Bonaparte skillfully took advantage of the disturbances, and the massacres consequent on them, to adopt towards the Senate the tone of an offended conqueror.  He published a declaration that the Venetian Government was the most treacherous imaginable.  The weakness and cruel hypocrisy of the Senate facilitated the plan he had conceived of making a peace for France at the expense of the Venetian Republic.  On returning from Leoben, a conqueror and pacificator, he, without ceremony, took possession of Venice, changed the established government, and, master of all the Venetian territory, found himself, in the negotiations of Campo Formio, able to dispose of it as he pleased, as a compensation for the cessions which had been exacted from Austria.  After the 19th of May he wrote to the Directory that one of the objects of his treaty with Venice was to avoid bringing upon us the odium of violating the preliminaries relative to the Venetian territory, and, at the same time, to afford pretexts and to facilitate their execution.

At Campo Formio the fate of this republic was decided.  It disappeared from the number of States without effort or noise.  The silence of its fall astonished imaginations warmed by historical recollections from the brilliant pages of its maritime glory.  Its power, however, which had been silently undermined, existed no longer except in the prestige of those recollections.  What resistance could it have opposed to the man destined to change the face of all Europe?

CHAPTER V

1797.

Signature of the preliminaries of peace—­Fall of Venice—­My arrival and reception at Leoben—­Bonaparte wishes to pursue his success—­ The Directory opposes him—­He wishes to advance on Vienna—­Movement of the army of the Sombre-et-Mouse—­Bonaparte’s dissatisfaction—­ Arrival at Milan—­We take up our residence at Montebello—­Napoleon’s judgment respecting Dandolo and Melzi.

I joined Bonaparte at Leoben on the 19th of April, the day after the signature of the preliminaries of peace.  These preliminaries resembled in no respect the definitive treaty of Campo Formio.  The still incomplete fall of the State of Venice did not at that time present an available prey for partition.  All was arranged afterwards.  Woe to the small States that come in immediate contact with two colossal empires waging war!

Here terminated my connection with Bonaparte as a comrade and equal, and those relations with him commenced in which I saw him suddenly great, powerful, and surrounded with homage and glory.  I no longer addressed him as I had been accustomed to do.  I appreciated too well his personal importance.  His position placed too great a social distance between him and me not to make me feel the necessity of fashioning my demeanour accordingly.  I made with pleasure, and without regret, the easy sacrifice of the style of familiar companionship and other little privileges.