Joubert, thus disappointed of his promised object, began to find himself in an embarrassing situation. The whole country was in insurrection around him, and a retreat in the line by which he had advanced, might have exposed him to great loss, if not to destruction. He determined, therefore, to elude the enemy, and by descending the river Drave, to achieve a junction with his commander-in-chief Napoleon. He accomplished his difficult march by breaking down the bridges behind him, and thus arresting the progress of the enemy; but it was with difficulty, and not without loss, that he effected his proposed union, and his retreat from the Tyrol gave infinite spirits not only to the martial Tyrolese, but to all the favourers of Austria in the North of Italy. The Austrian general Laudon sallied from the Tyrol at the head of a considerable force, and compelled the slender body of French under Balland, to shut themselves up in garrisons; and their opponents were for the moment again lords of a part of Lombardy. They also re-occupied Trieste and Fiume, which Buonaparte had not been able sufficiently to garrison; so that the rear of the French army seemed to be endangered.[271]
The Venetians, at this crisis, fatally for their ancient republic, if indeed its doom had not, as is most likely, been long before sealed, received with eager ears the accounts, exaggerated as they were by rumour, that the French were driven from the Tyrol, and the Austrians about to descend the Adige, and resume their ancient empire in Italy. The Senate were aware that neither their government nor their persons were acceptable to the French general, and that they had offended him irreconcilably by declining the intimate alliance and contribution of troops which he had demanded. He had parted from them with such menaces as were not easily to be misunderstood. They believed, if his vengeance might not be instant, it was only the more sure; and conceiving him now deeply engaged in Germany, and surrounded by the Austrian levies en masse from the warlike countries of Hungary and Croatia, they imagined that throwing their own weight into the scale at so opportune a moment, must weigh it down for ever. To chastise their insurgent subjects of Bergamo and Brescia, was an additional temptation.
April 16.
Their mode of making war savoured of the ancient vindictive temper ascribed to their countrymen. An insurrection was secretly organized through all the territories which Venice still possessed on the mainland, and broke out, like the celebrated Sicilian vespers, in blood and massacre. In Verona they assassinated more than a hundred Frenchmen, many of them sick soldiers in the hospitals[272]—an abominable cruelty which could not fail to bring a curse on their undertaking. Fioravante, a Venetian general, marched at the head of a body of Sclavonians to besiege the forts of Verona, into which the remaining French had made their retreat, and where they defended themselves. Laudon made his appearance with his Austrians and Tyrolese, and it seemed as if the fortunes of Buonaparte had at length found a check.
OVERTURES OF PEACE.
But the awakening from this pleasing dream was equally sudden and dreadful. News arrived that preliminaries of peace had been agreed upon, and an armistice signed between France and Austria. Laudon, therefore, and the auxiliaries on whom the Venetians had so much relied, retired from Verona. The Lombards sent an army to the assistance of the French. The Sclavonians, under Fioravante, after fighting vigorously, were compelled to surrender. The insurgent towns of Vicenza, Treviso, and Padua, were again occupied by the Republicans. Rumour proclaimed the terrible return of Napoleon and his army, and the ill-advised Senate of Venice were lost in stupor, and scarce had sense left to decide betwixt unreserved submission and hopeless defence.
It was one of the most artful rules in Buonaparte's policy, that when he had his enemy at decided advantage, by some point having been attained which seemed to give a complete turn to the campaign in his favour, he seldom failed to offer peace, and peace upon conditions much more favourable than perhaps the opposite party expected. By doing this, he secured such immediate and undisputed fruits of his victory, as the treaty of peace contained; and he was sure of means to prosecute farther advantages at some future opportunity. He obtained, moreover, the character of generosity; and, in the present instance, he avoided the great danger of urging to bay so formidable a power as Austria, whose despair might be capable of the most formidable efforts.
March 31.
With this purpose, and assuming for the first time that disregard for the usual ceremonial of courts, and etiquette of politics, which he afterwards seemed to have pleasure in displaying, he wrote a letter in person to the Archduke Charles on the subject of peace.
This composition affects that abrupt laconic severity of style, which cuts short argument, by laying down general maxims of philosophy of a trite character, and breaks through the usual laboured periphrastic introductions with which ordinary politicians preface their proposals, when desirous of entering upon a treaty. "It is the part of a brave soldier," he said, "to make war, but to wish for peace. The present strife has lasted six years. Have we not yet slain enough of men, and sufficiently outraged humanity? Peace is demanded on all sides. Europe at large has laid down the arms assumed against the French Republic. Your nation remains alone in hostility, and yet blood flows faster than ever. This sixth campaign has commenced under ominous circumstances.—End how it will, some thousands of men more will be slain on either side; and at length, after all, we must come to an agreement, for every thing must have an end at last, even the angry passions of men. The Executive Directory made known to the Emperor their desire to put a period to the war which desolates both countries, but the intervention of the Court of London opposed it. Is there then no means of coming to an understanding, and must we continue to cut each other's throats for the interests or passions of a nation, herself a stranger to the miseries of war? You, the general-in-chief, who approach by birth so near to the crown, and are above all those petty passions which agitate ministers, and the members of government, will you resolve to be the benefactor of mankind, and the true saviour of Germany? Do not suppose that I mean by that expression to intimate, that it is impossible for you to defend yourself by force of arms; but under the supposition, that fortune were to become favourable to you, Germany would be equally exposed to ravage. With respect to my own feelings, general, if this proposition should be the means of saving one single man's life, I should prefer a civic crown so merited, to the melancholy glory attending military success."