Bonaparte
the command of the victorious army, and by confirming Salicetti as
their diplomatic plenipotentiary to accompany it. The news reached the
conqueror at Lodi on the eve of his triumphant entry into Milan. "As
things now are," he promptly replied to the Directory, "you must have
a general who possesses your entire confidence. If I must refer every
step to government commissioners, if they have the right to change my
movements, to withdraw or send troops, expect nothing good hereafter."
To Carnot he wrote at the same time: "I believe one bad general to be
worth two good ones.... War is like government, a matter of tact.... I
do not wish to be hampered. I have begun with some glory; I wish to
continue worthy of you." Aware probably that his own republican virtue
could not long withstand the temptations opening before him, he began
the latter missive, as if to excuse himself and anticipate possible
accusations: "I swear I have nothing in view but the country. You will
always find me on the straight road. I owe to the republic the
sacrifice of all my own notions. If people seek to set me wrong in
your esteem, my answer is in my heart and in my conscience." It is of
course needless to add that the Directory yielded, not only as to the
unity of command, but also in the fatal and vital matter of intrusting
all diplomatic negotiations to his hands.

In taking this last step the executive virtually surrendered its
identity. Such, however, was the exultation of the Parisian populace
and of the soldiery, that the degradation or even the forced
resignation of the conquering dictator would have at once assured the
fall of the directors. They could not even protest when, soon after,
there came from Bonaparte a despatch announcing that the articles of
"the glorious peace which you have concluded with the King of
Sardinia" had reached "us," and significantly adding in a later
paragraph that the troops were content, having received half their pay
in coin. Voices in Paris declared that for such language the writer
should be shot. Perhaps those who put the worst interpretation on the
apparently harmless words were correct in their instinct. In reality
the Directory had been wholly dependent on the army since the previous
October; and while such an offensive insinuation of the fact would be,
if intentional, most unpalatable, yet those who had profited by the
fact dared not resent a remote reference to it.

The farce was continued