exchange_ of certain territories, that Venice
should pay a contribution in money and in materials of war, should aid
the French navy by furnishing three battleships and two frigates, and
should enrich the museums of her benefactress by 20 paintings and 500
manuscripts. While he was signing these conditions of peace, the
Directors were despatching from Paris a declaration of war against
Venice. Their decision was already obsolete: it was founded on
Bonaparte's despatch of April 30th; but in the interval their
proconsul had wholly changed the situation by overthrowing the rule of
the Doge and Senate, and by setting up a democracy, through which he
could extract the wealth of that land. The Directors' declaration of
war was accordingly stopped at Milan, and no more was heard of it.
They were thus forcibly reminded of the truth of his previous warning
that things would certainly go wrong unless they consulted him on all
important details.[80]
This treaty of Milan was the fourth important convention concluded by
the general, who, at the beginning of the campaign of 1796, had been
forbidden even to sign an armistice without consulting Salicetti!
It was speedily followed by another, which in many respects redounds
to the credit of the young conqueror. If his conduct towards Venice
inspires loathing, his treatment of Genoa must excite surprise and
admiration. Apart from one very natural outburst of spleen, it shows
little of that harshness which might have been expected from the man
who had looked on Genoa as the embodiment of mean despotism. Up to the
summer of 1796 Bonaparte seems to have retained something of his old
detestation of that republic; for at midsummer, when he was in the
full career of his Italian conquests, he wrote to Faypoult, the French
envoy at Genoa, urging him to keep open certain cases that were in
dispute, and three weeks later he again wrote that the time for Genoa
had not yet come. Any definite action against this wealthy city was,
indeed, most undesirable during the campaign; for the bankers of
Genoa supplied the French army with the sinews of war by means of
secret loans, and their merchants were equally complaisant in regard
to provisions. These services were appreciated by Bonaparte as much as
they were resented by Nelson; and possibly the succour which Genoese
money and shipping covertly rendered to the French expeditions for
the recovery of Corsica may have helped to efface from Bonaparte's
memory the associations clustering around the once-revered name of
Paoli. From ill-concealed hostility he drifted into a position of
tolerance and finally of friendship towards Genoa, provided that she
became democratic. If her institutions could be assimilated to those
of France, she might prove a valuable intermediary or ally.
The destruction of the Genoese oligarchy presented no great
difficulties. Both Venice and Genoa had long outlived their power, and
the persistent violation of their neutrality had robbed them of that
last support of the weak, self-respect. The intrigues of Faypoult and
Salicetti were undermining the influence of the Doge and Senate, when
the news of the fall of the Venetian oligarchy spurred on the French
party to action, But the Doge and Senate armed bands of mountaineers
and fishermen who were hostile to change; and in a long and desperate
conflict in the narrow streets of Genoa the democrats were completely
worsted (May 23rd). The victors thereupon ransacked the houses of the
opposing faction and found lists of names of those who were to have
been proscribed, besides documents which revealed the complicity of
the French agents in the rising. Bonaparte was enraged at the folly of
the Genoese democrats, which deranged his plans. As he wrote to the
Directory, if they had only remained quiet for a fortnight, the
oligarchy would have collapsed from sheer weakness. The murder of a
few Frenchmen and Milanese now gave him an excuse for intervention. He
sent an aide-de-camp, Lavalette, charged with a vehement diatribe
against the Doge and Senate, which lost nothing in its recital before
that august body. At the close a few senators called out, "Let us
fight": but the spirit of the Dorias flickered away with these
protests; and the degenerate scions of mighty sires submitted to the
insults of an aide-de-camp and the dictation of his master.
The fate of this ancient republic was decided by Bonaparte at the
Castle of Montebello, near Milan, where he had already drawn up her
future constitution. After brief conferences with the Genoese envoys,
he signed with them the secret convention which placed their
republic--soon to be renamed the Ligurian Republic--under the
protection of France and substituted for the close patrician rule a
moderate democracy. The fact is significant. His military instincts
had now weaned him from the stiff Jacobinism of his youth; and, in
conjunction with Faypoult and the envoys, he arranged that the
legislative powers should be intrusted to two popularly elected
chambers of 300 and 150 members, while the executive functions were to
be discharged by twelve senators, presided over by a Doge; these
officers were to be appointed by the chambers: for the rest, the
principles of religious liberty and civic equality were recognized,
and local self-government was amply provided for. Cynics may, of
course, object that this excellent constitution was but a means of
insuring French supremacy and of peacefully installing Bonaparte's
regiments in a very important city; but the close of his intervention
may be pronounced as creditable to his judgment as its results were
salutary to Genoa. He even upbraided the demagogic party of that city
for shivering in pieces the statue of Andrea Doria and suspending the
fragments on some of the innumerable trees of liberty recently
planted.
"Andrea Doria," he wrote, "was a great sailor and a great
statesman. Aristocracy was liberty in his time. The whole of Europe
envies your city the honour of having produced that celebrated man.
You will, I doubt not, take pains to rear his statue again: I pray
you to let me bear a part of the expense which that will entail,
which I desire to share with those who are most zealous for the
glory and welfare of your country."
In contrasting this wise and dignified conduct with the hatred which
most Corsicans still cherished against Genoa, Bonaparte's greatness of
soul becomes apparent and inspires the wish: _Utinam semper sic
fuisses!_
Few periods of his life have been more crowded with momentous events
than his sojourn at the Castle of Montebello in May-July, 1797.
Besides completing the downfall of Venice and reinvigorating the life
of Genoa, he was deeply concerned with the affairs of the Lombard or
Cisalpine Republic, with his family concerns, with the consolidation
of his own power in French politics, and with the Austrian
negotiations. We will consider these affairs in the order here
indicated.
The future of Lombardy had long been a matter of concern to Bonaparte.
He knew that its people were the _fittest_ in all Italy to benefit by
_constitutional rule_, but it must be dependent on France. He felt
little confidence in the Lombards if left to themselves, as is seen in
his conversation with Melzi and Miot de Melito at the Castle of
Montebello. He was in one of those humours, frequent at this time of
dawning splendour, when confidence in his own genius betrayed him into
quite piquant indiscretions. After referring to the Directory, he
turned abruptly to Melzi, a Lombard nobleman:
"As for your country, Monsieur de Melzi, it possesses still fewer
elements of republicanism than France, and can be managed more
easily than any other. You know better than anyone that we shall do
what we like with Italy. But the time has not yet come. We must
give way to the fever of the moment. We are going to have one or
two republics here of our own sort. Monge will arrange that for
us."
He had some reason for distrusting the strength of the democrats in
Italy. At the close of 1796 he had written that there were three
parties in Lombardy, one which accepted French guidance, another which
desired liberty even with some impatience, and a third faction,
friendly to the Austrians: he encouraged the first, checked the
second, and repressed the last. He now complained that the Cispadanes
and Cisalpines had behaved very badly in their first elections, which
had been conducted in his absence; for they had allowed clerical
influence to override all French predilections. And, a little later,
he wrote to Talleyrand that the genuine love of liberty was feeble in
Italy, and that, as soon as French influences were withdrawn, the
Italian Jacobins would be murdered by the populace. The sequel was to
justify his misgivings, and therefore to refute the charges of those
who see in his conduct respecting the Cisalpine Republic nothing but
calculating egotism. The difficulty of freeing a populace that had
learnt to hug its chains was so great that the temporary and partial
success which his new creation achieved may be regarded as a proof of
his political sagacity.
After long preparations by four committees, which Bonaparte kept at
Milan closely engaged in the drafting of laws, the constitution of the
Cisalpine Republic was completed. It was a miniature of that of
France, and lest there should be any further mistakes in the
elections, Bonaparte himself appointed, not only the five Directors
and the Ministers whom they were to control, but even the 180
legislators, both Ancients and Juniors. In this strange fashion did
democracy descend on Italy, not mainly as the work of the people, but
at the behest of a great organizing genius. It is only fair to add
that he summoned to the work of civic reconstruction many of the best
intellects of Italy. He appointed a noble, Serbelloni, to be the first
President of the Cisalpine Republic, and a scion of the august House
of the Visconti was sent as its ambassador to Paris. Many able men
that had left Lombardy during the Austrian occupation or the recent
wars were attracted back by Bonaparte's politic clemency; and the
festival of July 9th at Milan, which graced the inauguration of the
new Government, presented a scene of civic joy to which that unhappy
province had long been a stranger. A vast space was thronged with an
enormous crowd which took up the words of the civic oath uttered by
the President. The Archbishop of Milan celebrated Mass and blessed the
banners of the National Guards; and the day closed with games, dances,
and invocations to the memory of the Italians who had fought and died
for their nascent liberties. Amidst all the vivas and the clash of
bells Bonaparte took care to sound a sterner note. On that very day
he ordered the suppression of a Milanese club which had indulged in
Jacobinical extravagances, and he called on the people "to show to the
world by their wisdom, energy, and by the good organization of their
army, that modern Italy has not degenerated and is still worthy of
liberty."
The contagion of Milanese enthusiasm spread rapidly. Some of the
Venetian towns on the mainland now petitioned for union with the
Cisalpine Republic; and the deputies of the Cispadane, who were
present at the festival, urgently begged that their little State might
enjoy the same privilege. Hitherto Bonaparte had refused these
requests, lest he should hamper the negotiations with Austria, which
were still tardily proceeding; but within a month their wish was
gratified, and the Cispadane State was united to the larger and more
vigorous republic north of the River Po, along with the important
districts of Como, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and Peschiera.
Disturbances in the Swiss district of the Valteline soon enabled
Bonaparte to intervene on behalf of the oppressed peasants, and to
merge this territory also in the Cisalpine Republic, which
consequently stretched from the high Alps southward to Rimini, and
from the Ticino on the west to the Mincio on the east.[81]
Already, during his sojourn at the Castle of Montebello, Bonaparte
figured as the all-powerful proconsul of the French Republic. Indeed,
all his surroundings--his retinue of complaisant generals, and the
numerous envoys and agents who thronged his ante-chambers to beg an
audience--befitted a Sulla or a Wallenstein, rather than a general of
the regicide Republic. Three hundred Polish soldiers guarded the
approaches to the castle; and semi-regal state was also observed in
its spacious corridors and saloons. There were to be seen Italian
nobles, literati, and artists, counting it the highest honour to visit
the liberator of their land; and to them Bonaparte behaved with that
mixture of affability and inner reserve, of seductive charm
alternating with incisive cross-examination which proclaimed at once
the versatility of his gifts, the keenness of his intellect, and his
determination to gain social, as well as military and political,
supremacy. And yet the occasional abruptness of his movements, and the
strident tones of command lurking beneath his silkiest speech, now and
again reminded beholders that he was of the camp rather than of the
court. To his generals he was distant; for any fault even his
favourite officers felt the full force of his anger; and aides-de-camp
were not often invited to dine at his table. Indeed, he frequently
dined before his retinue, almost in the custom of the old Kings of
France.
With him was his mother, also his brothers, Joseph and Louis, whom he
was rapidly advancing to fortune. There, too, were his sisters; Elise,
proud and self-contained, who at this period married a noble but
somewhat boorish Corsican, Bacciocchi; and Pauline, a charming girl of
sixteen, whose hand the all-powerful brother offered to Marmont, to be
by him unaccountably refused, owing, it would seem, to a prior
attachment. This lively and luxurious young creature was not long to
remain unwedded. The adjutant-general, Leclerc, became her suitor;
and, despite his obscure birth and meagre talents, speedily gained her
as his bride. Bonaparte granted her 40,000 francs as her dowry;
and--significant fact--the nuptials were privately blessed by a priest
in the chapel of the Palace of Montebello.
There, too, at Montebello was Josephine.
Certainly the Bonapartes were not happy in their loves: the one dark
side to the young conqueror's life, all through this brilliant
campaign, was the cruelty of his bride. From her side he had in March,
1796, torn himself away, distracted between his almost insane love for
her and his determination to crush the chief enemy of France: to her
he had written long and tender letters even amidst the superhuman
activities of his campaign. Ten long despatches a day had not
prevented him covering as many sheets of paper with protestations of
devotion to her and with entreaties that she would likewise pour out
her heart to him. Then came complaints, some tenderly pleading, others
passionately bitter, of her cruelly rare and meagre replies. The sad
truth, that Josephine cares much for his fame and little for him
himself, that she delays coming to Italy, these and other afflicting
details rend his heart. At last she comes to Milan, after a
passionate outburst of weeping--at leaving her beloved Paris. In Italy
she shows herself scarcely more than affectionate to her doting
spouse. Marlborough's letters to his peevish duchess during the
Blenheim campaign are not more crowded with maudlin curiosities than
those of the fierce scourge of the Austrians to his heartless fair. He
writes to her agonizingly, begging her to be less lovely, less
gracious, less good--apparently in order that he may love her less
madly: but she is never to be jealous, and, above all, never to weep:
for her tears burn his blood: and he concludes by sending millions of
kisses, and also to her dog! And this mad effusion came from the man
whom the outside world took to be of steel-like coldness: yet his
nature had this fevered, passionate side, just as the moon, where she
faces the outer void, is compact of ice, but turns a front of molten
granite to her blinding, all-compelling luminary.
Undoubtedly this blazing passion helped to spur on the lover to that
terrific energy which makes the Italian campaign unique even amidst
the Napoleonic wars. Beaulieu, Würmser, and Alvintzy were not rivals
in war; they were tiresome hindrances to his unsated love. On the eve
of one of his greatest triumphs he penned to her the following
rhapsody:
"I am far from you, I seem to be surrounded by the blackest night:
I need the lurid light of the thunder-bolts which we are about to
hurl on our enemies to dispel the darkness into which your absence
has plunged me. Josephine, you wept when we parted: you wept! At
that thought all my being trembles. But be consoled! Würmser shall
pay dearly for the tears which I have seen you shed."
What infatuation! to appease a woman's fancied grief, he will pile
high the plains of Mincio with corpses, recking not of the thousand
homes where bitter tears will flow. It is the apotheosis of
sentimental egotism and social callousness. And yet this brain, with
its moral vision hopelessly blurred, judged unerringly in its own
peculiar plane. What power it must have possessed, that, unexhausted
by the flames of love, it grasped infallibly the myriad problems of
war, scanning them the more clearly, perchance, in the white heat of
its own passion.
At last there came the time of fruition at Montebello: of fruition,
but not of ease or full contentment; for not only did an average of
eight despatches a day claim several hours, during which he jealously
guarded his solitude; but Josephine's behaviour served to damp his
ardour. As, during the time of absence, she had slighted his urgent
entreaties for a daily letter, so too, during the sojourn at
Montebello, she revealed the shallowness and frivolity of her being.
Fêtes, balls, and receptions, provided they were enlivened by a light
crackle of compliments from an admiring circle, pleased her more than
the devotion of a genius. She had admitted, before marriage, that her
"Creole _nonchalance_" shrank wearily away from his keen and ardent
nature; and now, when torn away from the _salons_ of Paris, she seems
to have taken refuge in entertainments and lap-dogs.[82] Doubtless
even at this period Josephine evinced something of that warm feeling
which deepened with ripening years and lit up her later sorrows with a
mild radiance; but her recent association with Madame Tallien and that
giddy _cohue_ had accentuated her habits of feline complaisance to all
and sundry. Her facile fondnesses certainly welled forth far too
widely to carve out a single channel of love and mingle with the deep
torrent of Bonaparte's early passion. In time, therefore, his
affections strayed into many other courses; and it would seen that
even in the later part of this Italian epoch his conduct was
irregular. For this Josephine had herself mainly to thank. At last she
awakened to the real value and greatness of the love which her neglect
had served to dull and tarnish, but then it was too late for complete
reunion of souls: the Corsican eagle had by that time soared far
beyond reach of her highest flutterings.[83]
At Montebello, as also at Passeriano, whither the Austrian
negotiations were soon transferred, Bonaparte, though strictly
maintaining the ceremonies of his proconsular court, yet showed the
warmth of his social instincts. After the receptions of the day and
the semi-public dinner, he loved to unbend in the evening. Sometimes,
when Josephine formed a party of ladies for _vingt-et-un_, he would
withdraw to a corner and indulge in the game of _goose_; and
bystanders noted with amusement that his love of success led him to
play tricks and cheat in order not to "fall into the pit." At other
times, if the conversation languished, he proposed that each person
should tell a story; and when no Boccaccio-like facility inspired the
company, he sometimes launched out into one of those eerie and
thrilling recitals, such as he must often have heard from the
_improvisatori_ of his native island. Bourrienne states that
Bonaparte's realism required darkness and daggers for the full display
of his gifts, and that the climax of his dramatic monologue was not
seldom enhanced by the screams of the ladies, a consummation which
gratified rather than perturbed the accomplished actor.
A survey of Bonaparte's multifarious activity in Italy enables the
reader to realize something of the wonder and awe excited by his
achievements. Like an Athena he leaped forth from the Revolution,
fully armed for every kind of contest. His mental superiority
impressed diplomats as his strategy baffled the Imperialist generals;
and now he was to give further proofs of his astuteness by
intervening in the internal affairs of France.
In order to understand Bonaparte's share in the _coup d'état_ of
Fructidor, we must briefly review the course of political events at
Paris. At the time of the installation of the Directory the hope was
widely cherished that the Revolution was now entirely a thing of the
past. But the unrest of the time was seen in the renewal of the
royalist revolts in the west, and in the communistic plot of Babeuf
for the overthrow of the whole existing system of private property.
The aims of these desperadoes were revealed by an accomplice; the
ringleaders were arrested, and after a long trial Babeuf was
guillotined and his confederates were transported (May, 1797). The
disclosure of these ultra-revolutionary aims shocked not only the
bourgeois, but even the peasants who were settled on the confiscated
lands of the nobles and clergy. The very class which had given to the
events of 1789 their irresistible momentum was now inclined to rest
and be thankful; and in this swift revulsion of popular feeling the
royalists began to gain ground. The elections for the renewal of a
third part of the Councils resulted in large gains for them, and they
could therefore somewhat influence the composition of the Directory by
electing Barthélemy, a constitutional royalist. Still, he could not
overbear the other four regicide Directors, even though one of these,
Carnot, also favoured moderate opinions more and more. A crisis
therefore rapidly developed between the still Jacobinical Directory
and the two legislative Councils, in each of which the royalists, or
moderates, had the upper hand. The aim of this majority was to
strengthen the royalist elements in France by the repeal of many
revolutionary laws. Their man of action was Pichegru, the conqueror of
Holland, who, abjuring Jacobinism, now schemed with a club of
royalists, which met at Clichy, on the outskirts of Paris. That their
intrigues aimed at the restoration of the Bourbons had recently been
proved. The French agents in Venice seized the Comte d'Entraigues, the
confidante of the _soi-disant_ Louis XVIII.; and his papers, when
opened by Bonaparte, Clarke, and Berthier at Montebello, proved that
there was a conspiracy in France for the recall of the Bourbons. With
characteristic skill, Bonaparte held back these papers from the
Directory until he had mastered the difficulties of the situation. As
for the count, he released him; and in return for this signal act of
clemency, then very unusual towards an _émigré_, he soon became the
object of his misrepresentation and slander.
The political crisis became acute in July, when the majority
of the Councils sought to force on the Directory Ministers who
would favour moderate or royalist aims. Three Directors, Barras, La
Réveillière-Lépeaux, and Rewbell, refused to listen to these behests,
and insisted on the appointment of Jacobinical Ministers even in the
teeth of a majority of the Councils. This defiance of the deputies of
France was received with execration by most civilians, but with
jubilant acclaim by the armies; for the soldiery, far removed from the
partisan strifes of the capital, still retained their strongly
republican opinions. The news that their conduct towards Venice was
being sharply criticised by the moderates in Paris aroused their
strongest feelings, military pride and democratic ardour.
Nevertheless, Bonaparte's conduct was eminently cautious and reserved.
In the month of May he sent to Paris his most trusted aide-de-camp,
Lavalette, instructing him to sound all parties, to hold aloof from
all engagements, and to report to him dispassionately on the state of
public opinion.[84] Lavalette judged the position of the Directory, or
rather of the Triumvirate which swayed it, to be so precarious that he
cautioned his chief against any definite espousal of its cause; and in
June-July, 1797, Bonaparte almost ceased to correspond with the
Directors except on Italian affairs, probably because he looked
forward to their overthrow as an important step towards his own
supremacy. There was, however, the possibility of a royalist reaction
sweeping all before it in France and ranging the armies against the
civil power. He therefore waited and watched, fully aware of the
enhanced importance which an uncertain situation gives to the outsider
who refuses to show his hand.
Duller eyes than his had discerned that the constitutional conflict
between the Directory and the Councils could not be peaceably
adjusted. The framers of the constitution had designed the slowly
changing Directory as a check on the Councils, which were renewed to
the extent of one-third every year; but, while seeking to put a
regicide drag on the parliamentary coach, they had omitted to provide
against a complete overturn. The Councils could not legally override
the Directory; neither could the Directory veto the decrees of the
Councils, nor, by dissolving them, compel an appeal to the country.
This defect in the constitution had been clearly pointed out by
Necker, and it now drew from Barras the lament:
"Ah, if the constitution of the Year III., which offers so many
sage precautions, had not neglected one of the most important; if
it had foreseen that the two great powers of the State, engaged in
heated debates, must end with open conflicts, when there is no high
court of appeal to arrange them; if it had sufficiently armed the
Directory with the right of dissolving the Chamber!"[85]
As it was, the knot had to be severed by the sword: not, as yet, by
Bonaparte's trenchant blade: he carefully drew back; but where as yet
he feared to tread, Hoche rushed in. This ardently republican general
was inspired by a self-denying patriotism, that flinched not before
odious duties. While Bonaparte was culling laurels in Northern Italy,
Hoche was undertaking the most necessary task of quelling the Vendéan
risings, and later on braved the fogs and storms of the Atlantic in
the hope of rousing all Ireland in revolt. His expedition to Bantry
Bay in December, 1796, having miscarried, he was sent into the
Rhineland. The conclusion of peace by Bonaparte at Leoben again dashed
his hopes, and he therefore received with joy the orders of the
Directory that he should march a large part of his army to Brest for a
second expedition to Ireland. The Directory, however, intended to use
those troops nearer home, and appointed him Minister of War (July
16th). The choice was a good one; Hoche was active, able, and popular
with the soldiery; but he had not yet reached the thirtieth year of
his age, the limit required by the constitution. On this technical
defect the majority of the Councils at once fastened; and their
complaints were redoubled when a large detachment of his troops came
within the distance of the capital forbidden to the army. The
moderates could therefore accuse the triumvirs and Hoche of conspiracy
against the laws; he speedily resigned the Ministry (July 22nd), and
withdrew his troops into Champagne, and finally to the Rhineland.
Now was the opportunity for Bonaparte to take up the _rôle_ of
Cromwell which Hoche had so awkwardly played. And how skilfully the
conqueror of Italy plays it--through subordinates. He was too well
versed in statecraft to let his sword flash before the public gaze. By
this time he had decided to act, and doubtless the fervid Jacobinism
of the soldiery was the chief cause determining his action. At the
national celebration on July 14th he allowed it to have free vent, and
thereupon wrote to the Directory, bitterly reproaching them for their
weakness in face of the royalist plot: "I see that the Clichy Club
means to march over my corpse to the destruction of the Republic." He
ended the diatribe by his usual device, when he desired to remind the
Government of his necessity to them, of offering his resignation, in
case they refused to take vigorous measures against the malcontents.
Yet even now his action was secret and indirect. On July 27th he sent
to the Directors a brief note stating that Augereau had requested
leave to go to Paris, "where his affairs call him"; and that he sent
by this general the originals of the addresses of the army, avowing
its devotion to the constitution. No one would suspect from this that
Augereau was in Bonaparte's confidence and came to carry out the
_coup d'état_. The secret was well preserved. Lavalette was
Bonaparte's official representative; and his neutrality was now
maintained in accordance with a note received from his chief:
"Augereau is coming to Paris: do not put yourself in his power: he has
sown disorder in the army: he is a factious man."
But, while Lavalette was left to trim his sails as best he might,
Augereau was certain to act with energy. Bonaparte knew well that his
Jacobinical lieutenant, famed as the first swordsman of the day, and
the leader of the fighting division of the army, would do his work
thoroughly, always vaunting his own prowess and decrying that of his
commander. It was so. Augereau rushed to Paris, breathing threats of
slaughter against the royalists. Checked for a time by the calculating
_finesse_ of the triumvirs, he prepared to end matters by a single
blow; and, when the time had come, he occupied the strategic points of
the capital, drew a cordon of troops round the Tuileries, where the
Councils sat, invaded the chambers of deputies and consigned to the
Temple the royalists and moderates there present, with their leader,
Pichegru. Barthélemy was also seized; but Carnot, warned by a friend,
fled during the early hours of this eventful day--September 4th (or 18
Fructidor). The mutilated Councils forthwith annulled the late
elections in forty-nine Departments, and passed severe laws against
orthodox priests and the unpardoned _émigrés_ who had ventured to
return to France. The Directory was also intrusted with complete power
to suppress newspapers, to close political clubs, and to declare any
commune in a state of siege. Its functions were now wellnigh as
extensive and absolute as those of the Committee of Public Safety, its
powers being limited only by the incompetence of the individual
Directors and by their paralyzing consciousness that they ruled only
by favour of the army. They had taken the sword to solve a political
problem: two years later they were to fall by that sword.[86]
Augereau fully expected that he would be one of the two Directors who
were elected in place of Carnot and Barthélemy; but the Councils had
no higher opinion of his civic capacity than Bonaparte had formed;
and, to his great disgust, Merlin of Douai and François of Neufchâtel
were chosen. The last scenes of the _coup d'état_ centred around the
transportation of the condemned deputies. One of the early memories of
the future Duc de Broglie recalled the sight of the "_députés
fructidorisés_ travelling in closed carriages, railed up like cages,"
to the seaport whence they were to sail to the lingering agonies of a
tropical prison in French Guiana.
It was a painful spectacle: "the indignation was great, but the
consternation was greater still. Everybody foresaw the renewal of the
Reign of Terror and resignedly prepared for it."
Such were the feelings, even of those who, like Madame de Staël and
her friend Benjamin Constant, had declared before the _coup d'état_
that it was necessary to the salvation of the Republic. That
accomplished woman was endowed with nearly every attribute of genius
except political foresight and self-restraint. No sooner had the blow
been dealt than she fell to deploring its results, which any
fourth-rate intelligence might have foreseen. "Liberty was the only
power really conquered"--such was her later judgment on Fructidor. Now
that Liberty fled affrighted, the errant enthusiasms of the gifted
authoress clung for a brief space to Bonaparte. Her eulogies on his
exploits, says Lavalette, who listened to her through a dinner in
Talleyrand's rooms, possessed all the mad disorder and exaggeration of
inspiration; and, after the repast was over, the votaress refused to
pass out before an aide-de-camp of Bonaparte! The incident is
characteristic both of Madame de Staël's moods and of the whims of the
populace. Amidst the disenchantments of that time, when the pursuit of
liberty seemed but an idle quest, when royalists were the champions of
parliamentary rule and republicans relied on military force, all eyes
turned wearily away from the civic broils at Paris to the visions of
splendour revealed by the conqueror of Italy. Few persons knew how
largely their new favourite was responsible for the events of
Fructidor; all of them had by heart the names of his victories; and
his popularity flamed to the skies when he recrossed the Alps,
bringing with him a lucrative peace with Austria.
The negotiations with that Power had dragged on slowly through the
whole summer and far into the autumn, mainly owing to the hopes of the
Emperor Francis that the disorder in France would filch from her the
meed of victory. Doubtless that would have been the case, had not
Bonaparte, while striking down the royalists at Paris through his
lieutenant, remained at the head of his victorious legions in Venetia
ready again to invade Austria, if occasion should arise.
In some respects, the _coup d'état_ of Fructidor helped on the
progress of the negotiations. That event postponed, if it did not
render impossible, the advent of civil war in France; and, like
Pride's Purge in our civil strifes, it installed in power a Government
which represented the feelings of the army and of its chief. Moreover,
it rid him of the presence of Clarke, his former colleague in the
negotiations, whose relations with Carnot aroused the suspicions of
Barras and led to his recall. Bonaparte was now the sole
plenipotentiary of France. The final negotiations with Austria and the
resulting treaty of Campo Formio may therefore be considered as almost
entirely his handiwork.
And yet, at this very time, the head of the Foreign Office at Paris
was a man destined to achieve the greatest diplomatic reputation of
the age. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand seemed destined for the task of
uniting the society of the old _régime_ with the France of the
Revolution. To review his life would be to review the Revolution. With
a reforming zeal begotten of his own intellectual acuteness and of
resentment against his family, which had disinherited him for the
crime of lameness, he had led the first assaults of 1789 against the
privileges of the nobles and of the clerics among whom his lot had
perforce been cast. He acted as the head of the new "constitutional"
clergy, and bestowed his episcopal blessing at the Feast of Pikes in
1790; but, owing to his moderation, he soon fell into disfavour with
the extreme men who seized on power. After a sojourn in England and
the United States, he came back to France, and on the suggestion of
Madame de Staël was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs (July,
1797). To this post he brought the highest gifts: his early clerical
training gave a keen edge to an intellect naturally subtle and
penetrating: his intercourse with Mirabeau gave him a grip on the
essentials of sound policy and diplomacy: his sojourn abroad widened
his vision, and imbued him with an admiration for English institutions
and English moderation. Yet he loved France with a deep and fervent
love. For her he schemed; for her he threw over friends or foes with a
Macchiavellian facility. Amidst all the glamour of the Napoleonic
Empire he discerned the dangers that threatened France; and he warned
his master--as uselessly as he warned reckless nobles, priestly
bigots, and fanatical Jacobins in the past, or the unteachable zealots
of the restored monarchy. His life, when viewed, not in regard to its
many sordid details, but to its chief guiding principle, was one long
campaign against French _élan_ and partisan obstinacy; and he sealed
it with the quaint declaration in his will that, on reviewing his
career, he found he had never abandoned a party before it had
abandoned itself. Talleyrand was equipped with a diversity of gifts:
his gaze, intellectual yet composed, blenched not when he uttered a
scathing criticism or a diplomatic lie: his deep and penetrating voice
gave force to all his words, and the curl of his lip or the scornful
lifting of his eyebrows sometimes disconcerted an opponent more than
his biting sarcasm. In brief, this disinherited noble, this unfrocked
priest, this disenchanted Liberal, was the complete expression of the
inimitable society of the old _régime_, when quickened intellectually
by Voltaire and dulled by the Terror. After doing much to destroy the
old society, he was now to take a prominent share in its
reconstruction on a modern basis.[87]
Such was the man who now commenced his chief life-work, the task of
guiding Napoleon. "The mere name of Bonaparte is an aid which ought to
smooth away all my difficulties"--these were the obsequious terms in
which he began his correspondence with the great general. In reality,
he distrusted him; but whether from diffidence, or from the weakness
of his own position, which as yet was little more than that of
the head clerk of his department, he did nothing to assert the
predominance of civil over military influence in the negotiations now
proceeding.
Two months before Talleyrand accepted office, Bonaparte had enlarged
his original demands on Austria, and claimed for France the whole of
the lands on the left or west bank of the Rhine, and for the Cisalpine
Republic all the territory up to the River Adige. To these demands the
Court of Vienna offered a tenacious resistance which greatly irritated
him. "These people are so slow," he exclaimed, "they think that a
peace like this ought to be meditated upon for three years first."
Concurrently with the Franco-Austrian negotiations, overtures for a
peace between France and England were being discussed at Lille. Into
these it is impossible to enter farther than to notice that in these
efforts Pitt and the other British Ministers (except Grenville) were
sincerely desirous of peace, and that negotiations broke down owing to
the masterful tone adopted by the Directory. It was perhaps
unfortunate that Lord Malmesbury was selected as the English
negotiator, for his behaviour in the previous year had been construed
by the French as dilatory and insincere. But the Directors may on
better evidence be charged with postponing a settlement until they
had struck down their foes within France. Bonaparte's letters at this
time show that he hoped for the conclusion of a peace with England,
doubtless in order that his own pressure on Austria might be
redoubled. In this he was to be disappointed. After Fructidor the
Directory assumed overweening airs. Talleyrand was bidden to enjoin on
the French plenipotentiaries the adoption of a loftier tone. Maret,
the French envoy at Lille, whose counsels had ever been on the side of
moderation, was abruptly replaced by a "Fructidorian"; and a decisive
refusal was given to the English demand for the retention of Trinidad
and the Cape, at the expense of Spain and the Batavian Republic
respectively. Indeed, the Directory intended to press for the cession
of the Channel Islands to France and of Gibraltar to Spain, and that,
too, at the end of a maritime war fruitful in victories for the Union
Jack.[88]
Towards the King of Sardinia the new Directory was equally imperious.
The throne of Turin was now occupied by Charles Emmanuel IV. He
succeeded to a troublous heritage. Threatened by democratic republics
at Milan and Genoa, and still more by the effervescence of his own
subjects, he strove to gain an offensive and defensive alliance with
France, as the sole safeguard against revolution. To this end he
offered 10,000 Piedmontese for service with Bonaparte, and even
secretly covenanted to cede the island of Sardinia to France. But
these offers could not divert Barras and his colleagues from their
revolutionary policy. They spurned the alliance with the House of
Savoy, and, despite the remonstrances of Bonaparte, they fomented
civil discords in Piedmont such as endangered his communications with
France. Indeed, the Directory after Fructidor was deeply imbued with
fear of their commander in Italy. To increase his difficulties was
now their paramount desire; and under the pretext of extending liberty
in Italy, they instructed Talleyrand to insist on the inclusion of
Venice and Friuli in the Cisalpine Republic. Austria must be content
with Trieste, Istria, and Dalmatia, must renounce all interest in the
fate of the Ionian Isles, and find in Germany all compensation for her
losses in Italy. Such was the ultimatum of the Directory (September
16th). But a loophole of escape was left to Bonaparte; the conduct of
these negotiations was confided solely to him, and he had already
decided their general tenor by giving his provisional assent to the
acquisition by Austria of the east bank of the Adige and the city of
Venice. From these terms he was disinclined to diverge. He was weary
of "this old Europe": his gaze was directed towards Corfu, Malta, and
Egypt; and when he received the official ultimatum, he saw that the
Directory desired a renewal of the war under conditions highly
embarrassing for him. "Yes: I see clearly that they are preparing
defeats for me," he exclaimed to his aide-de-camp Lavalette. They
angered him still more when, on the death of Hoche, they intrusted
their Rhenish forces, numbering 120,000 men, to the command of
Augereau, and sent to the Army of Italy an officer bearing a manifesto
written by Augereau concerning Fructidor, which set forth the anxiety
felt by the Directors concerning Bonaparte's political views. At this
Bonaparte fired up and again offered his resignation (September 25th):
"No power on earth shall, after this horrible and most unexpected
act of ingratitude by the Government, make me continue to serve it.
My health imperiously demands calm and repose.... My recompense is
in my conscience and in the opinion of posterity. Believe me, that
at any time of danger, I shall be the first to defend the
Constitution of the Year III."
The resignation was of course declined, in terms most flattering to
Bonaparte; and the Directors prepared to ratify the treaty with
Sardinia.
Indeed, the fit of passion once passed, the determination to dominate
events again possessed him, and he decided to make peace, despite the
recent instructions of the Directory that no peace would be honourable
which sacrificed Venice to Austria. There is reason to believe that he
now regretted this sacrifice. His passionate outbursts against Venice
after the _Pâques véronaises_, his denunciations of "that fierce and
bloodstained rule," had now given place to some feelings of pity for
the people whose ruin he had so artfully compassed; and the social
intercourse with Venetians which he enjoyed at Passeriano, the castle
of the Doge Manin, may well have inspired some regard for the proud
city which he was now about to barter away to Austria. Only so,
however, could he peacefully terminate the wearisome negotiations with
the Emperor. The Austrian envoy, Count Cobenzl, struggled hard to gain
the whole of Venetia, and the Legations, along with the half of
Lombardy.[89] From these exorbitant demands he was driven by the
persistent vigour of Bonaparte's assaults. The little Corsican proved
himself an expert in diplomatic wiles, now enticing the Imperialist on
to slippery ground, and occasionally shocking him by calculated
outbursts of indignation or bravado. After many days spent in
intellectual fencing, the discussions were narrowed down to Mainz,
Mantua, Venice, and the Ionian Isles. On the fate of these islands a
stormy discussion arose, Cobenzl stipulating for their complete
independence, while Bonaparte passionately claimed them for France. In
one of these sallies his vehement gestures overturned a cabinet with a
costly vase; but the story that he smashed the vase, as a sign of his
power to crush the House of Austria, is a later refinement on the
incident, about which Cobenzl merely reported to Vienna--"He behaved
like a fool." Probably his dextrous disclosure of the severe terms
which the Directory ordered him to extort was far more effective than
this boisterous _gasconnade_. Finally, after threatening an immediate
attack on the Austrian positions, he succeeded on three of the
questions above named, but at the sacrifice of Venice to Austria.
The treaty was signed on October 17th at the village of Campo Formio.
The published articles may be thus summarized: Austria ceded to the
French Republic her Belgic provinces. Of the once extensive Venetian
possessions France gained the Ionian Isles, while Austria acquired
Istria, Dalmatia, the districts at the mouth of the Cattaro, the city
of Venice, and the mainland of Venetia as far west as Lake Garda, the
Adige, and the lower part of the River Po. The Hapsburgs recognized
the independence of the now enlarged Cisalpine Republic. France and
Austria agreed to frame a treaty of commerce on the basis of "the most
favoured nation." The Emperor ceded to the dispossessed Duke of Modena
the territory of Breisgau on the east of the Rhine. A congress was to
be held at Rastadt, at which the plenipotentiaries of France and of
the Germanic Empire were to regulate affairs between these two Powers.
Secret articles bound the Emperor to use his influence in the Empire
to secure for France the left bank of the Rhine; while France was to
use her good offices to procure for the Emperor the Archbishopric of
Salzburg and the Bavarian land between that State and the River Inn.
Other secret articles referred to the indemnities which were to be
found in Germany for some of the potentates who suffered by the
changes announced in the public treaty.
The bartering away of Venice awakened profound indignation. After more
than a thousand years of independence, that city was abandoned to the
Emperor by the very general who had promised to free Italy. It was in
vain that Bonaparte strove to soothe the provisional government of
that city through the influence of a Venetian Jew, who, after his
conversion, had taken the famous name of Dandolo. Summoning him to
Passeriano, he explained to him the hard necessity which now dictated
the transfer of Venice to Austria. France could not now shed any more
of her best blood for what was, after all, only "a moral cause": the
Venetians therefore must cultivate resignation for the present and
hope for the future.
[Illustration: CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO, 1797
The boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire are indicated by thick dots.
The Austrian Dominions are indicated by vertical lines. The Prussian
Dominions are indicated by horizontal lines. The Ecclesiastical
States are indicated by dotted areas.]
The advice was useless. The Venetian democrats determined on a last
desperate venture. They secretly sent three deputies, among them
Dandolo, with a large sum of money wherewith to bribe the Directors to
reject the treaty of Campo Formio. This would have been quite
practicable, had not their errand become known to Bonaparte. Alarmed
and enraged at this device, which, if successful, would have consigned
him to infamy, he sent Duroc in chase; and the envoys, caught before
they crossed the Maritime Alps, were brought before the general at
Milan. To his vehement reproaches and threats they opposed a dignified
silence, until Dandolo, appealing to his generosity, awakened those
nobler feelings which were never long dormant. Then he quietly
dismissed them--to witness the downfall of their beloved city.
_Acribus initiis, ut ferme talia, incuriosa fine_; these cynical
words, with which the historian of the Roman Empire blasted the
movements of his age, may almost serve as the epitaph to Bonaparte's
early enthusiasms. Proclaiming at the beginning of his Italian
campaigns that he came to free Italy, he yet finished his course of
almost unbroken triumphs by a surrender which his panegyrists have
scarcely attempted to condone. But the fate of Venice was almost
forgotten amidst the jubilant acclaim which greeted the conqueror of
Italy on his arrival at Paris. All France rang with the praises of the
hero who had spread liberty throughout Northern and Central Italy,
had enriched the museums of Paris with priceless masterpieces of art,
whose army had captured 150,000 prisoners, and had triumphed in 18
pitched battles--for Caldiero was now reckoned as a French
victory--and 47 smaller engagements. The Directors, shrouding their
hatred and fear of the masterful proconsul under their Roman togas,
greeted him with uneasy effusiveness. The climax of the official
comedy was reached when, at the reception of the conqueror, Barras,
pointing northwards, exclaimed: "Go there and capture the giant
corsair that infests the seas: go punish in London outrages that have
too long been unpunished": whereupon, as if overcome by his emotions,
he embraced the general. Amidst similar attentions bestowed by the
other Directors, the curtain falls on the first, or Italian, act of
the young hero's career, soon to rise on oriental adventures that were
to recall the exploits of Alexander.
* * * * *