Frenchmen were dragged through the streets.  They were assassinated before the eyes of the governor of the fort.  They were pierced with a thousand blows of stilettos, such as I sent you and the representatives of the French people cause it to be printed, that if they believed this fact for an instant, they were excusable.  I know well there are societies where it is said, “Is this blood, then, so pure?”

If only base men, who are dead to the feeling of patriotism and national glory, had spoken of me thus, I would not have complained.  I would have disregarded it; but I have a right to complain of the degradation to which the first magistrates of the Republic reduce those who have aggrandised, and carried the French name to so high a pitch of glory.  Citizens-Directors, I reiterate the demand I made for my dismissal; I wish to live in tranquillity, if the poniards of Clichy will allow me to live.  You have employed me in negotiations.  I am not very fit to conduct them.

About the same time he drew up the following note respecting the affairs of Venice, which was printed without the author’s name, and circulated through the whole army:—­

Note.

Bonaparte, pausing before the gates of Turin, Parma, Rome, and Vienna, offering peace when he was sure of obtaining nothing but fresh triumphs—­Bonaparte, whose every operation exhibits respect for religion, morality, and old age; who, instead of heaping, as he might have done, dishonour upon the Venetians, and humbling their republic to the earth, loaded her with acts of kindness, and took such great interest in her glory—­is this the same Bonaparte who is accused of destroying the ancient Government of Venice, and democratising Genoa, and even of interfering in the affairs of the prudent and worthy people of the Swiss Cantons?  Bonaparte had passed the Tagliamento, and entered Germany, when insurrections broke out in the Venetian States; these insurrections were, therefore, opposed to Bonaparte’s project; surely, then, he could not favour them.  When he was in the heart of Germany the Venetians massacred more than four hundred French troops, drove their quarters out of Verona, assassinated the unfortunate Laugier, and presented the spectacle of a fanatical party in arms.  He returned to Italy; and on his arrival, as the winds cease their agitation at the presence of Neptune, the whole of Italy, which was in commotion, which was in arms, was restored to order.

However, the deputies from Bonaparte drew up different articles conformable to the situation of the country, and in order to prevent, not a revolution in the Government, for the Government was defunct, and had died a natural death, but a crisis, and to save the city from convulsion, anarchy, and pillage.  Bonaparte spared a division of his army to save Venice from pillage and massacre.  All the battalions were in the streets of Venice, the disturbers were put down, and the pillage discontinued.