cent liberties. Amidst all the vivas and the clash of
bells Bonaparte took care to sound a sterner note. On that very day
he ordered the suppression of a Milanese club which had indulged in
Jacobinical extravagances, and he called on the people "to show to the
world by their wisdom, energy, and by the good organization of their
army, that modern Italy has not degenerated and is still worthy of
liberty."

The contagion of Milanese enthusiasm spread rapidly. Some of the
Venetian towns on the mainland now petitioned for union with the
Cisalpine Republic; and the deputies of the Cispadane, who were
present at the festival, urgently begged that their little State might
enjoy the same privilege. Hitherto Bonaparte had refused these
requests, lest he should hamper the negotiations with Austria, which
were still tardily proceeding; but within a month their wish was
gratified, and the Cispadane State was united to the larger and more
vigorous republic north of the River Po, along with the important
districts of Como, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and Peschiera.
Disturbances in the Swiss district of the Valteline soon enabled
Bonaparte to intervene on behalf of the oppressed peasants, and to
merge this territory also in the Cisalpine Republic, which
consequently stretched from the high Alps southward to Rimini, and
from the Ticino on the west to the Mincio on the east.[81]

Already, during his sojourn at the Castle of Montebello, Bonaparte
figured as the all-powerful proconsul of the French Republic. Indeed,
all his surroundings--his retinue of complaisant generals, and the
numerous envoys and agents who thronged his ante-chambers to beg an
audience--befitted a Sulla or a Wallenstein, rather than a general of
the regicide Republic. Three hundred Polish soldiers guarded the
approaches to the castle; and semi-regal state was also observed in
its spacious corridors and saloons. There were to be seen Italian
nobles, literati, and artists, counting it the highest honour to visit
the liberator of their land; and to them Bonaparte behaved with that
mixture of affability and inner reserve, of seductive charm
alternating with incisive cross-examination which proclaimed at once
the versatility of his gifts, the keenness of his intellect, and his
determination to gain social, as well as military and political,
supremacy. And yet the occasional abruptness of his movements, and the
strident tones of command lurking beneath his silkiest speech, n