the hope was cherished that the new sovereign, Victor Emmanuel I., would be restored to his mainland possessions.  That hope was now at an end.  In vain did Lord Whitworth, our ambassador at Paris, seek to help the Russian envoy to gain a fit indemnity.  Sienna and its lands were named, as if in derision; and though George III. and the Czar ceased not to press the claims of the House of Savoy, yet no more tempting offer came from Paris, except a hint that some part of European Turkey might be found for him; and the young ruler nobly refused to barter for the petty Siennese, or for some Turkish pachalic, his birthright to the lands which, under a happier Victor Emmanuel, were to form the nucleus of a United Italy.[219] A month after the absorption of Piedmont came the annexation of Parma.  The heir to that duchy, who was son-in-law to the King of Spain, had been raised to the dignity of King of Etruria; and in return for this aggrandizement in Europe, Charles IV. bartered away to France the whole of Louisiana.  Nevertheless, the First Consul kept his troops in Parma, and on the death of the old duke in October, 1802, Parma and its dependencies were incorporated in the French Republic.

The naval supremacy of France in the Mediterranean was also secured by the annexation of the Isle of Elba with its excellent harbour of Porto Ferrajo.  Three deputies from Elba came to Paris to pay their respects to their new ruler.  The Minister of War was thereupon charged to treat them with every courtesy, to entertain them at dinner, to give them 3,000 francs apiece, and to hint that on their presentation to Bonaparte they might make a short speech expressing the pleasure of their people at being united with France.  By such deft rehearsals did this master in the art of scenic displays weld Elba on to France and France to himself.

Even more important was Bonaparte’s intervention in Switzerland.  The condition of that land calls for some explanation.  For wellnigh three centuries the Switzers had been grouped in thirteen cantons, which differed widely in character and constitution.  The Central or Forest Cantons still retained the old Teutonic custom of regulating their affairs in their several folk-moots, at which every householder appeared fully armed.  Elsewhere the confederation had developed less admirable customs, and the richer lowlands especially were under the hereditary control of rich burgher families.  There was no constitution binding these States in any effective union.  Each of the cantons claimed a governmental sovereignty that was scarcely impaired by the deliberations of the Federal Diet.  Besides these sovereign States were others that held an ill-defined position as allies; among these were Geneva, Basel, Bienne, Saint Gall, the old imperial city of Muehlhausen in Alsace, the three Grisons, the principality of Neufchatel, and Valais on the Upper Rhone.  Last came the subject-lands, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed