previously, when he sketched to his friends at Nice the plan of campaign, beginning at Savona and ending before the Austrian capital; and great was his chagrin at hearing the tidings of Moreau’s success on April 20th.  The news reached him on his return from Leoben to Italy, when he was detained for a few hours by a sudden flood of the River Tagliamento.  At once he determined to ride back and make some excuse for a rupture with Austria; and only the persistent remonstrances of Berthier turned him from this mad resolve, which would forthwith have exhibited him to the world as estimating more highly the youthful promptings of destiny than the honour of a French negotiator.

The terms which he had granted to the Emperor were lenient enough.  The only definitive gain to France was the acquisition of the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), for which troublesome possession the Emperor was to have compensation elsewhere.  Nothing absolutely binding was said about the left, or west, bank of the Rhine, except that Austria recognized the “constitutional limits” of France, but reaffirmed the integrity of “The Empire."[73] These were contradictory statements; for France had declared the Rhine to be her natural boundary, and the old “Empire” included Belgium, Treves, and Luxemburg.  But, for the interpretation of these vague formularies, the following secret and all-important articles were appended.  While the Emperor renounced that part of his Italian possessions which lay to the west of the Oglio, he was to receive all the mainland territories of Venice east of that river, including Dalmatia and Istria, Venice was also to cede her lands west of the Oglio to the French Government; and in return for these sacrifices she was to gain the three legations of Romagna, Ferrara, and Bologna—­the very lands which Bonaparte had recently formed into the Cispadane Republic!  For the rest, the Emperor would have to recognize the proposed Republic at Milan, as also that already existing at Modena, “compensation” being somewhere found for the deposed duke.

From the correspondence of Thugut, the Austrian Minister, it appears certain that Austria herself had looked forward to the partition of the Venetian mainland territories, and this was the scheme which Bonaparte actually proposed to her at Leoben.  Still more extraordinary was his proposal to sacrifice, ostensibly to Venice but ultimately to Austria, the greater part of the Cispadane Republic.  It is, indeed, inexplicable, except on the ground that his military position at Leoben was more brilliant than secure.  His uneasiness about this article of the preliminaries is seen in his letter of April 22nd to the Directors, which explains that the preliminaries need not count for much.  But most extraordinary of all was his procedure concerning the young Lombard Republic.  He seems quite calmly to have discussed its retrocession to the Austrians, and that, too, after he had encouraged the Milanese to found a republic,