ated by
this grand enthusiasm, found its militant embodiment in the great
captain who seemed about to liberate Italy and Central Europe.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

LEOBEN TO CAMPO FORMIO

In signing the preliminaries of peace at Leoben, which formed in part
the basis for the Treaty of Campo Formio, Bonaparte appears as a
diplomatist of the first rank. He had already signed similar articles
with the Court of Turin and with the Vatican. But such a transaction
with the Emperor was infinitely more important than with the
third-rate powers of the peninsula. He now essays his first flight to
the highest levels of international diplomacy. In truth, his mental
endowments, like those of many of the greatest generals, were no less
adapted to success in the council-chamber than on the field of battle;
for, indeed, the processes of thought and the methods of action are
not dissimilar in the spheres of diplomacy and war. To evade obstacles
on which an opponent relies, to multiply them in his path, to bewilder
him by feints before overwhelming him by a crushing onset, these are
the arts which yield success either to the negotiator or to the
commander.

In imposing terms of peace on the Emperor at Leoben (April 18th,
1797), Bonaparte reduced the Directory, and its envoy, Clarke, who was
absent in Italy, to a subordinate _role_. As commander-in-chief, he
had power only to conclude a brief armistice, but now he signed the
preliminaries of peace. His excuse to the Directory was ingenious.
While admitting the irregularity of his conduct, he pleaded the
isolated position of his army, and the absence of Clarke, and that,
under the circumstances, his act had been merely "a military
operation." He could also urge that he had in his rear a disaffected
Venetia, and that he believed the French armies on the Rhine to be
stationary and unable to cross that river. But the very tardy advent
of Clarke on the scene strengthens the supposition that Bonaparte was
at the time by no means loth to figure as the pacifier of the
Continent. Had he known the whole truth, namely, that the French were
gaining a battle on the east bank of the Rhine while the terms of
peace were being signed at Leoben, he would most certainly have broken
off the negotiations and have dictated harsher terms at the gates of
Vienna. That was the vision which shone before his eyes three years
previously, when he sketched to his friends at Ni