There were other reasons why the Lombards should worship the young victor.  Apart from the admiration which a gifted race ever feels for so fascinating a combination of youthful grace with intellectual power and martial prowess, they believed that this Italian hero would call the people to political activity, perchance even to national independence.  For this their most ardent spirits had sighed, conspired, or fought during the eighty-three years of the Austrian occupation.  Ever since the troublous times of Dante there had been prophetic souls who caught the vision of a new Italy, healed of her countless schisms, purified from her social degradations, and uniting the prowess of her ancient life with the gentler arts of the present for the perfection of her own powers and for the welfare of mankind.  The gleam of this vision had shone forth even amidst the thunder claps of the French Revolution; and now that the storm had burst over the plains of Lombardy, ecstatic youths seemed to see the vision embodied in the person of Bonaparte himself.  At the first news of the success at Lodi the national colours were donned as cockades, or waved defiance from balconies and steeples to the Austrian garrisons.  All truly Italian hearts believed that the French victories heralded the dawn of political freedom not only for Lombardy, but for the whole peninsula.

Bonaparte’s first actions increased these hopes.  He abolished the Austrian machinery of government, excepting the Council of State, and approved the formation of provisional municipal councils and of a National Guard.  At the same time, he wrote guardedly to the Directors at Paris, asking whether they proposed to organize Lombardy as a republic, as it was much more ripe for this form of government than Piedmont.  Further than this he could not go; but at a later date he did much to redeem his first promises to the people of Northern Italy.

The fair prospect was soon overclouded by the financial measures urged on the young commander from Paris, measures which were disastrous to the Lombards and degrading to the liberators themselves.  The Directors had recently bidden him to press hard on the Milanese, and levy large contributions in money, provisions, and objects of art, seeing that they did not intend to keep this country.[48] Bonaparte accordingly issued a proclamation (May 19th), imposing on Lombardy the sum of twenty million francs, remarking that it was a very light sum for so fertile a country.  Only two days before he had in a letter to the Directors described it as exhausted by five years of war.  As for the assertion that the army needed this sum, it may be compared with his private notification to the Directory, three days after his proclamation, that they might speedily count on six to eight millions of the Lombard contribution, as lying ready at their disposal, “it being over and above what the army requires.”  This is the first definite suggestion by Bonaparte of that system of bleeding conquered lands for the benefit of the French Exchequer, which enabled him speedily to gain power over the Directors.  Thenceforth they began to connive at his diplomatic irregularities, and even to urge on his expeditions into wealthy districts, provided that the spoils went to Paris; while the conqueror, on his part, was able tacitly to assume that tone of authority with which the briber treats the bribed.[49]