The exaction of this large sum, and of various requisites for the army, as well as the “extraction” of works of art for the benefit of French museums, at once aroused the bitterest feelings.  The loss of priceless treasures, such as the manuscript of Virgil which had belonged to Petrarch, and the masterpieces of Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, might perhaps have been borne:  it concerned only the cultured few, and their effervescence was soon quelled by patrols of French cavalry.  Far different was it with the peasants between Milan and Pavia.  Drained by the white-coats, they now refused to be bled for the benefit of the blue-coats of France.  They rushed to arms.  The city of Pavia defied the attack of a French column until cannon battered in its gates.  Then the republicans rushed in, massacred all the armed men for some hours, and glutted their lust and rapacity.  By order of Bonaparte, the members of the municipal council were condemned to execution; but a delay occurred before this ferocious order was carried out, and it was subsequently mitigated.  Two hundred hostages were, however, sent away into France as a guarantee for the good behaviour of the unfortunate city:  whereupon the chief announced to the Directory that this would serve as a useful lesson to the peoples of Italy.

In one sense this was correct.  It gave the Italians a true insight into French methods; and painful emotions thrilled the peoples of the peninsula when they realized at what a price their liberation was to be effected.  Yet it is unfair to lay the chief blame on Bonaparte for the pillage of Lombardy.  His actions were only a development of existing revolutionary customs; but never had these demoralizing measures been so thoroughly enforced as in the present system of liberation and blackmail.  Lombardy was ransacked with an almost Vandal rapacity.  Bonaparte desired little for himself.  His aim ever was power rather than wealth.  Riches he valued only as a means to political supremacy.  But he took care to place the Directors and all his influential officers deeply in his debt.  To the five soi-disant rulers of France he sent one hundred horses, the finest that could be found in Lombardy, to replace “the poor creatures which now draw your carriages";[50] to his officers his indulgence was passive, but usually effective.  Marmont states that Bonaparte once reproached him for his scrupulousness in returning the whole of a certain sum which he had been commissioned to recover.  “At that time,” says Marmont, “we still retained a flower of delicacy on these subjects.”  This Alpine gentian was soon to fade in the heats of the plains.  Some generals made large fortunes, eminently so Massena, first in plunder as in the fray.  And yet the commander, who was so lenient to his generals, filled his letters to the Directory with complaints about the cloud of French commissioners, dealers, and other civilian harpies who battened on the spoil of Lombardy.  It seems impossible to avoid the