We may here pause to notice some civil events of importance which occurred ere Alvinzi made his final descent.  The success of the French naturally gave new vigour to the Italian party, who, chiefly in the large towns, were hostile to Austria, and desirous to settle their own government on the republican model.  Napoleon had by this time come to be anything but a Jacobin in his political sentiments:  his habits of command; his experience of the narrow and ignorant management of the Directory; his personal intercourse with the ministers of sovereign powers; his sense daily strengthened by events, that whatever good was done in Italy proceeded from his own skill and the devotion of his army,—­all these circumstances conspired to make him respect himself and contemn the government, almost in despite of which he had conquered kingdoms for France.  He therefore regarded now with little sympathy the aspirations after republican organisation which he had himself originally stimulated among the northern Italians.  He knew, however, that the Directory had, by absurd and extravagant demands, provoked the Pope to break off the treaty of Bologna, and to raise his army to the number of 40,000,—­that Naples had every disposition to back his Holiness with 30,000 soldiers, provided any reverse should befall the French in Lombardy,—­and, finally, that Alvinzi was rapidly preparing for another march, with numbers infinitely superior to what he could himself extort from the government of Paris;[11] and considering these circumstances, he felt himself compelled to seek strength by gratifying his Italian friends.  Two Republics accordingly were organised; the Cispadane and the Transpadane—­handmaids rather than sisters of the great French democracy.  These events took place during the period of military inaction which followed the victories of Arcola.  The new Republics hastened to repay Napoleon’s favour by raising troops, and placed at his disposal a force which he considered as sufficient to keep the Papal army in check during the expected renewal of Alvinzi’s efforts.

Buonaparte at this period practised every art to make himself popular with the Italians; nor was it of little moment that they in fact regarded him more as their own countryman than a Frenchman; that their beautiful language was his mother tongue; that he knew their manners and their literature, and even in his conquering rapacity displayed his esteem for their arts.  He was wise enough too, on farther familiarity with the state of the country, to drop that tone of hostility which he had at first adopted towards the priesthood; and to cultivate the most influential members of that powerful order by attentions which the Directory heard of with wonder, and would have heard of, had he been any other than Napoleon, with scorn and contempt.[12] Wherever he could have personal intercourse with the priesthood, he seems to have considerably softened their spleen.  Meanwhile the clergy beyond the Apennines, and the nobility of Romagna, were combining all their efforts to rouse the population against him; and the Pope, pushed, as we have seen, to despair by the French Directory, had no reason to complain that his secular vassals heard such appeals with indifference.