favorable than before. Belgium might be incorporated in France, and Holland made a dependency, if the French would renounce their claim to the most important among the Dutch colonies which England had conquered, including the Cape of Good Hope. There was no good will on the part of the French commissioners from the beginning, and the new ones who were appointed after the eighteenth of Fructidor proved to be utterly impracticable. The negotiations were marked by caviling over unimportant trifles and a suspicious indifference on both sides to really important concessions. Both parties, as later appeared, were fully aware of the impending revolution at Paris: the British plenipotentiary was confident in the restoration of royalty, the French commission was equally sure that the radical triumvirate would regain their mastery. Naturally it was a dispirited embassy which soon returned to England, when not merely the facts but the meaning and ultimate consequences of that revolution were known. Similar conditions attended the negotiation of Caillard at Berlin with Panine for a peace with Russia; only there, a treaty was signed. In it the French republic renounced its right or privilege of propagandism, and therefore the Directory after Fructidor rejected it. Throwing the responsibility for the coming war on England and Russia, the triumvirate without a moment's loss renewed its agitations in both Holland and Prussia to "fructidorize" both and secure them as allies. This insanity was merely the pendant of that with which they spurred Bonaparte to activity in forcing Austria's prompt surrender, withdrawing their agent from the negotiations and thus delivering themselves and France more and more completely into his hands. The process of "ripening the pear" for his enjoyment could not have been more auspiciously inaugurated.

The season was for Bonaparte, as may well be supposed, just as busy on the military as it had been on the political side. Day and night the soldiers in the conquered Venetian lands wrought with ceaseless labor until the whole territory was in perfect order as a base of military operations. Not a single strategic point there or elsewhere was overlooked. Even the little island of St. Peter in the Mediterranean was taken from Piedmont, and garrisoned with two hundred men. It was generally understood that war might break out at any moment. Every contribution under treaty obligations was exacted to the utmost farthing. As a single illustration of the French dealing, jewels and gems estimated by the Pope as worth ten millions of francs were accepted by the French experts at a valuation of five. Within the previous twelve months Bonaparte had sent to Paris one million four hundred thousand dollars, of which he destined four hundred thousand for the outfit of a fleet. It was but a moiety of what he had raised. During this summer, on the contrary, he kept everything: even the six hundred thousand dollars promised to Barras were not paid. It is therefore likely that he had in hand upward of six million dollars in cash, and commissary stores to the extent of possibly a million more.

The size of his army is difficult to estimate. By the records of the War Office he had in April one hundred and forty-one thousand two hundred and twenty-three effectives, of whom one hundred and twenty-one thousand four hundred and twenty were fit for service. On September third he wrote to Carnot that he had seventy-five thousand effective men, of whom fifteen thousand were in garrison; but a fortnight later he admitted a total of eighty-three thousand eight hundred, of whom he declared, however, that only forty-nine thousand were effective. He likewise admitted that he had one thousand Italians and two thousand Poles. No one can believe that these figures are of the slightest value. Conservative estimates put his fighting force at seventy thousand French soldiers ready for the field, and fifteen thousand Piedmontese, Cisalpines, and Poles in like condition. The French were by this time such veterans as Europe had seldom seen: the others were of medium quality only; excepting, of course, the Piedmontese, who were fine. Bonaparte's correspondence for the period was intended to convey the idea that he was preparing to enforce the terms of Leoben by another appeal to arms, if necessary. In fact, Austria was well-nigh as active as he was, and he had need to be ready. But subsequent events proved that all these preparations were really for another end. An advantageous peace was to be made with Austria, if possible, and Italy was to be properly garrisoned. But, on the old principle, one member of the coalition having been quieted, the other was to be humbled. The goal of his further ambition appears for a time to have been nothing less than the destruction somewhere and somehow of British power, and ultimately the conquest of Great Britain herself.

CHAPTER II

The Treaty of Campo Formio[2]

Bonaparte and the Mediterranean — France and the Orient — Bonaparte's Grand Diplomacy — Importance of Malta — Course of Negotiations with Austria — Novel Tactics of the French Plenipotentiary — The Treaty of Campo Formio — Results of Fructidor — Bonaparte's Interests Conflict with those of the Directory — Europe and the Peace.

Bonaparte was a child of the Mediterranean. The light of its sparkling waters was ever in his eyes, and the fascination of its ancient civilizations was never absent from his dreams of glory. His proclamations ring with classic allusions, his festivals were arranged with classic pomp. In infancy he had known of Genoa, the tyrant of his island, as strong in the splendid commercial enterprises which stretched eastward through the Levant, and beyond into the farther Orient; in childhood he had fed his imagination on the histories of Alexander the Great, and his conquest of Oriental empires; in youth he had thought to find an open door for his ambition, when all others seemed closed, by taking service with England to share the renown of those who were building up her Eastern empire. Disappointed in this, he appears to have turned with the same lack of success to Russia, already England's rival on the continent of Asia. It is perfectly comprehensible that throughout his early manhood his mind should have occasionally reverted to the same ideals. The conqueror of Italy and Austria might hope to realize them. Was he not master of the two great maritime commonwealths which had once shared the mass of Eastern trade between them? England's intrusion upon the Mediterranean basin was a never-ceasing irritation to all the Latin powers. Her commercial prosperity and her mastery of the seas increased the exasperation of France, as threatening even her equality in their ancient rivalry. From the days of the first crusade all Frenchmen had felt that leadership in the reconstruction of Asia belonged to them by virtue of preoccupation. Ardent republicans, moreover, still regarded France's mission as incomplete even in the liberalizing of the Continent; and the Department of Marine under the Directory stamped its paper with the motto, "Liberty of the Seas." Imaginative forces, the revolutionary system, and the national ambition all combined to create ubiquitous enthusiasm for the conquest of the Mediterranean. To this the temperament and training of Bonaparte were as the spark to the tinder. It was with willing ears that the Directory heard his first suggestions about the Venetian isles, and subsequently his plans for the capture of Malta, which was to be followed by a death-blow to