the victorious general, immediately after the fall of Venice, had to superintend the revolution of Genoa; in which great city also the democratic party availed themselves of the temper and events of the time, to emancipate themselves from their hereditary oligarchy.  They would fain have excluded the nobility from all share in the remodelled government; and Napoleon rebuked and discountenanced this attempt in terms little likely to be heard with approbation by the “Sires of the Luxembourg.”  He told the Genoese, that to exclude the nobles was in itself as unjust as unwise, and that they ought to be grateful for the means of re-organising their constitution, without passing like France through the terrible ordeal of a revolution.  The rulers of France might be excused for asking at this moment—­Does the lecturer of the Ligurian Republic mean to be our Washington, our Monk, or our Cromwell?

He, however, received with alacrity the call of the trembling Directory.  He harangued his soldiery, and made himself secure of their readiness to act as he might choose for them.  He not only offered large pecuniary supplies, and sent his lieutenant Augereau to Paris to command the National Guard for the government, should they find it necessary to appeal immediately to force, but announced that he was himself prepared to “pass the Rubicon,” (an ominous phrase) and march to their assistance, with 15,000 of his best troops.

The Directory, meanwhile, had in their extremity ventured to disregard the law against drawing regular troops within a certain distance of the capital, and summoned Hoche to bring a corps of his Rhenish army for their instant protection.

It was by this means that the new revolution, as it may be called, of the 18th Fructidor was effected.  On that day, (Sept. 4, 1797,) the majority of the Directory, marching their army into Paris, dethroned their two opposition colleagues.  Pichegru and the other royalists of note in the assemblies, to the number of more than 150, were arrested and sent into exile.  The government, for the moment, recovered the semblance of security; and Buonaparte heard, with little satisfaction, that they had been able to accomplish their immediate object without the intervention of his personal appearance on the scene.  He remonstrated, moreover, against the manner in which they had followed up their success.  According to him, they ought to have executed Pichegru and a few ring-leaders, and set an example of moderation, by sparing all those whose royalism admitted of any doubt, or, if it was manifest, was of secondary importance.  It would have been hard for the Directory at this time to have pleased Buonaparte, or for Buonaparte to have entirely satisfied them; but neither party made the effort.

The fall of Venice, however, gave Napoleon the means, which he was not disposed to neglect, of bringing his treaty with Austria to a more satisfactory conclusion than had been indicated in the preliminaries of Leoben.