and the necessary measures
inaugurated. The rich began to hide their possessions and the burghers
to cry out. Ere long there was opposition, first sullen, then active,
especially in the suburban villages where the French were fiercely
attacked. One of these, Binasco, was burned and sacked as an example
to the rest and to the city. Order was restored and the inexorable
process of seizures went on. Pavia bade defiance; the officials were
threatened with death, many leading citizens were taken as hostages,
and the place was pillaged for three days. "Such a lesson would set
the people of Italy right." They did not need a second example, it was
true, but the price of "liberation" was fearful.

Italian rebellion having been subdued, the French nation roused to
enthusiasm, independent funds provided, and the Directory put in its
place, Bonaparte was free to unfold and consummate his further plans.
Before him was the territory of Venice, a state once vigorous and
terrible, but now, as far as the country populations were concerned,
an enfeebled and gentle ruler. With quick decision a French corps of
observation was sent to seize Brescia and watch the Tyrolean passes.
It was, of course, to the advantage of Austria that Venetian
neutrality should not be violated, except by her own troops. But the
French, having made a bold beginning of formal defiance, were quick to
go further. Beaulieu had not hesitated on false pretenses to seize
Peschiera, another Venetian town, which, by its situation at the
outlet of Lake Garda, was of the utmost strategic value. He now stood
confronting his pursuers on a strong line established, without
reference to territorial boundaries, behind the whole course of the
Mincio. Such was the situation to the north and east of the French
army. Southeastward, on the swampy banks of the same river, near its
junction with the Po, was Mantua. This city, which even under ordinary
circumstances was an almost impregnable fortress, had been
strengthened by an extraordinary garrison, while the surrounding
lowlands were artificially inundated as a supreme measure of safety.

Bonaparte intended to hurl Beaulieu back, and seize the line of the
Adige, far stronger than that of the Mincio for repelling an Austrian
invasion from the north. What to him was the neutrality of a weak
government, and what were the precepts of international law with no
force behind it but a moral one? Austria, according to treaty, had the
right