the fall of Venice afforded new means—­of which Napoleon did not hesitate to propose, nor Austria to accept the use.  The French general had indeed conquered Venice, but he had entered into a treaty subsequently, and recognised a wholly new government in place of the oligarchy.  The emperor, on the other hand, well knew that the Doge and Senate had incurred ruin by rising to his own aid.  Such considerations weighed little on either side.  France and Austria agreed to effect a division of the whole territories of the ancient republic.  Venice herself, and her Italian provinces, were handed over to the emperor in lieu of his lost Lombardy; and the French assumed the sovereignty of the Ionian islands and Dalmatia.  This unprincipled proceeding excited universal disgust throughout Europe.  It showed the sincerity of Buonaparte’s love for the cause of freedom; and it satisfied all the world of the excellent title of the imperial court to complain of the selfishness and rapacity of the French democracy.

The emperor set his seal at Campo-Formio to another of Buonaparte’s acts of dictatorship, which, though in one point of view even more unjustifiable than this, was not regarded by the world with feelings of the same order.  The Italian territory of the Valteline had for ages been subject to the Grison League.  The inhabitants, roused by the prevailing spirit all around them, demanded Napoleon’s intercession with their Swiss masters, to procure their admission to all the political privileges of the other cantons.  They refused; and Napoleon, in the plenitude of his authority, immediately supported the Valteline in throwing off the Grison yoke, and asserting its utter independence.  This territory was now annexed to the Cisalpine Republic.  A government, with which France was on terms of alliance and amity, was thus robbed of its richest possession; but the Valteline belonged by natural position, religion, and language, to Italy, and its annexation to the new Italian republic was regarded as in itself just and proper, however questionable Buonaparte’s title to effect that event.  He himself said at the time, “It is contrary to the rights of man that any one people should be subject to another;” a canon on which his after history formed a lucid commentary.

In concluding, and in celebrating the conclusion of his treaty, Napoleon’s proud and fiery temperament twice shone out.  Cobentzel had set down as the first article, “The Emperor recognises the French Republic.”  “Efface that,” said Napoleon, sternly, “it is as clear as that the sun is in heaven.  Woe to them that cannot distinguish the light of either!” At the TE DEUM after the proclamation of the peace, the imperial envoy would have taken the place prepared for Buonaparte, which was the most eminent in the church.  The haughty soldier seized his arm and drew him back.  “Had your master himself been here,” said he, “I should not have forgotten that in my person the dignity of France is represented.”