, and wait for the favourable opportunity, which I will
seize according to circumstances, for we must not have everybody on
our hands at the same time."

The events which now transpired in Venetia gave him excuses for the
projected partition. The weariness felt by the Brescians and
Bergamesques for Venetian rule had been artfully played on by the
Jacobins of Milan and by the French Generals Kilmaine and Landrieux;
and an effort made by the Venetian officials to repress the growing
discontent brought about disturbances in which some men of the
"Lombard legion" were killed. The complicity of the French in the
revolt is clearly established by the Milanese journals and by the fact
that Landrieux forthwith accepted the command of the rebels at Bergamo
and Brescia.[75] But while these cities espoused the Jacobin cause,
most of the Venetian towns and all the peasantry remained faithful to
the old Government. It was clear that a conflict must ensue, even if
Bonaparte and some of his generals had not secretly worked to bring it
about. That he and they did so work cannot now be disputed. The circle
of proof is complete. The events at Brescia and Bergamo were part of
a scheme for precipitating a rupture with Venice; and their success
was so far assured that Bonaparte at Leoben secretly bargained away
nearly the whole of the Venetian lands. Furthermore, a fortnight
before the signing of these preliminaries, he had suborned a vile
wretch, Salvatori by name, to issue a proclamation purporting to come
from the Venetian authorities, which urged the people everywhere to
rise and massacre the French. It was issued on April 5th, though it
bore the date of March 20th. At once the Doge warned his people that
it was a base fabrication, But the mischief had been done. On Easter
Monday (April 17th) a chance affray in Verona let loose the passions
which had been rising for months past: the populace rose in fury
against the French detachment quartered on them: and all the soldiers
who could not find shelter in the citadel, even the sick in the
hospitals, fell victims to the craving for revenge for the
humiliations and exactions of the last seven months.[76] Such was
Easter-tide at Verona--_les Paques veronaises_--an event that recalls
the Sicilian Vespers of Palermo in its blind southern fury.

The finale somewhat exceeded Bonaparte's expectations, but he must
have hailed it with a secret satisfaction. It gave him a good excuse
for w