Napoleon was now master of all northern Italy, with the exception of the territories of Venice, which antique government, though no longer qualified to keep equal rank with the first princes of Europe, was still proud and haughty, and not likely to omit any favourable opportunity of aiding Austria in the great and common object of ridding Italy of the French.  Buonaparte heard without surprise that the Doge had been raising new levies, and that the senate could command an army of 50,000, composed chiefly of fierce and semi-barbarous Sclavonian mercenaries.  He demanded what these demonstrations meant, and was answered that Venice had no desire but to maintain a perfect neutrality.  Meantime there was not wanting a strong party, throughout the Venetian territories of the mainland, who were anxious to emulate the revolutionary movements of the great cities of Lombardy, and to emancipate themselves from the yoke of the Venetian oligarchy, as their neighbours had done by that of the Austrian crown.  Insurrections occurred at Bergamo, Brescia, and elsewhere; and Buonaparte, though little disposed to give the inhabitants of these places the boon they were in quest of, saw and profited by the opportunity of dividing, by their means, the resources, and shaking the confidence, of the senate.  After some negotiation, he told the Venetian envoy that he granted the prayer of his masters.  “Be neuter,” said he, “but see that your neutrality be indeed sincere and perfect.  If any insurrection occur in my rear, to cut off my communications in the event of my marching on Germany—­if any movement whatever betray the disposition of your senate to aid the enemies of France, be sure that vengeance will follow—­from that hour the independence of Venice has ceased to be.”

More than a month had now elapsed since Alvinzi’s defeat at Rivoli; in nine days the war with the Pope had reached its close; and, having left some garrisons in the towns on the Adige, to watch the neutrality of Venice, Napoleon hastened to carry the war into the hereditary dominions of the Emperor.  Twenty thousand fresh troops had recently joined his victorious standard from France; and, at the head of perhaps a larger force than he had ever before mustered, he proceeded to the frontier of the Frioul, where, according to his information, the main army of Austria, recruited once more to its original strength, was preparing to open a sixth campaign—­under the orders, not of Alvinzi, but of a general young like himself, and hitherto eminently successful—­the same who had already by his combinations baffled two such masters in the art of war as Jourdan and Moreau—­the Archduke Charles; a prince on whose high talents the last hopes of the empire seemed to repose.