any, the Papal States, and Naples
successively. The whole idea having been scornfully rejected by
Bonaparte, the Directory had been forced by the brilliant successes of
their general not merely to condone his disobedience, but actually to
approve his policy. He now had the opportunity of justifying his
foresight. Understanding, as the government did not, that Austria was
their only redoubtable foe by land, the real bulwark of the whole
Italian system, he had first shattered her power, at least for the
time. The prop having been removed, the structure was toppling, and
during this interval of waiting, it fell. His opportunity was made,
his resolution ripe.

In front, Venice was at his mercy; behind him, guerrilla bands of
so-called Barbets, formed in Genoese territory and equipped by
disaffected fugitives, were threatening the lately conquered gateway
from France where the Ligurian Alps and the Apennines meet.
Bonaparte's first step was to impose a new arrangement upon the
submissive Piedmont, whereby, to make assurance doubly sure,
Alessandria was added to the list of fortresses in French hands; then,
as his second measure, Murat and Lannes appeared before Genoa at the
head of an armed force, with instructions first to seize and shoot the
many offenders who had taken refuge in her territory after the risings
in Lombardy, and then to threaten the Senate with further retaliatory
measures, and command the instant dismissal of the imperial Austrian
plenipotentiary. From Paris came orders to drive the English fleet out
of the harbor of Leghorn, where, in spite of the treaty between
Tuscany and France, there still were hostile arsenals and ships. It
was done. Naples did not wait to see her territories invaded, but sued
for mercy and was humbled, being forced to withdraw her navy from that
of the coalition, and her cavalry from the Austrian army. For the
moment the city of Rome was left in peace. The strength of papal
dominion lay in Bologna, and the other legations beyond the Apennines,
comprising many of the finest districts in Italy; and there a
master-stroke was to be made.

On the throne of Modena was an Austrian archduke: his government was
remorselessly shattered and virtually destroyed, the ransom being
fixed at the ruinous sum of ten million francs with twenty of the best
pictures in the principality. But on that of Parma was a Spanish
prince with whose house France had made one treaty and hoped to make a
much bett