He next turned his attention to the grand duke of Tuscany,—­a prince who had not only not taken any part in the war against the Republic, but had been the very first of the European rulers to recognise its establishment, and had kept on terms of friendship with all its successive authorities.  Buonaparte, however, in pursuance of his system, resolved that the brother of the emperor should pay for his presumed inclinations.  For the present, the Florentine museum and the grand duke’s treasury were spared; but Leghorn, the seaport of Tuscany and great feeder of its wealth, was seized without ceremony; the English goods in that town were confiscated to the ruin of the merchants; and a great number of English vessels in the harbour made a narrow escape.  The grand duke, in place of resenting these injuries, was obliged to receive Buonaparte with all the appearances of cordiality at Florence; and the spoiler repaid his courtesy by telling him, rubbing his hands with glee, during the princely entertainment provided for him, “I have just received letters from Milan; the citadel has fallen;—­your brother has no longer a foot of land in Lombardy.”  “It is a sad case,” said Napoleon himself long afterwards—­speaking of these scenes of exaction and insolence,—­“it is a sad case when the dwarf comes into the embrace of the giant; he is like enough to be suffocated—­but ’tis the giant’s nature to squeeze hard.”

In the meantime the general did not neglect the great and darling plan of the French government, of thoroughly revolutionising the North of Italy, and establishing there a group of Republics modelled after their own likeness, and prepared to act as subservient allies in their mighty contest with the European monarchies.  The peculiar circumstances of Northern Italy, as a land of ancient fame and high spirit, long split into fragments, and ruled, for the most part, by governors of German origin, presented many facilities for the realisation of this design; and Buonaparte was urged constantly by his government at Paris, and by a powerful party in Lombardy, to hasten its execution.  He, however, had by this time learned to think of many idols of the Directory with about as little reverence as they bestowed on the shrines of Catholicism; in his opinion more was to be gained by temporising with both the governments and the people of Italy, than by any hasty measures of the kind recommended.  He saw well the deep disgust which his exactions had excited.  “You cannot,” said he, “at one and the same moment rob people and persuade them you are their friends.”  He fancied, moreover, that the Pope and other nerveless rulers of the land might be converted into at least as convenient ministers of French exaction, as any new establishments he could raise in their room.  Finally he perceived that whenever the Directory were to arrange seriously the terms of a settlement with the great monarchy of Austria, their best method would be to restore Lombardy, and