French troops in Rome, could only throw himself, with his handful of men,
into the Castle of St. Angelo, the famous mole of Adrian, in which was
long preserved the treasury of Sixtus V. The French General soon found
himself blockaded by the Neapolitan troops, who also blockaded Civita
Vecchia and Ancona.

The treaty concluded between Murat and Austria was definitively signed on
the 11th of January 1814. As soon as he was informed of it the Viceroy,
certain that he should soon have to engage with the Neapolitans, was
obliged to renounce the preservation of the line of the Adige, the
Neapolitan army being in the rear of his right wing. He accordingly
ordered a retrograde movement to the other side of the Mincio, where his
army was cantoned. In this position Prince Eugene, on the 8th of
February, had to engage with the Austrians, who had come up with him, and
the victory of the Mincio arrested, for some time, the invasion of the
Austrian army and its junction with the Neapolitan troops.

It was not until eight days after that Murat officially declared war
against the Emperor; and immediately several general and superior
officers, and many French troops, who were in his service, abandoned him,
and repaired to the headquarters of the Viceroy. Murat made endeavours
to detain them; they replied, that as he had declared war against France,
no Frenchman who loved his country could remain in his service. "Do you
think," returned he, "that my heart is lees French than yours? On the
contrary, I am much to be pitied. I hear of nothing but the disasters of
the Grand Army. I have been obliged to enter into a treaty with the
Austrians, and an arrangement with the English, commanded by Lord
Bentinck, in order to save my Kingdom from a threatened landing of the
English and the Sicilians, which would infallibly have excited an
insurrection."

There could not be a more ingenuous confession of the antipathy which
Joachim knew the Neapolitans to entertain towards his person and
government. His address to the French was ineffectual. It was easy to
foresee what would ensue. The Viceroy soon received an official
communication from Napoleon's War Minister, accompanied by an Imperial
decree, recalling all the French who were in the service of Joachim, and
declaring that all who were taken with arms in their hands should be
tried by a courtmartial as traitors to their country. Murat commenced by
gaining advantages which could not be disputed.