R THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO, 1797

The boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire are indicated by thick dots.
The Austrian Dominions are indicated by vertical lines. The Prussian
Dominions are indicated by horizontal lines. The Ecclesiastical
States are indicated by dotted areas.]

The advice was useless. The Venetian democrats determined on a last
desperate venture. They secretly sent three deputies, among them
Dandolo, with a large sum of money wherewith to bribe the Directors to
reject the treaty of Campo Formio. This would have been quite
practicable, had not their errand become known to Bonaparte. Alarmed
and enraged at this device, which, if successful, would have consigned
him to infamy, he sent Duroc in chase; and the envoys, caught before
they crossed the Maritime Alps, were brought before the general at
Milan. To his vehement reproaches and threats they opposed a dignified
silence, until Dandolo, appealing to his generosity, awakened those
nobler feelings which were never long dormant. Then he quietly
dismissed them--to witness the downfall of their beloved city.

_Acribus initiis, ut ferme talia, incuriosa fine_; these cynical
words, with which the historian of the Roman Empire blasted the
movements of his age, may almost serve as the epitaph to Bonaparte's
early enthusiasms. Proclaiming at the beginning of his Italian
campaigns that he came to free Italy, he yet finished his course of
almost unbroken triumphs by a surrender which his panegyrists have
scarcely attempted to condone. But the fate of Venice was almost
forgotten amidst the jubilant acclaim which greeted the conqueror of
Italy on his arrival at Paris. All France rang with the praises of the
hero who had spread liberty throughout Northern and Central Italy,
had enriched the museums of Paris with priceless masterpieces of art,
whose army had captured 150,000 prisoners, and had triumphed in 18
pitched battles--for Caldiero was now reckoned as a French
victory--and 47 smaller engagements. The Directors, shrouding their
hatred and fear of the masterful proconsul under their Roman togas,
greeted him with uneasy effusiveness. The climax of the official
comedy was reached when, at the reception of the conqueror, Barras,
pointing northwards, exclaimed: "Go there and capture the giant
corsair that infests the seas: go punish in London outrages that have
too long been unpunished": whereupon, as if overcome by his emotions,
he embraced the general. Amidst simila