It was for the purpose of acting as head of the French legation at the Congress of Rastadt that Bonaparte quitted Milan on the 17th of November.  But before his departure he sent to the Directory one of those monuments, the inscriptions on which may generally be considered as fabulous, but which, in this case, were nothing but the truth.  This monument was the “flag of the Army of Italy,” and to General Joubert was assigned the honourable duty of presenting it to the members of the Executive Government.

On one side of the flag were the words “To the Army of Italy, the grateful country.”  The other contained an enumeration of the battles fought and places taken, and presented, in the following inscriptions, a simple but striking abridgment of the history of the Italian campaign.

150,000 Prisoners; 170 standards; 550 pieces of siege artillery; 600 pieces of field artillery; five pontoon equipages; nine 64-gun ships; twelve 32-gun frigates; 12 corvettes; 18 galleys; armistice with the king of Sardinia; convention with Genoa; armistice with the duke of Parma; armistice with the king of Naples; armistice with the pope; preliminaries of leoben; convention of Montebello with the republic of Genoa; treaty of peace with the emperor of Germany at Campo-Formio.

   Liberty given to the people of Bologna, Ferrara, Modena,
   Massa-Carrara, la Romagna, Lombard, Brescia, Bergamo, mantua, Cremona. 
   Part of the Veronese, CHIAVENA, BORMIO, the VALTELINE, the Genoese,
   the imperial fiefs, the people of the departments of corcyra, of the
   Aegean sea, and of Ithaca.

   Sent to Paris all the masterpieces of Michael Angelo, of GVERCINO,
   of titian, of Paul Veronese, of correggio, of ALBANA, of the
   CARRACCI, of Raphael, and of Leonardo da Vinci.

Thus were recapitulated on a flag, destined to decorate the Hall of the Public Sittings of the Directory, the military deeds of the campaign in Italy, its political results, and the conquest of the monuments of art.