The life of Napoleon Buonaparte, emperor of the French. By Sir Walter Scott.

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 229
I wlhicll the Directory appear to have dreaded, and their security, thatn when more powerful nations in
which, according to the opinion which he himself their vicinity are about to conclude peace. It is so
intimates, seems to have delayed the promised easy to accommodate these differences of the strong
co-operation, which was to be afforded by tile eastern at the expense of such weaker states, as, if they
armies on the banks of the Rhine. Far from testi- are injured, have neither the power of mnaling their
fying such a feeling, his assertion of the rights of complaints heard, nor of defending themselves by
the Republic was decidedly striking, of which the force, that, in the iron age in which it has been our
followving is a remarkable instance. The Austrian fate to live, the injustice of such an arrangement
commlissioner, in hopes to gain some credit for the has never been considered as offering any counteradm:,ission, had stated in the preliminary articles of poise to its great convenience, whatever the law of
the convention, as a concession of consequence, nations might teach to the contrary.
tlhat his Imperial majesty acknowledged the French i It is unnecessary to enter upon the subject of the
governmnent in its present state. " Strike out that preliminaries of Leoben, until we notice the treaty
condition," said Bonaparte, sternly; "the French of Campo Formio, under which they were finally
Republic is like the sun in hea, en. The misfortune modified, and by which they were adjusted and
Ies with those wvho are so blind as to be ignorant of controled. It may be, however, the moment to
the existence ofeither." It was gallantly spoken; state, that Bonaparte was considerably blarmed, by
but how strange to reflect, that the same individual, tie Directory and others, for stolping short in the
in three or four years afterwards, was able to place career of conquest, and allowing the house of Ausan extinguisher on one of those salns, without even tria terms which left her still formidable to France,
an eclipse being the consequence.a' when, said the censors, it wouLld have cost him but
It is remarkable also, that while asserting to fo- another victory to blot the most constant and powerreigners this supreme dignity of the French Repub- ful enemy of the French Republic out of the mlap of
lic, Bonaparte should have departed so far fiom the Europe; or, at least, to confine her to lier heredirespect he owed its rulers. The preliminaries of tary states in Germany. To such criticism he repeace were proposed for signatutre on the 18th plied, in a dispatch to the Directory from Leoben,
April. But General Clarke, to whom the Directory duling the progress of the treaty: "If at the cornmhad committed full powers to act in the matter, was mencement of these Italian campaigns I had made
still at Turin. He was understood to be the full a point of going to Turin, I should never have
confident of his masters, and to have instructions to passed the Po-had I insisted prtematurely on adwatch the motions of Bonaparte, nay to place him vancing to Rome, I could never have secured Milan
tnder arlrest, should he see cause to doubt his fealty -and now, had I made an indisl:ensable object of
to the French government. Napoleon, nevertheless, reaching Vienna, I might have destroyed the
did not hesitate to tender his individual signature Republic."
and warranty, and these were readily admitted by Such was his able and judicious defence of a conthe Austrian plenipotentiaries;-an ominous sign of duct, which, by stopping short of some ultimate and
the delension of the powers of the Directory, con- extreme point apparently within his grasp, extractcidtering that a military general, without the support ed every advantage fronm fear, which despair pereven of thle commissioners frotl the government, or haps might not have yielded him, if the enemy. had
proconsuis, as they were called, was regarded as been driven to extlernity. And it is remarkable,
snfficient to ratify a treaty of stuch consequence. that the catastrophe of' Napoleon himself wvas a
No doulbt seems to have been entertained that lie corollary of the doctrine which he now laid dowln:
hIad the power to perform swhat lie had guaranteed; for, had lie not insisted upon penetrating to Moscow,
and the part which he acted was thel more remark- there is no judging how munch longer he umight have
able, considering the higll commission of General held the empire of France.
Clarke. The contents of the treaty of Leoben, so far as
The articles in thle tleaty of Leoben remained they were annonnced to the representatives of the
long sectet; the cause of which appears to have French nation by the Directory, only made known
beemn, that the high contracting parties were not as part of the preliminaries, that the cession of thll
willing comparisons should be umade between the Belgic provinces, and of such a boundary as France
preliminaries as they were originally settled, and mnight chluse to demand upon the Rhine, had beetn
the strange and violent alterations which occriired admitted by Austria; and that she had consented to
ill the definitive tieaty of Campo Formio. These recognize a single republic in Italy, to be comtwo treaties of pacification differed, the one fiorn posed out of those which had been provisionally
the otlier, in relation to the degree and manner how established. But shortly afterwards it transpired,
a meditated parltition of the territory of Venice, of that Mantla, the subject of so imuch and such bloody
tile Cisalpine Republic, and other smaller powers, contest, and the very citadel of Italy, as had apwas to be accomplished, for the mutual benefit of peared from the events of these sanguinaly camnFrance and Austria. It is nmelancholy to observe, p)aigns, was to be resigned to Austtia, fionml whose
but it is nevertheless an inmportant trutil', that there tenacious grasp it had been wrenched vith so much
is no moment during which independent states of the difficulty. Th'lis measure nwas unpopular; and it
second class have more occasion to be alarmed for will be found that Bonaparte had the ingenuity, in
4 Bonaparte first mentions this circumstance as having the definitive treaty of peace, to substitlte an intaken place at Leoben, afterwards at the definitive treaty deinnification, which he otlght not to have given,
of Camp6 Folrio. Tile effect is the same wherever thle anti which was certainly the last which the Auswords were spoken. trians should have accepted.