The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
hands of the Duke of Modena for such a sum." But similar propositions were made by the commander-in-chief to his subordinates, and they with less prudence fell into the trap, taking all they could lay hands upon and thus becoming the bond-slaves of their virtuous leader. There were stories at the time that some of the generals, not daring to send their ill-gotten money to France, and having no opportunity for investing it elsewhere, actually carried hundreds of thousands of francs in their baggage. This prostitution of his subordinates was part of a system. Twenty million francs was approximately the sum total of all contributions announced to the Directory, and in their destitution it seemed enormous. They also accepted with pleasure a hundred of the finest horses in Lombardy to replace, as Bonaparte wrote on sending his present, the ordinary ones which drew their carriages. Was this paltry four million dollars the whole of what was derived from the sequestrations of princely domains and the secularization of ecclesiastical estates? By no means. The army chest, of which none knew the contents but Bonaparte, was as inexhaustible as the widow's cruse. At the opening of the campaign in Piedmont, empty wagons had been ostentatiously displayed as representing the military funds at the commander's disposal: these same vehicles now groaned under a weight of treasure, and were kept in a safe obscurity. Well might he say, as he did in June to Miot, that the commissioners of the Directory would soon leave and not be replaced, since they counted for nothing in his policy.
With the entry into Milan, therefore, begins a new epoch in the remarkable development we are seeking to outline. The military genius of him who had been the Corsican patriot and the Jacobin republican had finally asserted dominion over all his other qualities. In the inconsistency of human nature, those former characters now and then showed themselves as still existent, but they were henceforth subordinate. The conquered Milanese was by a magical touch provided with a provisional government, ready, after the tardy assent of the Directory, to be changed into the Transpadane Republic and put under French protection. Every detail of administration, every official and his functions, came under Bonaparte's direction. He knew the land and its resources, the people and their capacities, the mutual relations of the surrounding states, and the idiosyncrasies of their rulers. Such laborious analysis as his despatches display, such grasp both of outline and detail, such absence of confusion and clearness of vision, such lack of hesitance and such definition of plan, seem to prove that either a hero or a demon is again on earth. All the capacity this man had hitherto shown, great as it was, sinks into insignificance when compared with the Olympian powers he now displays, and will continue to display for years to come. His sinews are iron, his nerves are steel, his eyes need no sleep, and his brain no rest. What a captured Hungarian veteran said of him at Lodi is as true of his political activity as of his military restlessness: "He knows nothing of the regular rules of war: he is sometimes on our front, sometimes on the flank, sometimes in the rear. There is no supporting such a gross violation of rules." His senses and his reason were indeed untrammeled by human limitations; they worked on front, rear, and flank, often simultaneously, and always without confusion.
Was it astonishing that the French nation, just recovering from a debauch of irreligion and anarchy, should begin insensibly to yield to the charms of a wooer so seductive? For some time past the soldiers, as the Milan newspapers declared, had been a pack of tatterdemalions ever flying before the arms of his Majesty the Emperor; now they were victors, led by a second Cæsar or Alexander, clothed, fed, and paid at the cost of the conquered. To ardent French republicans, and to the peoples of Italy, this phenomenal personage proclaimed that he had come to break the chains of captives, while almost in the same hour he wrote to the Directory that he was levying twenty million francs on the country, which, though exhausted by five years of war, was then the richest in the civilized world. Nor was the self-esteem of France and the Parisian passion for adornment forgotten. There began a course of plunder, if not in a direction at least in a measure hitherto unknown to the modern world—the plunder of scientific specimens, of manuscripts, of pictures, statues, and other works of art. It is difficult to fix the responsibility for this policy, which by the overwhelming majority of learned and intelligent Frenchmen was considered right, morally and legally. Nothing so flattered the national pride as the assemblage in Paris of art treasures from all nations, nothing so humiliated it as their dispersion at the behest of the conquering Allies. In the previous year a few art works had been taken from Holland and Belgium, and formal orders were given again and again by the Directory for stripping the Pope's galleries; but there is a persistent belief, founded, no doubt, in an inherent probability, that the whole comprehensive scheme of art spoliation had been suggested in the first place by Bonaparte, and prearranged between himself and the executive before his departure. At any rate, he asked and easily obtained from the government a commission of scholars and experts to scour the Italian cities; and soon untold treasures of art, letters, and science began to pour into the galleries, cabinets, and libraries of Paris. A few brave voices among the artists of the capital protested against the desecration; the nation at large was tipsy with delight, and would not listen. Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo, Correggio, Giorgione, and Paul Veronese, with all the lesser masters, were stowed in the holds of frigates and despatched by way of Toulon toward the new Rome; while Monge and Berthollet ransacked the scientific collections of Milan and Parma for their rarest specimens. Science, in fact, was to flourish on the banks of the Seine as never before or elsewhere; and the great investigators of Italy, forgetful of their native land, were to find a new citizenship in the world of knowledge at the capital of European liberties. Words like these, addressed to the astronomer Oriani, indicate that on Bonaparte's mind had dawned the notion of a universal federated state, to which national republics would be subordinate.
No scene in the history of warfare was more theatrical than the entry of the French into Milan. The pageant was arranged on the lines of a Roman triumph and the distances so calculated that Bonaparte was the one impressive figure. With his lean face and sharp Greek profile, his long, lank, unpowdered locks, his simple uniform, and awkward seat in the saddle, he looked like a new human type, neither angel nor devil but an inscrutable apparition from another sphere. To officers and men the voluptuous city extended wide its arms, and the shabby soldiery were incongruous figures where their entertainers were elegant and fastidious beyond what the guests had dreamed. With stern impartiality the liberator repressed all excess in his army, but immediately the question of contributions, billeting, indemnity, and fiscal organization was taken up, settled, and the necessary measures inaugurated. The rich began to hide their possessions and the burghers to cry out. Ere long there was opposition, first sullen, then active, especially in the suburban villages where the French were fiercely attacked. One of these, Binasco, was burned and sacked as an example to the rest and to the city. Order was restored and the inexorable process of seizures went on. Pavia bade defiance; the officials were threatened with death, many leading citizens were taken as hostages, and the place was pillaged for three days. "Such a lesson would set the people of Italy right." They did not need a second example, it was true, but the price of "liberation" was fearful.
Italian rebellion having been subdued, the French nation roused to enthusiasm, independent funds provided, and the Directory put in its place, Bonaparte was free to unfold and consummate his further plans. Before him was the territory of Venice, a state once vigorous and terrible, but now, as far as the country populations were concerned, an enfeebled and gentle ruler. With quick decision a French corps of observation was sent to seize Brescia and watch the Tyrolean passes. It was, of course, to the advantage of Austria that Venetian neutrality should not be violated, except by her own troops. But the French, having made a bold beginning of formal defiance, were quick to go further. Beaulieu had not hesitated on false pretenses to seize Peschiera, another Venetian town, which, by its situation at the outlet of Lake Garda, was of the utmost strategic value. He now stood confronting his pursuers on a strong line established, without reference to territorial boundaries, behind the whole course of the Mincio. Such was the situation to the north and east of the French army. Southeastward, on the swampy banks of the same river, near its junction with the Po, was Mantua. This city, which even under ordinary circumstances was an almost impregnable fortress, had been strengthened by an extraordinary garrison, while the surrounding lowlands were artificially inundated as a supreme measure of safety.
Bonaparte intended to hurl Beaulieu back, and seize the line of the Adige, far stronger than that of the Mincio for repelling an Austrian invasion from the north. What to him was the neutrality of a weak government, and what were the precepts of international law