self the President or the King of it-in general, they did not care which. A well-known Milanese lady of rank, to whom the conqueror paid rather more attention than was agreeable to his wife Josephine, said, in a half-jesting manner," General, I dreamed last night that you were King of all Italy." "Perhaps," whispered Bonaparte, "I have sometimes had such idle visions myself. My blood is all Italian. But, before being King of all Italy, I must be King and master of all France. . . . Bah! what are we talking about? We are in a Republic! I am a republican; we are all republicans!" "Yes, General, for the moment." "Pour toujours (For ever)," said he; and then he laughed, pinched the fair lady's cheek, and hummed part of an Italian opera air.

IT

was on the 17th of November, 1797, that Bonaparte quitted Milan for Rastadt, where it had been agreed at Campo Formio to hold a Congress, in order to settle various questions relating to Germany. The Directory had appointed him to act as plenipotentiary at this Congress. Of course, he left his victorious army behind him in Italy, to keep what had been got, and to prevent a counter-revolution, which inevitably would have followed the departure of his troops. As he passed through Switzerland he found an opportunity of insulting Berne and the other aristocratic cantons, thus indicating that they, as a reward for their neutrality, were soon to be democratized and plundered. The conferences at Rastadt, which promised to be very slow and dilatory, did not suit his temper.

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Except where he could dictate to princes and powers, he detested all congresses. He therefore merely signed a military convention for the delivery of Mayence on the Rhine by the Emperor against the counter-delivery by the French of Venice and Palmanova to the Austrians, which completed the conditions of the Treaty of Campo Formio, and then he set off for Paris, where he alighted on the 5th of December at his house, Rue Chante-Reine (Sing-Queen Street), which name the Paris municipality, in compliment to him, changed into that of Rue de la Victoire (Victory Street); here, for some time, he lived very privately. He wished to pacify certain jealousies and to avoid observation; but it is evident that he had those who extolled his high qualities and who observed for him in every corner of the capital. His agreeable manners (and no man could be more agreeable than he) gained him many new friends or admirers, and the fame of his victories won him still more. In the evening he liked to put on an old coat and a worn hat, and to walk about the streets and to enter into the shops, just to hear what people were saying about General Bonaparte. The Directors gave him a splendid public festival, and in their residence, the Luxembourg Palace, where they set up statues of Liberty, Equality, and Peace, he delivered the treaty of Campo Formio, and made a modest speech :—

"Citizen Directors,―The French people, in struggling to obtain their freedom, had to contend with kings in order to obtain a constitution founded upon rational principles; they were obliged to overcome the prejudices of eighteen centuries, during which period religion, feudality, and royalism have governed Europe in succession. From the date of the peace which you have just concluded begins the era of representative governments. You have effected the organization of the great nation, whose vast territory is circumscribed by limits fixed by nature itself. When the happiness of the French people shall be secured on the best organic laws, the rest of Europe will then become free."

Director Barras, who must have already felt his Luxembourg throne tottering under him, made in return a prolix rhetorical speech, extolling General Bonaparte above all the heroes of antiquity, whether Greek or Roman, and ended by inviting him to go

and hoist the tricoloured flag of France on the Tower of London. Bonaparte was appointed to the command of the army styled "of England;" and no doubt Barras would have been right glad to see him embarked with that army, to run the chance of crossing the channel under the eyes of the powerful and victorious navy of Great Britain.

On the 10th of February, 1798, he set off on a tour of inspection along the coast of the British Channel : he visited Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk, Ostend, Antwerp, and the Isle of Walcheren, collecting information in every port; but the whole journey lasted only one week. It is quite certain that at this time no serious idea was entertained of an invasion of England. On his return to Paris, he said to Bourrienne, "It would be far too great a risk. I will not run it. I will not sport thus with the fate of France!" In fact, he was already busied in preparations for the expedition to the East, which he had suggested to Talleyrand in the previous month of August, while he was reposing on his Italian laurels in the palace of Monte Bello. Perhaps Barras thought that Egypt might do as well as England in disembarrassing him for ever of his former protégé, and present rival, and future master. It is clear that all the Directors feared, and wished to be rid of, the ambitious and censorious young General. It is said, in several quarters, that notwithstanding his "Oriental twist," Bonaparte would not have gone to Egypt if he could have stepped at once into the Directory; and that he really offered himself as a candidate for the Directorship, at the first periodical renewal of one of the members; but that he was opposed, as being too short of the age of forty, required by the Constitution for that office. It is added, that it was after this disappointment, which really appears to have occurred, that he fully made up his mind to go to the East. "In a few months," said he, "France will feel that she wants me back. The lawyers will become more and more unpopular with time. Austria is far more powerful than is thought: she will try again the fortune of war, and then the French army will ask for me; and at the head of that army I may do something." Bourrienne asked him if he really intended to quit France. "Yes," said he, peevishly. "I have tried

1798.]

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everything else. They don't want me here. I ought to upset them, and make myself king; but that would not do just yet. The nobles would never consent to it: I should find myself alone. I have tried the ground. Everything wears out here ;-no impression lasts at Paris. My glory is already forgotten. I must go to the East, the land of great empires and great revolutions. This stale old Europe bores me!"

In April, 1798, he was appointed General-in-Chief of the Army of the East. He was allowed to make his own preparations, which were all effected with great secresy, to organize the army, and to collect the ships as best he could. These preparations were interrupted for a moment by a serious incident at Vienna. General Bernadotte, who had been sent as ambassador to that city, had conducted himself in a very temperate and conciliatory manner; but the Directory, taking offence at this line of conduct, sent him peremptory orders to hoist the tricoloured flag, the symbol of republicanism and revolutionism, over the gate of his Vienna residence. The public mind at Vienna, already very unfavourable to the French, was still more exasperated by the unprincipled invasions and spoliations of Switzerland and Rome, effected by the Directory whilst the negotiations for a general peace were pending at Rastadt. A mob gathered in front of Bernadotte's residence, pulled down the flag, broke into the apartments, and destroyed the furniture. Bernadotte quitted Vienna. The Directory talked of war, and of giving the command of the army to be sent against the Emperor to Citizen General Bonaparte. The embarkation of the troops for Egypt was checked. Bonaparte, however, treated the occurrence at Vienna very slightly, and as a thing which could and which ought to be made up; and, without consulting any one, he wrote to Cobentzel, with whom he had contracted a sort of intimacy, if not friendship, requesting that diplomatist to meet him at Rastadt, in order to come to some political arrangement which might "solve the questions which the Treaty of Campo Formio had left unsolved." The Directory gained information of this secret correspondence, and became again suspicious. It is said that high words passed between the Directors and Bonaparte at the Luxembourg; that Bonaparte again tendered his resignation, upon which,