Italian rebellion having been subdued, the French nation roused to enthusiasm, independent funds provided, and the Directory put in its place, Bonaparte was free to unfold and consummate his further plans. Before him was the territory of Venice, a state once vigorous and terrible, but now, as far as the country populations were concerned, an enfeebled and gentle ruler. With quick decision a French corps of observation was sent to seize Brescia and watch the Tyrolean passes. It was, of course, to the advantage of Austria that Venetian neutrality should not be violated, except by her own troops. But the French, having made a bold beginning of formal defiance, were quick to go further. Beaulieu had not hesitated on false pretenses to seize Peschiera, another Venetian town, which, by its situation at the outlet of Lake Garda, was of the utmost strategic value. He now stood confronting his pursuers on a strong line established, without reference to territorial boundaries, behind the whole course of the Mincio. Such was the situation to the north and east of the French army. Southeastward, on the swampy banks of the same river, near its junction with the Po, was Mantua. This city, which even under ordinary circumstances was an almost impregnable fortress, had been strengthened by an extraordinary garrison, while the surrounding lowlands were artificially inundated as a supreme measure of safety.
Bonaparte intended to hurl Beaulieu back, and seize the line of the Adige, far stronger than that of the Mincio for repelling an Austrian invasion from the north. What to him was the neutrality of a weak government, and what were the precepts of international law with no force behind it but a moral one? Austria, according to treaty, had the right to move her troops over two great military roads within Venetian jurisdiction, and her defeated armies had just used one of them for retreat. The victorious commander could scarcely be expected to pause in his pursuit for lack of a few lines of writing on a piece of stamped paper. Accordingly, by a simple feint, the Austrians were led to believe that his object was the seizure of Peschiera and the passes above Lake Garda; consequently, defying international law and violating their treaties, they massed themselves at that place to meet his attack. Then with a swift, forced march the French were concentrated not on the enemy's strong right, but on his weak center at Borghetto. Bonaparte's cavalry, hitherto badly mounted and timid, but now reorganized, were thrown forward for their easy task. Under Murat's command they dashed through, and, encouraged by their own brilliant successes, were thenceforward famous for efficiency. Bonaparte, with the main army, then hurried past Mantua as it lay behind its bulwarks of swamp-fever, and the Austrian force was cut in two. The right wing fled to the mountains; the left was virtually in a trap. Without any declaration of war against Venice, the French immediately occupied Verona, and Legnago a few days later; Peschiera was fortified, and Pizzighettone occupied as Brescia had been, while contributions of every sort were levied more ruthlessly even than on the Milanese. The mastery of these new positions isolated Mantua more completely than a formal investment would have done; but it was, nevertheless, considered wise to leave no loophole, and a few weeks later an army of eight thousand Frenchmen sat down in force before its gates.
It was certain that within a short time a powerful Austrian force would pour out from the Alpine passes to the north. Further advance into Venetian lands would therefore be ruin for the French. There was nothing left but the slow hours of a siege, for Mantua had become the decisive point. In the heats of summer this interval might well have been devoted to ease; but it was almost the busiest period of Bonaparte's life. According to the Directory's rejected plan for a division of command in Italy, the mission assigned to Kellermann had been to organize republics in Piedmont and in the Milanese, and then to defend the Tyrolean passes against an Austrian advance from the north. Bonaparte was to have moved southward along the shore to revolutionize Genoa, Tuscany, the Papal States, and Naples successively. The whole idea having been scornfully rejected by Bonaparte, the Directory had been forced by the brilliant successes of their general not merely to condone his disobedience, but actually to approve his policy. He now had the opportunity of justifying his foresight. Understanding, as the government did not, that Austria was their only redoubtable foe by land, the real bulwark of the whole Italian system, he had first shattered her power, at least for the time. The prop having been removed, the structure was toppling, and during this interval of waiting, it fell. His opportunity was made, his resolution ripe.
In front, Venice was at his mercy; behind him, guerrilla bands of so-called Barbets, formed in Genoese territory and equipped by disaffected fugitives, were threatening the lately conquered gateway from France where the Ligurian Alps and the Apennines meet. Bonaparte's first step was to impose a new arrangement upon the submissive Piedmont, whereby, to make assurance doubly sure, Alessandria was added to the list of fortresses in French hands; then, as his second measure, Murat and Lannes appeared before Genoa at the head of an armed force, with instructions first to seize and shoot the many offenders who had taken refuge in her territory after the risings in Lombardy, and then to threaten the Senate with further retaliatory measures, and command the instant dismissal of the imperial Austrian plenipotentiary. From Paris came orders to drive the English fleet out of the harbor of Leghorn, where, in spite of the treaty between Tuscany and France, there still were hostile arsenals and ships. It was done. Naples did not wait to see her territories invaded, but sued for mercy and was humbled, being forced to withdraw her navy from that of the coalition, and her cavalry from the Austrian army. For the moment the city of Rome was left in peace. The strength of papal dominion lay in Bologna, and the other legations beyond the Apennines, comprising many of the finest districts in Italy; and there a master-stroke was to be made.
On the throne of Modena was an Austrian archduke: his government was remorselessly shattered and virtually destroyed, the ransom being fixed at the ruinous sum of ten million francs with twenty of the best pictures in the principality. But on that of Parma was a Spanish prince with whose house France had made one treaty and hoped to make a much better one. The duke, therefore, was graciously allowed to purchase an armistice by an enormous but yet possible contribution of two million francs in money, together with provisions and horses in quantity. The famous St. Jerome of Correggio was among the twenty paintings seized in Modena. The archduke repeatedly offered to ransom it for one million francs, the amount at which its value was estimated, but his request was not granted. Next came Bologna and its surrounding territory. Such had been the tyranny of ecclesiastical control that the subjects of the Pope in that most ancient and famous seat of learning welcomed the French with unfeigned joy; and the fairest portion of the Papal States passed by its own desire from under the old yoke. The successor of St. Peter was glad to ransom his capital by a payment nominally of twenty-one million francs. In reality he had to surrender far more; for his galleries, like those of Modena, were stripped of their gems, while the funds seized in government offices, and levied in irregular ways, raised the total value forwarded to Paris to nearly double the nominal contribution. All this, Bonaparte explained, was but a beginning, the idleness of summer heats. "This armistice," he wrote to Paris on June twenty-first, 1796, "being concluded with the dog-star rather than with the papal army, my opinion is that you should be in no haste to make peace, so that in September, if all goes well in Germany and northern Italy, we can take possession of Rome."
Josephine, Empress of the French.
From the painting by Francois Gérard.
In the Museum of Versailles.
In fact, this ingenious man was really practising moderation, as both he and the terrified Italians, considering their relative situations, understood it. Whatever had been the original arrangement with the directors, there was nothing they did not now expect and demand from Italy; they wrote requiring, in addition to all that had hitherto been mentioned, plunder of every kind from Leghorn; masts, cordage, and ship supplies from Genoa; horses, provisions, and forage from Milan; and contributions of jewels and precious stones from the reigning princes. As for the papal power, the French radicals would gladly have destroyed it. They had not forgotten that Basseville, a diplomatic agent of the republic, had been killed in the streets of Rome, and that no reparation had been made either by the punishment of the assassin or otherwise. The Pope, they declared, had been the real author of the terrible civil war fomented by the unyielding clergy, and waged with such fury in France. Moreover, the whole sentimental and philosophical movement of the century in France and elsewhere considered the ecclesiastical centralization and hierarchical tyranny of the papacy as a dangerous survival of absolutism.