e to some feelings of pity for
the people whose ruin he had so artfully compassed; and the social
intercourse with Venetians which he enjoyed at Passeriano, the castle
of the Doge Manin, may well have inspired some regard for the proud
city which he was now about to barter away to Austria. Only so,
however, could he peacefully terminate the wearisome negotiations with
the Emperor. The Austrian envoy, Count Cobenzl, struggled hard to gain
the whole of Venetia, and the Legations, along with the half of
Lombardy.[89] From these exorbitant demands he was driven by the
persistent vigour of Bonaparte's assaults. The little Corsican proved
himself an expert in diplomatic wiles, now enticing the Imperialist on
to slippery ground, and occasionally shocking him by calculated
outbursts of indignation or bravado. After many days spent in
intellectual fencing, the discussions were narrowed down to Mainz,
Mantua, Venice, and the Ionian Isles. On the fate of these islands a
stormy discussion arose, Cobenzl stipulating for their complete
independence, while Bonaparte passionately claimed them for France. In
one of these sallies his vehement gestures overturned a cabinet with a
costly vase; but the story that he smashed the vase, as a sign of his
power to crush the House of Austria, is a later refinement on the
incident, about which Cobenzl merely reported to Vienna--"He behaved
like a fool." Probably his dextrous disclosure of the severe terms
which the Directory ordered him to extort was far more effective than
this boisterous _gasconnade_. Finally, after threatening an immediate
attack on the Austrian positions, he succeeded on three of the
questions above named, but at the sacrifice of Venice to Austria.

The treaty was signed on October 17th at the village of Campo Formio.
The published articles may be thus summarized: Austria ceded to the
French Republic her Belgic provinces. Of the once extensive Venetian
possessions France gained the Ionian Isles, while Austria acquired
Istria, Dalmatia, the districts at the mouth of the Cattaro, the city
of Venice, and the mainland of Venetia as far west as Lake Garda, the
Adige, and the lower part of the River Po. The Hapsburgs recognized
the independence of the now enlarged Cisalpine Republic. France and
Austria agreed to frame a treaty of commerce on the basis of "the most
favoured nation." The Emperor ceded to the dispossessed Duke of Modena
the territory of Breisgau on the east of the Rhin