grants and political refugees from other parts of Italy, among whom a Neapolitan, named Vitaliani, made himself very remarkable by his Jacobin fury, and secretly encouraged and directed by Faipoult, that cunning Corsican, Saliceti, and other agents of the French Directory or of Bonaparte, conspired against the Senate, liberated the criminals confined as galley-slaves and other prisoners, assumed the French tricoloured cockade, shouted "Viva Bonaparte! Viva il popolo!" (Long live the people!) broke into the arsenal, took possession of the gates, and attacked the ducal palace, where, however, they were repulsed by the regular guard. Meantime the working classes, the porters, boatmen, and artisans of the docks rose against the self-styled patriots at the cry of "Long live our prince, our religion, and the Virgin Mary!" The ridiculous was mixed with the horrible. A poor Turkish or Moorish slave, released from the arsenal by the revolutionary party, was told by them that he must join their column, and that if he only shouted "Viva il popolo !" all would go well with him. Not knowing one party from the other, the Turk shouted "Viva il popolo!" in the wrong place, for he had lingered in the rear and had fallen among the porters and the working people, who gave him a sound drubbing, and told him that he must shout "Viva Maria!" The poor fellow did as he was ordered; but, shortly after, he fell again among the revolutionary party, who gave him another beating, and told him that he must not cry "Viva Maria!" but "Viva il popolo!" Half-killed in consequence of his double mistake, and being utterly unable to comprehend why people of the same town were shooting, cutting, and stabbing one another, the unlucky Mussulman, in search of a quiet corner, went crying through the streets that the Christians had become mad; and in this, at least, he was right.*

Those who invoked the Virgin Mary proved victorious; they re-took the arsenal, procured better arms, and drove the democrats before them from post to post, and gave them a thorough beating at the bridge called Ponte Reale. Many of the Jacobins were killed, and a few Frenchmen among the rest; for as they all wore

* Carlo Botta.

the same tricoloured cockade, the people could make no distinction. A strong detachment, however, was sent by the Doge to protect the house of Faipoult, the French envoy, where several of the revolutionists took shelter, and wherein the revolution itself had been planned. That night was passed in the midst of grief, lamentation, and death: the houses were illuminated, some for joy and some in fear. The French and the defeated party said, in their usual form, that their friends, who had begun the fight, had been basely assassinated by a set of ruffians hired by the Doge and the monstrous aristocracy. Yet, if ever there was a spontaneous movement on the part of an indignant people, it was this at Genoa. "But," says Carlo Botta," Bonaparte was not the man to lose this opportunity, and now it was according to his will that states lived or died."

Tranquillity being restored, the municipal bodies were assembled to consult about the changes which it might be expedient to make in the constitution of the Republic; and the great majority voted for maintaining the governing power as it was, in the order of the nobility.* This was not what was wanted by the French. On receiving these accounts, Bonaparte assumed his most angry tone, and sent his aide-de-camp, Lavalette, with a threatening letter to the Doge, demanding instant satisfaction for the French citizens who had fallen, and a reform in the constitution. If, in twenty-four hours, the liberals who had been imprisoned were not released, and those who had fought against them thrown into prison in their stead -if that vile populace were not instantly disarmed, the Genoese aristocracy might look upon itself as a thing that had been. Thus did the conqueror speak of a Government venerable for its antiquity, and of a courageous people who had but done their duty.

The Senate dispatched envoys to Bonaparte, who dictated the conditions of a treaty by which Genoa was to pay four millions to France; to mould her constitution into a more popular form—the legislature to be composed of two elective councils, and the executive to consist of twelve senators, presided over by the Doge. The ultrademocrats of Genoa wished to exclude the nobles from the new

*Letter from Faipoult to Bonaparte,

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Government, but Bonaparte told them that this was not only unjust but also imprudent, and that in a constitutional country all classes had a right to be represented, and to share in the offices and duties of the administration. * In other quarters he said that these democrats, like all the rest he had found in Italy, were a canaille; that the whole liberal faction was either inept and visionary, or corrupt and utterly demoralized; that they were worse than the Jacobins of Murat and Robespierre; that they would turn Genoa into a condition worse than that of Paris during the Reign of Terror; and that there could be no prosperity where they ruled or predominated. He directed who should compose the elective councils, and he himself named the new senators and the new Doge. Long before the crisis he had written to the Directory that his object was to drive away the noble families who were ill affected towards France, and to recall those families who were friendly to the French, in order to form a government devoted heart and soul to France. Upon the whole, his conduct towards Genoa was more moderate than it had been towards Venice. The reasons for the difference were obvious: the French, who had so very few partisans in the Venetian territories, counted them by thousands in the city of Genoa; nearly all the Genoese of the middle classes, and a considerable number of the nobles, had a strong French bias, as they have continued to have from that time down to our own day.

In the troubles and revolutions of 1848-9, they would have called in a French army, and if Louis Napoleon, the nephew and now Imperial successor of Bonaparte, had been willing to incur the consequences, he might have held Genoa (at least the city) as a department of France. No doubt the uncle contemplated making it such (instead of chaffering it away like Venice to the Austrians), when he now regulated his line of conduct towards it. But here again the country people disliked the French, and detested the innovations; they invoked the Virgin Mary, broke forth into insurrection, carried alarm to the very gates of Genoa. They were put down and cruelly treated by a mixed French and Genoese column, commanded by the

* A. Vieusseux,

French General Duphot, who soon afterwards was killed by the populace of Rome. Many were massacred, others being taken were tried with the usual dispatch by courts-martial, and shot or sent to the galleys at Toulon. While this was doing, Bonaparte sent a French division under General Lannes, who, under pretext of restoring order, seized and kept the triple fortifications and castles of Genoa the Proud.

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All these things were begun and finished merely in the names of General Bonaparte and the French executive, without reference to, or mention of, the French legislature. In fact, in many cases even the executive had not been consulted, while in many others the Directory had been disobeyed. Some murmers arose in the legislative body. "How!" said they: "ancient governments are overturned and remodelled, and we are not consulted! We become acquainted with these facts only through public report. A war, a peace, and a treaty with Venice are all made without the necessary sanction of our legislature!" Though Frenchmen, these poor speechmakers were slow of comprehension, as they could not, or would not, see that their constitutional rights were becoming a farce, and that in a short time there would be no law or right except the will of the fortunate soldier. General Bernadotte, who, though destined to be a King, preserved for a long time his republicanism, had caught a glimpse of the truth many months before this, on his first joining Bonaparte in Italy. "I see here," said he, "a young general of twenty-six, who does everything himself: who commands as a King, and who is obeyed by everybody. I think this does not bode well for the permanency of our republican institutions."

But by this time—the summer of 1797—the young Corsican had really assumed an almost royal state and style of living. He had taken up his residence in the country palace of Montebello, near Milan. Here he was joined by his wife Josephine, who had brought a complete Court with her from Paris, and who, by her engaging manners, soon formed another circle composed of the superior French officers and their families, and of Italian nobles, who, either through conviction or through expediency, called themselves friends of the French and of liberal ideas.

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"While Napoleon conducted his negotiations with as much firmness and decision as had marked him in the field, it was her care that nature and art should lend all their graces to what the Italians soon learned to call the Court of Montebello. Whatever talent Milan contained was pressed into her service. Music and dance, and festival upon festival, seemed to occupy every hour. The beautiful lakes of Lombardy were covered with gay flotillas; and the voluptuous retreats around their shores received in succession new life and splendour from the presence of Napoleon, Josephine, and the brilliant circle amidst whom they were rehearsing the imperial parts that destiny had in reserve for them. Montebello was the

centre from which Bonaparte, during the greater part of the summer, negotiated with the Emperor, controlled all Italy, and overawed the Luxembourg."*

Montholon, as a thorough Napoleonist, gives a still more glowing picture of the temporary glories of the place:-"Montebello is a castle situated some leagues from Milan, upon a hill which commands the whole plain of Lombardy. The French head-quarters were there during the months of May and June. The assemblage of the principal ladies of Milan, who came there daily to pay their respects to Josephine; the presence of the Ministers of Austria, of the Pope, of the King of the Two Sicilies, and of the Republics of Genoa and Venice; those of the Duke of Parma, of the Swiss cantons, and of several princes of Germany; the numerous authorities of the Cisalpine Republic, and the deputies of cities; the great number of courtiers from Paris, from Rome, from Naples, Vienna, Florence, Turin, Venice, Genoa, who came and went at all hours; in a word, the whole manner of life in this castle caused the Italians to speak of it as the Court of Montebello; and in fact it was a brilliant Court. The negotiations of peace with the Emperor, the politics of Germany, the fate of the King of Sardinia, of Switzerland, of Venice and Genoa, were settled there." +

The principal negotiator for the Emperor was again the Marquis del Gallo-that easy Neapolitan over whose mind Bonaparte had