Clarke, tired of his residence in Florence, wrote letter after letter, demanding his recal to Paris, terming his embassy a species of exile; and Bonaparte, believing that his punishment was sufficiently severe, at last gave him leave to return; but desired him to travel by the way of Lisle (a fortified city in the departement of the north), to the camp at Boulogne. In Belgium he gave him the title of Councillor of State, and created for him two places in the cabinet—one as secretary for the marine, and the other for the war.
Arrived at the camp of Boulogne, one of the earliest matters entrusted to the general was the proposed establishment of Irish brigades, to co-operate in the projected invasion of Britain; and these corps Clarke believed might be recruited among the Irishmen who were prisoners of war in France. While this project was on the tapis, he had many interviews with the famous Theobald Wolfe Tone, who had been appointed by the Directory chef-de-brigade, and afterwards adjutant-general; and with Lazarus Hoche, a frank, resolute, and zealous republican, who, from being a stable-boy and private of the French guards, raised himself to one of the highest positions in the army of France. In 1792, he was a corporal; in 1793, he was a general, commanding the army of the Moselle; and in the two subsequent years he subdued La Vendée.
Tone was introduced to Hoche by Clarke, and in his Memoirs he details the questions they asked him concerning the state of Ireland; where a landing might be effected; where provisions might be relied on, particularly bread; whether French auxiliaries might count on being able to form an Irish Provisional Government, either of the Catholic Committee, or of the chiefs of the Irish patriots? On these subjects Tone had many a long and anxious conference with his countryman Clarke, and with Hoche.
After a long interview with Hoche, in the cabinet of Fleury one day, Wolfe Tone was asked, what form of government the Irish would adopt, in the event of their successfully encountering the British troops?
"I was going to answer him with great earnestness," says Tone, in his interesting Memoirs, "when General Clarke entered, to request that we would come to dinner with Citizen Carnot. We accordingly adjourned the conversation to the apartment of the President, where we found Carnot, and one or two more. Hoche, after some time, took me aside, and repeated his question. I replied, 'Most decidedly a republic.' He asked again, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'As sure as I can be of anything. I know nobody in Ireland who thinks of any other system——.' Carnot joined us here, with a pocket-map of Ireland, and the conversation between Clarke, Hoche, and him became pretty general, every one else having left the room. I said scarcely anything, as I wished to listen. Hoche related to Carnot the substance of what passed between him and me. When he mentioned his anxiety as to bread, Carnot laughed and said, 'There is plenty of beef in Ireland—if you cannot get bread, you must eat beef.' I told him I hoped they would find both; adding, that within twenty years Ireland had become a great corn country, so that at present it made a considerable article in her exports."—Vol. ii. pp. 14-18.
The patience of Wolfe Tone was sorely tried by many and unnecessary delays; and, after all, the hopes of the Irish exiles ended only in mustering a regiment of their countrymen, which, instead of embarking for Ireland, marched to the invasion of Spain, under the unfortunate Colonel Lewis Lacy, the son of a race of hereditary Irish soldiers, as related elsewhere.
In the year following his double appointment as minister for the war and marine, Clarke made the German campaign on the staff of Bonaparte, and was present at the capture of the free city of Ulm, in the Swabian circle, on the 17th October, 1805, and at other operations, which drove the army of the Archduke Ferdinand across the Danube; and, on the capture of Vienna by the corps of the brave Murat and Lannes, he was named governor of the city and also of Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia, Styria, Friuli, Trieste, &c. His moderation and justice in this high command elevated him among the victors, and won him the love and esteem of the vanquished. He also received the cordon of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, and soon after was ordered to define the line of demarcation between Brisgau, in the kingdom of Wirtemberg, and the Grand Duchy of Baden.
Two months were spent by him in conferences and diplomacy. From the 9th to the 20th of July, 1806, he was engaged with the Russian plenipotentiary, and their interviews were terminated by the wonderful treaty which opened and ceded to France, Cattaro, a Venetian territory in Dalmatia, with its capital, harbour, and citadel; and which maintained Gustavus IV. in possession of the ancient Duchy of Pomerania, and left to be achieved, at an early period, the junction of Sicily to the kingdom of Murat—the whole being arranged by them, without condescending to ask the advice of Great Britain, which was then the faithful ally of Prussia. This treaty was never ratified by the Emperor Alexander. The other conferences took place between Clarke and Lord Yarmouth, to whom Charles Fox added the Scottish Earl of Lauderdale; while, to assist Clarke, the French government added Jean Baptiste Champagny, the Duc de Cadore, who was only a spectator of the negotiations, which were without result, and are of no consequence to the reader; but Clarke, who had displayed his usual acuteness, tact, and skill in all his meetings with the Lords Yarmouth and Lauderdale, was not a little proud of having prevailed upon M. D'Oubril to sign certain clauses he submitted to him.
Russia, however, was in no haste to evacuate Cattaro, and the Emperor Alexander began to augment his army; so from September, 1806, it became evident that if France declared war against Prussia, she would have to encounter Russia also. In the first meeting concerning these affairs Clarke said, "that the convention recently concluded with Russia was for France equivalent to a victory; and that henceforward his master, the Emperor Napoleon, had the right of proposing articles more advantageous than those he had lately made." He qualified the terms of the treaty which he wished them to adopt, and in particular l'uti possedetis; of vague conversations on the politics of Rome, he said that Bonaparte had never adopted this uti possedetis for a basis, without which Moravia, Styria, and Carniola would have remained still in his hands.