Before the 18th Fructidor the Emperor of Austria hoped that the movement which was preparing in Paris would operate badly for France and favourably to the European cause.  The Austrian plenipotentiaries, in consequence, raised their pretensions, and sent notes and an ultimatum which gave the proceedings more an air of trifling than of serious negotiation.  Bonaparte’s original ideas, which I have under his hand, were as follows: 

1.  The Emperor to have Italy as far as the Adda. 2.  The King of Sardinia as far as the Adda. 3.  The Genoese Republic to have the boundary of Tortona as far as the Po (Tortona to be demolished), as also the imperial fiefs.  (Coni to be ceded to France, or to be demolished.) 4.  The Grand Duke of Tuscany to be restored. 5.  The Duke of Parma to be restored.

CHAPTER X.

1797.

Influence of the 18th Fructidor on the negotiations—­Bonaparte’s suspicion of Bottot—­His complaints respecting the non-erasure of Bourrienne—­Bourrienne’s conversation with the Marquis of Gallo—­ Bottot writes from Paris to Bonaparte on the part of the Directory Agents of the Directory employed to watch Bonaparte—­Influence of the weather on the conclusion of peace—­Remarkable observation of Bonaparte—­Conclusion of the treaty—­The Directory dissatisfied with the terms of the peace—­Bonaparte’s predilection for representative government—­Opinion on Bonaparte.

After the 18th Fructidor Bonaparte was more powerful, Austria less haughty and confident.  Venice was the only point of real difficulty.  Austria wanted the line of the Adige, with Venice, in exchange for Mayence, and the boundary of the Rhine until that river enters Holland.  The Directory wished to have the latter boundary, and to add Mantua to the Italian Republic, without giving up all the line of the Adige and Venice.  The difficulties were felt to be so irreconcilable that within about a month of the conclusion of peace the Directory wrote to General Bonaparte that a resumption of hostilities was preferable to the state of uncertainty which was agitating and ruining France.  The Directory, therefore, declared that both the armies of the Rhine should take the field.  It appears from the Fructidorian correspondence, which has been already given, that the majority of the Directory then looked upon a peace such as Bonaparte afterwards made as infamous.

But Bonaparte, from the moment the Venetian insurrection broke out, perceived that Venice might be used for the pacification.  Bonaparte, who was convinced that, in order to bring matters to an issue, Venice and the territory beyond the Adige must fall beneath the Hapsburg sceptre, wrote to the Directory that he could not commence operations, advantageously, before the end of March, 1798; but that if the objections to giving Venice to the Emperor of Austria were persisted in, hostilities would certainly be resumed in the