an Auvergnat, an aristocrat of
famous pedigree, carefully trained as a cadet to the military career.
He was now twenty-nine, having served on the Rhine as Victor's
adjutant, as general of brigade in the Army of the Moselle, and as
general of division under Jourdan and Moreau. Transferred to Italy, he
became the confidential friend and stanch supporter of Bonaparte. His
manner was winning, his courage contagious, his liberal principles
unquestioned. No finer figure appears on the battle-fields of the
Directory and Consulate.

Throughout all France there was considerable dissatisfaction with
Bonaparte's moderation, and a feeling among extreme republicans,
especially in the Directory, that he should have destroyed the
Austrian monarchy. Larevelliere and Rewbell were altogether of this
opinion, and the corrupt Barras to a certain extent, for he had taken
a bribe of six hundred thousand francs from the Venetian ambassador at
Paris, to compel the repression by Bonaparte of the rebels on the
mainland. The correspondence of various emissaries connected with this
affair fell into the general's hands at Milan, and put the Directory
more completely at his mercy than ever. On April nineteenth, however,
he wrote as if in reply to such strictures as might be made: "If at
the beginning of the campaign I had persisted in going to Turin, I
never should have passed the Po; if I had persisted in going to Rome,
I should have lost Milan; if I had persisted in going to Vienna,
perhaps I should have overthrown the Republic." He well understood
that fear would yield what despair might refuse. It was a matter of
course that when the terms of Leoben reached Paris the Directory
ratified them: even though they had been irregularly negotiated by an
unauthorized agent, they separated England from Austria, and crushed
the coalition. One thing, however, the directors notified Bonaparte he
must not do; that was, to interfere further in the affairs of Venice.
This order reached him on May eighth; but just a week before, Venice,
as an independent state, had ceased to exist.

Accident and crafty prearrangement had combined to bring the affairs
of that ancient commonwealth to such a crisis. The general
insurrection and the fight at Salo had given a pretext for disposing
of the Venetian mainland; soon after, the inevitable results of French
occupation afforded the opportunity for destroying the oligarchy
altogether. The evacuation of Verona by the garris