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too easy, and when a prelate was sent to Paris to
negotiate the treaty, he was told that as an indispen-
sable condition of" pcaee, Pius VI must revoke the
Briefs relating to the Civil Constitution of the elcrpy
and to the Inquisition. The pope refused, and nego-
tiations were broken off; they failed again at Florence,
where an attempt had been made to renew them.
During Ihcse pourparlers between Paris and Rome, Bonaparte repulsed the repeated efforts of the Aus- trian Wurmser to reconquer Lombardy. Between 1 and 5 August, Wurmser was twice beaten at Lonato anil again at C'astiglioue; between S and 15 Sepleni- ber, the battles of Roveredo, Primolano, Hassano, and San Giorgio forced Wurmser to take refuge in Man- tua, and on 10 October Bonaparte created the Cisija- dan Republic at the expense of the Duchy of Modena and of the Legations, which were pontifical territory. Then, 24 October, he invited Cacault, the French minister at Rome, to re-open negotiations with Pius VI "so as to catch the old fox"; but on 28 October he wrote to the same Cacault: "You may assure the pope that I have always been opposed to the treaty which the Directory hsis offered him, and above all to the manner of negotiating it. I am more ambitious to be called the preserver than the destroyer of the Holy See. If they will be sensible at Rome, we will profit by it to give peace to that beautiful part of the world and to calm the conscientious fears of many people." Meanwhile the arrival in Venetia of the Austrian troops under Alvinzi caused Cardinal Busca, the pope's secretary of State, to hasten the conclusion of an alliance between the Holy See and the Court of Vienna; of this Bonaparte learned through intercepted letters. His victories at Arcoli (17 November, 1796) and RivoU (14 January, 1797) and the capitulation of Mantua (2 February, 1797), placed the whole of Northern Italy in his hands, and in the spring of 1797 the Pontifical States were at his mercy.
The Directory sent him ferocious instructions. "The Roman religion", they wrote, "will always be the irreconcilable enemy of the Republic; first by its essence, and next, because its servants and ministers will never forgive the blows which the Republic has aimed at the fortune and standing of some, and the prejudices and habits of others. The Directory re- quests you to do all that you deem possible, without rekindling the torch of fanaticism, to destroy the papal Government, either by put t ing Rome under some other power or — which would be still better — by estab- lishing some form of self-government which would render the yoke of the priests odious. " But at the very moment when Bonaparte received these instruc- tions he knew, by his private correspondence, that a Cathohc awakening was beginning in France. Clarke wrote to him: "We have become once more Roman Catholic in France", and explained to him that the help of the pope might perhaps be needed before long to bring the priests in France to accept the state of things resulting from the Revolution. Considera- tions such as these must have made an impression on a statesman like Bonaparte, who, moreover, at about this period, said to the parish priests of Milan: "A so- ciety without religion is like a ship without a compass; there is no good morality without religion." And in Februarj', 1797, when he entered the Pontifical States with his troo[)s, he forbade any insult to religion, and showed kindness to the priests and the monks, even to the French ecclesiastics who had taken refuge in papal territorj', and whom he might have caused to be shot as emigres. Hi- contented himself with levying a great many contributions, and laying hands on the treasury of the Santa C;i.sa at Loretto. The first ad- vances of Pius VI to his "dear son General Bona- parte" were met by Bonaparte's declaring that he was ready to treat. " I am treating with this rabble of priests [celle pn'trailte], and for this once Saint Peter will again save the Capitol", he wrote to Joubert, 17
February, 1797. The Peace of Tolentino was negoti-
ated on 19 February: the Holy See surrendered the
Legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Ravenna, and
recognized the annexation of Avignon and the Comtat
Wnaissin by France. But Bonaparte had taken care
not to infringe upon the spiritual power, and had not
demanded of Pius VI the withdrawal of those Briefs
which were offensive to the Directory. As soon as the
treaty was signeil he wrote to Pius VI to express to
him "his perfect esteem and veneration"; on the
other hand, feeling that the Directory would be dis-
pleased, he wrote to it: "My opinion is that Rome,
oticc ileprivcd of Bologna, F^errara, the Romagna,
and the thirty millions we are taking from her, can no
longer exist. The old machine will go to ])ici-es of
itself." And he proposed that the Directory should
take the necessary steps with the pope in regard to the
religious situation in France.
Then, with breathless rapidity, turning back to- wards the Alps, and assisted by Joubert, Massdna, and Bernadotte, he inflicted on Archduke Charles a series of defeats which forced Austria to sign the pre- liminaries of Leoben (18 April, 1797). In May he transformed Genoa into the Ligurian Republic; in October he imposed on the archduke the Treaty of Campo Formio, by which France obtained Belgium, the Rhine country with Mainz, and the Ionian Is- lands, while \'enice was made subject to Austria. The Directory found fault with this last stipulation; but Bonaparte had already reached the point where he could act with independence and care little for what the politicians at Paris might think. It was the same with his religious policy: he now began to think of invoking the pope's assistance to restore peace in France. A note which he addressed to the Court of Rome, 3 August, 1797, was conceived in these terms: "The pope will perhaps think it worthy of his wisdom, of the most holy of religions, to execute a Bull or ordi- nance commanding priests to preach obedience to the Government, and to do all in their power to strengthen the established constitution. After the first step, it would be useful to know what others could be taken to reconcile the constitutional priests with the non-con- stitutional."
While Bonaparte was expressing himself thus, the Councils of the Five Hundred and the Ancients were passing a law to recall, amnesty, and restore to their civil and political rights the priests who had refused to take the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. But Directors Barres, Rewbell, and Lareveillere- Lepeaux, considering that this act jeopardized the Republic, employed General Augereau, Bonaparte's lieutenant, to carry out the cotip d'etat of IS Fructidor against the Councils (4 Sept., 1797), and France was once more a prey to a Jacobin and anti-Catholic policy. These events were immediately echoed at Rome, where Joseph Bonaparte, the general's brother, and ambassador from the Directory, was asked by the latter, to favour the Revolutionary party. Disturb- ances arose: General Duphot was killed in Joseph Bonaparte's house (28 December, 1797), and the Di- rectory demanded satisfaction from the Holy See. General Bonaparte had just returned to Paris, where he apparently confined himself to his functions as a member of the Institute (Scientific Section). He was by no means anxious to lead the expedition against Rome, which the Directory was projecting, antl con- tented himself with giving Berthier, who comnumded it, certain instructions from a distance. For this ex- pedition for lierthier's entry into Rome and the proc- lamation of the Roman Republic (10-15 February, 179S), and for the captivity of Pius VI, who was car- ried off a prisoner to Vtilcnce, see Pius VI.
The Cam/iaiuii in Kgijjil. — While in Paris, Bona- parte induced the Directory to take up the i)lan of an expedition to Kgypt. His object was to make the Mediterranean a French lake, by the conquest of
