with games, dances, and invocations to the memory of the Italians who had fought and died for their nascent liberties.  Amidst all the vivas and the clash of bells Bonaparte took care to sound a sterner note.  On that very day he ordered the suppression of a Milanese club which had indulged in Jacobinical extravagances, and he called on the people “to show to the world by their wisdom, energy, and by the good organization of their army, that modern Italy has not degenerated and is still worthy of liberty.”

The contagion of Milanese enthusiasm spread rapidly.  Some of the Venetian towns on the mainland now petitioned for union with the Cisalpine Republic; and the deputies of the Cispadane, who were present at the festival, urgently begged that their little State might enjoy the same privilege.  Hitherto Bonaparte had refused these requests, lest he should hamper the negotiations with Austria, which were still tardily proceeding; but within a month their wish was gratified, and the Cispadane State was united to the larger and more vigorous republic north of the River Po, along with the important districts of Como, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and Peschiera.  Disturbances in the Swiss district of the Valteline soon enabled Bonaparte to intervene on behalf of the oppressed peasants, and to merge this territory also in the Cisalpine Republic, which consequently stretched from the high Alps southward to Rimini, and from the Ticino on the west to the Mincio on the east.[81]

Already, during his sojourn at the Castle of Montebello, Bonaparte figured as the all-powerful proconsul of the French Republic.  Indeed, all his surroundings—­his retinue of complaisant generals, and the numerous envoys and agents who thronged his ante-chambers to beg an audience—­befitted a Sulla or a Wallenstein, rather than a general of the regicide Republic.  Three hundred Polish soldiers guarded the approaches to the castle; and semi-regal state was also observed in its spacious corridors and saloons.  There were to be seen Italian nobles, literati, and artists, counting it the highest honour to visit the liberator of their land; and to them Bonaparte behaved with that mixture of affability and inner reserve, of seductive charm alternating with incisive cross-examination which proclaimed at once the versatility of his gifts, the keenness of his intellect, and his determination to gain social, as well as military and political, supremacy.  And yet the occasional abruptness of his movements, and the strident tones of command lurking beneath his silkiest speech, now and again reminded beholders that he was of the camp rather than of the court.  To his generals he was distant; for any fault even his favourite officers felt the full force of his anger; and aides-de-camp were not often invited to dine at his table.  Indeed, he frequently dined before his retinue, almost in the custom of the old Kings of France.