with the Austrian
plenipotentiaries, the Peace of Campo Formio, on the 17th of October,
1797.
During 1798, 1799, and 1800 he resided as Neapolitan Ambassador at
Vienna, and was again entrusted by his Sovereign with several important
transactions with Austria and Russia. After a peace had been agreed to
between France and the Two Sicilies, in March, 1801, and the Court of
Naples had every reason to fear, and of course to please, the Court of
St. Cloud, he obtained his present appointment, and is one of the few
foreign Ambassadors here who has escaped both Bonaparte's private
admonitions in the diplomatic circle and public lectures in Madame
Bonaparte's drawing-room.
This escape is so much the more fortunate and singular as our Government
is far from being content with the mutinous spirit (as Bonaparte calls
it) of the Government of Naples, which, considering its precarious and
enfeebled state, with a French army in the heart of the kingdom, has
resisted our attempts and insults with a courage and dignity that demand
our admiration.
It is said that the Marquis de Gallo is not entirely free from some
taints of modern philosophy, and that he, therefore, does not consider
the consequences of our innovations so fatal as most loyal men judge
them; nor thinks a sans-culotte Emperor more dangerous to civilized
society than a sans-culotte sovereign people.
It is evident from the names and rank of its partisans that the
Revolution of Naples in 1799 was different in many respects from that of
every other country in Europe; for, although the political convulsions
seem to have originated among the middle classes of the community, the
extremes of society were everywhere else made to act against each other;
the rabble being the first to triumph, and the nobles to succumb. But
here, on the contrary, the lazzaroni, composed of the lowest portion of
the population of a luxurious capital, appear to have been the most
strenuous, and, indeed, almost the only supporters of royalty; while the
great families, instead of being indignant at novelties which levelled
them, in point of political rights, with the meanest subject, eagerly
embraced the opportunity of altering that form of Government which alone
made them great. It is, however, but justice to say that, though Marquis
de Gallo gained the good graces of Bonaparte and of France in 1797, he
was never, directly or indirectly, inculpated in the revolutionary
transactions of his coun
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