the clauses except this
last were nugatory because of Spanish weakness, but Bonaparte put in
the plea for compensation to the Spanish Bourbons by some grant of
Italian territory to the house of Parma. As we have elsewhere
indicated, their attack on Austria in central Europe was a failure,
Jourdan having been soundly beaten at Wuerzburg. There was no road open
to Vienna except through Italy. Their negotiations with the papacy
failed utterly; only a victorious warrior could overcome its powerful
scruples, which in the aggregate prevented the hearty adhesion of
French Roman Catholics to the republican system. Of necessity their
conceptions of Italian destiny must yield to his, which were widely
different from theirs.

Before such conditions other interests sink into atrophy;
thenceforward, for example, there appears in Bonaparte's nature no
trace of the Corsican patriot. The one faint spark of remaining
interest seems to have been extinguished in an order that Pozzo di
Borgo and his friends, if they had not escaped, should be brought to
judgment. His other measures with reference to the once loved island
were as calculating and dispassionate as any he took concerning the
most indifferent principality of the mainland, and even extended to
enunciating the principle that no Corsican should be employed in
Corsica. It is a citizen not of Corsica, nor of France even, but of
Europe, who on October second demands peace from the Emperor in a
threat that if it is not yielded on favorable terms, Triest and the
Adriatic will be seized. At the same time the Directory received from
him another reminder of its position, which likewise indicates an
interesting development of his own policy. "Diminish the number of
your enemies. The influence of Rome is incalculable; it was ill
advised to break with that power; it gives the advantage to her. If I
had been consulted, I would have delayed the negotiations with Rome as
with Genoa and Venice. Whenever your general in Italy is not the pivot
of everything, you run great risks. This language will not be
attributed to ambition; I have but too many honors, and my health is
so broken that I believe I must ask you for a successor. I can no
longer mount a horse; I have nothing left but courage, which is not
enough in a post like this." Before this masked dictator were two
tasks as difficult in their way as any even he would ever undertake,
each calling for the exercise of faculties antipodal in quali