28. The Peace Of Campo Formio

After three months the time drew nigh when the peace negotiations were to reach a final conclusion, and when it was to be decided if the Emperor of Germany would make peace with the French republic or if he would renew the war.

For three months had the negotiations continued in Montebello--three months of feasts, pleasures, and receptions. To the official and public rejoicings had been also added domestic joys. Madame Letitia came to Italy to warm her happy, proud mother's heart at the triumphs of her darling son; and she brought with her her daughter Pauline, while the youngest, Caroline, remained behind in Madame Campan's boarding-school. It could not be otherwise than that the sisters of the commander-in-chief, whose true beauty reminded one of the classic features of ancient Greece, should find among the officers of the army of Italy most enthusiastic admirers and worshippers, and that many should long for the favor of being more intimately connected by the ties of affection with the celebrated general.

Bonaparte left his sisters entirely free to make a choice among their suitors, and he hesitated not to give his consent when Pauline became affianced to General Leclerc. After a few weeks, the marriage was celebrated in Montebello; and, soon after, the happy couple left that city to return to Paris, whither Madame Letitia had preceded them.

Josephine, however, remained with her husband; she accompanied him from Montebello to Milan, where Bonaparte, now that the Austrian envoys had taken their leave, tarried some time, awaiting the final decision of the Austrian court upon his propositions. Meanwhile, the imperial court, for good reasons, still hesitated. It was known that in France there was secretly preparing an event which in a short time might bring on a new order of things, putting an end to the hateful republic, and once more placing the Bourbons on the throne of the lilies.

General Pichegru, a zealous royalist, and intimate friend of the Prince de Conde, with whom he had been in secret correspondence for several months, had organized a conspiracy which had for its object the downfall of the Directory, the ruin of the republican administration, the recall of the monarchy to Paris, and the re- establishment of the Bourbons.

But General Moreau, who, with his army on the Rhine, stood opposite to that of the royalists, had the good fortune to discover the conspiracy, by intercepting Pichegru's whole correspondence. The Directory, informed by Moreau, took secretly precautionary measures, and on the 18th Fructidor, Pichegru, with all his real or supposed guilty companions, was arrested. To these guilty ones belonged also, according to the opinion of the Directory, two out of their number, Carnot and Barthelemy, besides twenty-two deputies and one hundred and twenty-eight others, all among the educated classes of society. These were exiled to Cayenne; Carnot alone escaped from this distant and cruel exile by a timely flight to Geneva.

The 18th Fructidor, which disarmed the royalists and destroyed their plans, had a great influence upon the negotiations carried on between France and Austria, which were entangled with so many difficulties. Austria, which had vacillated and delayed--for she was informed of the schemes of the royalists, and hoped that if Louis XVIII. should ascend the throne, she would be delivered from all the burdensome exactions of the republic--now saw that this abortive attempt had removed the royalists still further from their object and more firmly consolidated the republic; she was therefore inclined to push on negotiations more speedily, and to show greater readiness to bring on a final settlement.

The conferences broken off in Montebello were resumed in Udine. Thither came the Austrian and French plenipotentiaries. Bonaparte, however, felt that his presence was also necessary, so as not to allow these conferences again to remain in abeyance. He therefore, accompanied by Josephine, went to Passeriano, a beautiful residence of the Doge Marini, not far from Udine, charmingly situated on the shores of the Tagliamento, and in the midst of a splendid park. But the residence in Passeriano was not enlivened by the pleasures, recreations, and festivities of Montebello. Politics alone occupied Bonaparte's mind, and not only the peace negotiations, but also the Directory of the republic, furnished him with too many occasions for ill-will and anger.

Austria, which had added the Count von Coblentz to her plenipotentiaries, adhered obstinately to her former claims; and the Directory, which now felt stronger and more secure by their victory of the 18th Fructidor, were so determined not to accept these claims, that they wrote to General Bonaparte that they would sooner resume hostilities than concede to "the overpowered, treacherous Austria, sworn into all the conspiracies of the royalists, her unreasonable pretensions."

But Bonaparte knew better than the proud lords of the Directory, that France needed peace as well as Austria; that France lacked gold, men, and ammunition, for the vigorous prosecution of the war. While, therefore, the Directory, enthroned in the Luxemburg, amid peace and luxury, desired a renewal of hostilities, it was the man of battles who desired peace, and who was inclined to make to Austria insignificant concessions sooner than see the work of peace dashed to pieces.

The sole recreation in Passeriano consisted in the banquets which were interchanged between it and Udine, and where Josephine found much pleasure, at least in the conversation of the Count von Coblentz, who could speak to her with spirit and grace of his sojourn in Petersburg--of Catharine the Great, at whose court he had been accredited so long as ambassador from Austria, and who had even granted him the privilege of being present at her private evening circles at the Hermitage.

Bonaparte was still busy with the glowing tenderness of a worshipping lover, in procuring for his Josephine pleasures and recreations, as each favorable opportunity presented itself.

The republic of Venice, now laboring under the greatest anxiety and fear on account of Bonaparte's anger at her perfidy and enmity, had descended from the height of her proud attitude to the most abject humility. Her solicitude for mere existence made her so far forget her dignity, that she humbly invited Bonaparte, whose loud voice of anger pronounced only vengeance and destruction, to come and receive in person their homage and the assurance of their loyalty.

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