mental mind. The religious
revolution in France had utterly failed, riotous vice had spread
consternation even in infidel minds, there was in the return a mighty
flood tide of orthodoxy; if the political revolution was to be saved
at all, it was at the price of peace, and peace very quickly. The
Directory had had little right to its distinction as savior of the
republic from the beginning, and even that was daily disputed by ever
increasing numbers: the most visible and dazzling representative of
the Revolution was now the Army of Italy. It was not for "those
rascally lawyers," as Bonaparte afterward called the directors, that
his great battle of Rivoli had been fought. With this fact in view,
the short ensuing campaign against Pius VI, and its consequences, are
easily understood. It was true, as the French general proclaimed, that
Rome had kept the stipulations of the armistice neither in a pacific
behavior nor in the payment of her indemnity, and was fomenting
resistance to the French arms throughout the peninsula. To the
Directory, which had desired the entire overthrow of the papacy,
Bonaparte proposed that with this in view, Rome should be handed over
to Spain. Behind these pretexts he gathered at Bologna an indifferent
force of eleven thousand soldiers, composed, one half of his own men,
the other half of Italians fired with revolutionary zeal, and of
Poles, a people who, since the recent dismemberment of their country,
were wooing France as a possible ally in its reconstruction. The main
division marched against Ancona; a smaller one of two thousand men
directed its course through Tuscany into the valley of the Tiber.

The position of the Pope was utterly desperate. The Spaniards had once
been masters of Italy; they were now the natural allies of France
against Austria, and Bonaparte's leniency to Parma and Naples had
strengthened the bond. The reigning king at Naples, Ferdinand IV of
the Two Sicilies, was one of the Spanish Bourbons; but his very able
and masterful wife was the daughter of Maria Theresa. His position was
therefore peculiar: if he had dared, he would have sent an army to the
Pope's support, for thus far his consort had shaped his policy in the
interest of Austria; but knowing full well that defeat would mean the
limitation of his domain to the island of Sicily, he preferred to
remain neutral, and pick up what crumbs he could get from Bonaparte's
table. For this there were excellent reasons. The E