The Life of Napoleon I Part 7

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 _const.i.tutional 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 n.o.bleman:

"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wrote to Talleyrand that the genuine love of liberty was feeble in Italy, and that, as soon as French influences were withdrawn, the Italian Jacobins would be murdered by the populace.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 const.i.tution 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 n.o.ble, Serbelloni, to be the first President of the Cisalpine Republic, and a scion of the august House of the Visconti was sent as its amba.s.sador 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 s.p.a.ce was thronged with an enormous crowd which took up the words of the civic oath uttered by the President. The Archbishop of Milan celebrated Ma.s.s 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 pet.i.tioned 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 s.p.a.cious corridors and saloons. There were to be seen Italian n.o.bles, 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.sionate 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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, pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sion helped to spur on the lover to that terrific energy which makes the Italian campaign unique even amidst the Napoleonic wars. Beaulieu, Wurmser, 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! Wurmser 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 pa.s.sion.

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.

Fetes, b.a.l.l.s, 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 a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.sion. 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 Pa.s.seriano, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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'etat_ 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 n.o.bles and clergy. The very cla.s.s 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 Barthelemy, a const.i.tutional 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 _emigre_, 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 Reveilliere-Lepeaux, 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 dispa.s.sionately 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 const.i.tutional conflict between the Directory and the Councils could not be peaceably adjusted. The framers of the const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution had been clearly pointed out by Necker, and it now drew from Barras the lament:

"Ah, if the const.i.tution 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 Vendean 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 const.i.tution. 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 _role_ 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 const.i.tution. No one would suspect from this that Augereau was in Bonaparte's confidence and came to carry out the _coup d'etat_. 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. Barthelemy 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 pa.s.sed severe laws against orthodox priests and the unpardoned _emigres_ 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 Barthelemy; but the Councils had no higher opinion of his civic capacity than Bonaparte had formed; and, to his great disgust, Merlin of Douai and Francois of Neufchatel were chosen. The last scenes of the _coup d'etat_ centred around the transportation of the condemned deputies. One of the early memories of the future Duc de Broglie recalled the sight of the "_deputes fructidorises_ 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 Stael and her friend Benjamin Constant, had declared before the _coup d'etat_ 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 auth.o.r.ess clung for a brief s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.s out before an aide-de-camp of Bonaparte! The incident is characteristic both of Madame de Stael'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'etat_ 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 _regime_ 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 a.s.saults of 1789 against the privileges of the n.o.bles and of the clerics among whom his lot had perforce been cast. He acted as the head of the new "const.i.tutional"

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 Stael 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 inst.i.tutions 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 Machiavellian 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 n.o.bles, 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 _elan_ 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 n.o.ble, this unfrocked priest, this disenchanted Liberal, was the complete expression of the inimitable society of the old _regime_, 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 a.s.sert 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sent 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 embarra.s.sing 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 ingrat.i.tude 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 Const.i.tution 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 pa.s.sion once pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sionate outbursts against Venice after the _Paques veronaises_, 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 compa.s.sed; and the social intercourse with Venetians which he enjoyed at Pa.s.seriano, 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 a.s.saults. 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 pa.s.sionately 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 Pa.s.seriano, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 n.o.bler feelings which were never long dormant. Then he quietly dismissed them--to witness the downfall of their beloved city.