The occupation of the Riviera was of particular moment to the French, for it offered a road by which to enter Italy,—­bad, indeed, but better far than those through the passes of the upper Alps.  Skirting the sea, it afforded a double line of communications, by land and by water; for the various detachments of their army, posted along it, could in great degree be supplied by the small coasting-vessels of the Mediterranean.  So long, also, as it was in their possession, and they held passes of the Maritime Alps and Apennines, as they did in 1794, there was the possibility of their penetrating through them, to turn the left flank of the Sardinian army in Piedmont, which was, in fact, what Bonaparte accomplished two years later.  These inducements had led the French to advance into the county of Nice, then belonging to Sardinia, which in the existing state of war it was perfectly proper for them to do; but, not stopping there, they had pushed on past the Sardinian boundary into the neutral Riviera of Genoa, as far as Vado Bay, which they occupied, and where they still were at the end of 1794.

Genoa submitted under protest to this breach of her neutrality, as she did both before[25] and after to similar insults from parties to the war.  She derived some pecuniary benefit from the condition of affairs,—­her ports, as well as those of Tuscany, immediately to the southward, becoming depots of a trade in grain, which supplied both the French army and the southern provinces of France.  These food stuffs, absolutely essential to the French, were drawn chiefly from Sicily and the Barbary States, and could not be freely taken into French ports by the larger class of sea-going vessels, in face of the British fleet.  They were, therefore, commonly transshipped in Leghorn or Genoa, and carried on by coasters.  As so much Genoese sea-coast was occupied by French divisions, it was practically impossible for British cruisers to distinguish between vessels carrying corn for the inhabitants and those laden for the armies, and entirely impossible to know that what was intended for one object would not be diverted to another.  If, too, a vessel’s papers showed her to be destined for Vintimiglia, near the extreme of the Genoese line, there could be no certainty that, having got so far, she might not quietly slip by into a French port, either Nice or beyond.  The tenure of the neutral Riviera of Genoa by the French army was a threat to the allies of Great Britain in Piedmont and Lombardy, as well as to the quasi-neutrals in Genoa, Tuscany, Venice, and the Papal States.  Its further advance or successes would imperil the latter, and seriously affect the attitude of Naples, hostile to the Republic, but weak, timid, and unstable of purpose.  On the other hand, the retention of its position, and much more any further advance, depended upon continuing to receive supplies by way of the sea.  To do so by the shore route alone was not possible.  Southern France itself depended upon the sea for grain, and could send nothing, even if the then miserable Corniche road could have sufficed, as the sole line of communications for forty thousand troops.