Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/646

610 FRANCE [HISTORY. 1796-97. The cam paign in Germany, Bona parte s plans for 1797. The pre limin aries of Leoben. Fall of Venice. republics : he also signed a treaty of peace with Spain. In all things he acted promptly and resolutely, awaiting no man s orders, with perfect confidence in himself and his army. The Directory at Paris could but look on in amaze ment, and, by seeming to advise and approve, endeavoured to associate itself with his dreaded triumphs. The campaign of 1796 in another way was favoured by fortune, so far as Bonaparte s interests were concerned ; for the Rhine armies, ill-supplied, and under two commands, were opposed by the archduke Charles, and were not strong enough to carry out the great and dangerous plans of Carnot. Jour dan was repelled, and Moreau, who had penetrated into Bavaria, seeing himself almost cut off and isolated, with Jourdan on the Ehine, and the Tyrolese Alps between him and Bonaparte, was forced to retreat, and late in October was back again in Alsace. A great expedition to Ireland under Hoche also failed completely ; and by the beginning of 1797 Bonaparte seemed to the eyes of all Frenchmen their only great and successful captain. Now he startled all Europe by his audacious plan for the campaign of 1797. He saw his way to achieve that which Louis XIV. had attempted in vain, the overthrow of Austria by a march on Vienna. His army was strengthened, and those on the Rhine ordered to begin active operations, in order to occupy their opponents; quite early in the spring Bonaparte began his great campaign by driving the archduke Charles away from his defences. In spite of the vehement resistance of the Tyrolese and the threatening attitude of Venice in their rear, the French advanced always, and Bonaparte, crossing the Noric Alps, penetrated in April as far as Leoben in Styria ; his outposts were pushed to within easy reach of Vienna. Then the Austrian court fell into panic ; the Austrian armies were either beaten and scattered or were far off; there was no resisting this terrible and swift advance. The emperor gladly signed with Bona parte (who had no anthority to do it, only the power), " the Preliminaries of Leoben" (18th April) ceding to France Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine from Basel to Ander- nach, as well as Lombardy, which was to be an independent state. The successful outset of the Rhine campaign, in which Hoche and Moreau had already thrust the Austrians back into the Black Forest, was early arrested by the tidings of Leoben. In Italy fortune again favoured Bonaparte. A Venetian insurrection gave him the oppor tunity of finally overthrowing the ancient republic of Saint Mark. The Venetian citizens were in the main favourable to France, while the oligarchical senate and the peasantry detested the "deliverers." A democratic government, centred in the people of Venice, replaced the rule of the senate. Genoa, under the grand title of the Ligurian Re public, became the submissive ally of France. The amaze ment of all Europe, the sympathy of the peoples everywhere, the embarrassments of the Governments, forced even Pitt to make serious proposals for peace. Yet at home affairs looked ill. In spite of the glorious suc cess of the armies abroad, paper money, which, as La Vall6e eays, "had done its work, had conquered Europe, had in five years subdivided property far beyond all that had been done in that direction by centuries of feudalism," because it was with paper that the thriftier peasants had been able to purchase the lands of the crown, the church, and the nobles, these assignats had become almost worthless, and a field for gamblers, who scandalized even Paris with their sham wealth and real dissipation. Republican manners and institutions were alike corrupted and tottering to their fall. It was thought that the elections of the year V., which re newed one-third of the two councils (May 1797), would reverse the political position, for they showed clearly that the country was returning to royalist opinions. In some departments a " White Terror," the usual accompaniment of^the rising spirits of royalists, broke out. A reaction at 175 once began in the Directory, of which throe members were Boy; still firmly republican, while two, Carnot and Barthelemy, react were with the new majority, the"Clichy" party. The in Directory was censured for the war against Venice, and the E new alliances in Italy ; the exiled and depressed party were favoured ; it was openly said that the councils would reor ganize the national guard, overthrow the Directory, and proclaim Louis XVIII. " While Europe was learning to speak with terror-born respect of the name of Republican," says Thibaudeau, "" it had become at home a term of con tempt, a title to proscription." Napoleon Bonaparte, with his devoted and Jacobin army, had won that respect for France abroad ; how would he presently face the difficulties at home 1 The Directory, finding itself menaced, and its very existence at stake, recalled Hoche, the most single- minded of republicans, with his army from the Rhine, and asked Bonaparte for one of his generals. He sent them Augereau, whom he could trust both to do the work well, and not to stand afterwards in the way of his own ambition. With these the Directory carried out the " Coup d Etat " of Th the 18th Fructidor (4th September 1797); with cries of " Long live the Republic " the soldiers occupied Paris ; the d three directors, who had the stroke in hand, Barras, Rewbel, jg and Lardveilliere, arrested their fourth colleague Bar- Fr thelemy, while Carnot, the fifth, escaped. The majority in tid the Councils was overthrown, fifty-three of them condemned to exile, and a kind of Reign of Terror ensued, without much bloodshed. The liberty of the press was suspended, the laws favourable to the royalists repealed, the party of the old r6gime crushed. Hoche, who had received the command of both the Rhine armies on the suspension of Moreau, suddenly died (it was said, of poison), at the age of twenty-nine ; he left behind him an untarnished name that of a peasant-hero of purest and noblest character. The Directory, though it breathed again, felt that it lived only by the grace of the army ; and so, while it signed the treaty of Campo Formic (Oct. 18, 1797), which embodied T the Preliminaries of Leoben, it broke off negotiations with f England. Bonaparte s work in Italy done, he was named general of the "army of England," and at the end of 1797 returned in triumph to Paris. In him men saw a new development of Revolution principles, a man of genius under whom those principles were to bring happiness and glory to France, while he taught them by force to the unwilling nations of Europe. He too saw before him an open field for his ambition ; he would destroy the kings of the earth by the agency of his Jacobin army ; and then, " head of the army," he would become master of France. His Italian blocd and tastes taught him how the Roman republic had passed into empire ; he would tread the same path, and reach the same splendid goal. The coup d etat of the 18th Fructidor had destroyed the authority of the elective body over the Government ; when the departments had sent up royalists, the Directory put them down ; and, by a natural consequence, the press was at once coerced, lest public opinion, never strong in French history, should gain too much power. The result of all was the weaken ing of the Directory, and the gradual preparation of France - for the coming of a real master. For the republican party was by no means content with r . the five Directors, the " five tyrants of the Luxembourg ; " r it was a Government without splendour, or principles, or virtue. Consequently, the elections of the year VI. . j showed a decided majority in favour of republican prin ciples. The Directory did not hesitate to make a second coup d etat, this time against the republicans. They also put a lawyer instead of a general into the vacant place in the Directory itself, as if to show that they could do with out the army now. Yet, at the same time they had refused