The final address uttered by Bonaparte to the Italian notables is remarkable for the short, sharp sentences, which recall the tones of the parade ground.  Passing recent events in rapid review, he said, speaking in his mother tongue: 

“...Every effort had been made to dismember you:  the protection of France won the day:  you have been recognized at Luneville.  One-fifth larger than before, you are now more powerful, more consolidated, and have wider hopes.  Composed of six different nations, you will be now united under a constitution the best possible for your social and material condition. ...  The selections I have made for your chief offices have been made independently of all idea of party or feeling of locality.  As for that of President, I have found no one among you with sufficient claims on public opinion, sufficiently free from local feelings, and who had rendered great enough services to his country, to intrust it to him....  Your people has only local feelings:  it must now rise to national feelings.”

In accordance with this last grand and prophetic remark, the name Italian was substituted for that of Cisalpine:  and thus, for the first time since the Middle Ages, there reappeared on the map of Europe that name, which was to evoke the sneers of diplomatists and the most exalted patriotism of the century.  If Bonaparte had done naught else, he would deserve immortal glory for training the divided peoples of the peninsula for a life of united activity.

The new constitution was modelled on that of France; but the pretence of a democratic suffrage was abandoned.  The right of voting was accorded to three classes, the great proprietors, the clerics and learned men, and the merchants.  These, meeting in their several “Electoral Colleges,” voted for the members of the legislative bodies; a Tribunal was also charged with the maintenance of the constitution.  By these means Bonaparte endeavoured to fetter the power of the reactionaries no less than the anti-clerical fervour of the Italian Jacobins.  The blending of the new and the old which then began shows the hand of the master builder, who neither sweeps away materials merely because they are old, nor rejects the strength that comes from improved methods of construction:  and, however much we may question the disinterestedness of his motives in this great enterprise, there can be but one opinion as to the skill of the methods and the beneficence of the results in Italy.[194]

The first step in the process of Italian unification had now been taken at Lyons.  A second soon followed.  The affairs of the Ligurian Republic were in some confusion; and an address came from Genoa begging that their differences might be composed by the First Consul.  The spontaneity of this offer may well be questioned, seeing that Bonaparte found it desirable, in his letter of February 18th, 1802, to assure the Ligurian authorities that they need feel no disquietude as to the independence of their republic.  Bonaparte undertook to alter their constitution and nominate their Doge.