When first informed of Murat’s treason by the Viceroy the Emperor refused to believe it.  “No,” he exclaimed to those about him, “it cannot be!  Murat, to whom I have given my sister!  Murat, to whom I have given a throne!  Eugene must be misinformed.  It is impossible that Murat has declared himself against me!” It was, however, not only possible but true.  Gradually throwing aside the dissimulation beneath which he had concealed his designs, Murat seemed inclined to renew the policy of Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the art of deceiving was deemed by the Italian Governments the most sublime effort of genius.  Without any declaration of war, Murat ordered the Neapolitan General who occupied Rome to assume the supreme command in the Roman States, and to take possession of the country.  General Miollis, who commanded the French troops in Rome, could only throw himself, with his handful of men, into the Castle of St. Angelo, the famous mole of Adrian, in which was long preserved the treasury of Sixtus V. The French General soon found himself blockaded by the Neapolitan troops, who also blockaded Civita Vecchia and Ancona.

The treaty concluded between Murat and Austria was definitively signed on the 11th of January 1814.  As soon as he was informed of it the Viceroy, certain that he should soon have to engage with the Neapolitans, was obliged to renounce the preservation of the line of the Adige, the Neapolitan army being in the rear of his right wing.  He accordingly ordered a retrograde movement to the other side of the Mincio, where his army was cantoned.  In this position Prince Eugene, on the 8th of February, had to engage with the Austrians, who had come up with him, and the victory of the Mincio arrested, for some time, the invasion of the Austrian army and its junction with the Neapolitan troops.

It was not until eight days after that Murat officially declared war against the Emperor; and immediately several general and superior officers, and many French troops, who were in his service, abandoned him, and repaired to the headquarters of the Viceroy.  Murat made endeavours to detain them; they replied, that as he had declared war against France, no Frenchman who loved his country could remain in his service.  “Do you think,” returned he, “that my heart is lees French than yours?  On the contrary, I am much to be pitied.  I hear of nothing but the disasters of the Grand Army.  I have been obliged to enter into a treaty with the Austrians, and an arrangement with the English, commanded by Lord Bentinck, in order to save my Kingdom from a threatened landing of the English and the Sicilians, which would infallibly have excited an insurrection.”