valley of the upper Adige, while other
regiments began to close in on Mantua. The peculiarities of the ground
favoured its investment. The semicircular lagoon which guards Mantua
on the north, and the marshes on the south side, render an assault
very difficult; but they also limit the range of ground over which
sorties can be made, thereby lightening the work of the besiegers; and
during part of the blockade Napoleon left fewer than five thousand men
for this purpose. It was clear, however, that the reduction of Mantua
would be a tedious undertaking, such as Bonaparte's daring and
enterprising genius could ill brook, and that his cherished design of
marching northwards to effect a junction with Moreau on the Danube was
impossible. Having only 40,400 men with him at midsummer, he had
barely enough to hold the line of the Adige, to blockade Mantua, and
to keep open his communications with France.

At the command of the Directory he turned southward against feebler
foes. The relations between the Papal States and the French Republic
had been hostile since the assassination of the French envoy,
Basseville, at Rome, in the early days of 1793; but the Pope, Pius
VI., had confined himself to anathemas against the revolutionists and
prayers for the success of the First Coalition.

This conduct now drew upon him a sharp blow. French troops crossed the
Po and seized Bologna, whereupon the terrified cardinals signed an
armistice with the republican commander, agreeing to close all their
States to the English, and to admit a French garrison to the port of
Ancona. The Pope also consented to yield up "one hundred pictures,
busts, vases, or statues, as the French Commissioners shall determine,
among which shall especially be included the bronze bust of Junius
Brutus and the marble bust of Marcus Brutus, together with five
hundred manuscripts." He was also constrained to pay 15,500,000
francs, besides animals and goods such as the French agents should
requisition for their army, exclusive of the money and materials drawn
from the districts of Bologna and Ferrara. The grand total, in money,
and in kind, raised from the Papal States in this profitable raid, was
reckoned by Bonaparte himself as 34,700,000 francs,[55] or about;
L1,400,000--a liberal assessment for the life of a single envoy and
the _bruta fulmina_ of the Vatican.

Equally lucrative was a dash into Tuscany. As the Grand Duke of this
fertile land had allowed English cruis