CHAPTER XXVIII.

The peace of Campo Formio.

After three months the time drew nigh when the peace negotiations were to reach a final conclusion, and when it was to be decided if the Emperor of Germany would make peace with the French republic or if he would renew the war.

For three months had the negotiations continued in Montebello—­three months of feasts, pleasures, and receptions.  To the official and public rejoicings had been also added domestic joys.  Madame Letitia came to Italy to warm her happy, proud mother’s heart at the triumphs of her darling son; and she brought with her her daughter Pauline, while the youngest, Caroline, remained behind in Madame Campan’s boarding-school.  It could not be otherwise than that the sisters of the commander-in-chief, whose true beauty reminded one of the classic features of ancient Greece, should find among the officers of the army of Italy most enthusiastic admirers and worshippers, and that many should long for the favor of being more intimately connected by the ties of affection with the celebrated general.

Bonaparte left his sisters entirely free to make a choice among their suitors, and he hesitated not to give his consent when Pauline became affianced to General Leclerc.  After a few weeks, the marriage was celebrated in Montebello; and, soon after, the happy couple left that city to return to Paris, whither Madame Letitia had preceded them.

Josephine, however, remained with her husband; she accompanied him from Montebello to Milan, where Bonaparte, now that the Austrian envoys had taken their leave, tarried some time, awaiting the final decision of the Austrian court upon his propositions.  Meanwhile, the imperial court, for good reasons, still hesitated.  It was known that in France there was secretly preparing an event which in a short time might bring on a new order of things, putting an end to the hateful republic, and once more placing the Bourbons on the throne of the lilies.

General Pichegru, a zealous royalist, and intimate friend of the Prince de Conde, with whom he had been in secret correspondence for several months, had organized a conspiracy which had for its object the downfall of the Directory, the ruin of the republican administration, the recall of the monarchy to Paris, and the re-establishment of the Bourbons.

But General Moreau, who, with his army on the Rhine, stood opposite to that of the royalists, had the good fortune to discover the conspiracy, by intercepting Pichegru’s whole correspondence.  The Directory, informed by Moreau, took secretly precautionary measures, and on the 18th Fructidor, Pichegru, with all his real or supposed guilty companions, was arrested.  To these guilty ones belonged also, according to the opinion of the Directory, two out of their number, Carnot and Barthelemy, besides twenty-two deputies and one hundred and twenty-eight others, all among the educated classes of society.  These were exiled to Cayenne; Carnot alone escaped from this distant and cruel exile by a timely flight to Geneva.