390 



NAPOLEON I. 



the fall of Mantua, anil by treaties \viili Koine 

 and Sardinia, h- prepared to advance through 

 Carinthia niul Sty mi on Vienna. He pushed back 

 the Archduke Charles from the Tagliamento, and 

 advanced till he reached I.eolien in Stvri.i mi tlir 

 7th April I7!7. Then Austria sued for peace, and 

 the preliminaries of Leoben were signed on the 

 18th April pending the conclusion of a diTmite peace 

 But further negotiations digged <m, as .\ii-tria 

 thought a revolution might lie impending in France 

 from which -In- could nl. tain a<lvantage. In fact a 

 juirty was rising against the Directory, consisting 

 mainly of moderates who were eager only for a 

 respectable government, but containing also a few 

 royalists. Their inclusion was fatal lo the party. 

 It gave a pretext for raising the cry that the 

 Republic was in danger, and Augereau, sent by 

 Napoleon to Paris, aided the Directory to carry out 

 the rtnift tl'ftnt of the 18th Fructidor, when the 

 Corps Legislatil was surrounded by troops and the 

 obnoxious representatives arrested. This strength- 

 ened the Directory for the moment, but was a 

 step towards military despotism under Napoleon. 

 Austria, seeing the Directory again (irmly seated 

 in power, became more eager for peace, the nego- 

 tiations were hastened, and on 17th October 1797 

 the treaty of Camno-Porniio was signed. By 

 this France obtained Belgium and the Ionian 

 Islands, Austria also acknowledging the Cisalpine 

 Republic, and ceiling to it Ixmilmrdy, and engaging 

 to try and get the left bank of the Rhine for France 

 from the Germanic Itody. As an indemnity Austria 

 obtained Istria, Dal mat ia, ami the territory of the 

 Venetian Krimhlic, with whom, although neutral, 

 Napoleon had managed to pick a quarrel with this 

 end in view. 



Napoleon returned to Paris on the 5th December 

 1797. The Directory, fearing his ambition, thought 

 they could only keep him quiet by employing him, 

 and! gave him command of the so-called Army of 

 England. But he was bent on the conquest of 

 Egypt. He appears to have had something visionary 

 in (us temperament, and to have dreamed of fouml- 

 ing a mighty empire from the standpoint of the 

 East, the glow and glamour of which seem always 

 to have had a certain fascination for him. He 

 therefore employed the resources of the Army of 

 England to prepare for an expedition to Egypt, and 

 the Directory yielded to his wishes, partly no' 

 doubt through the desire of getting him away 

 from France. But their aggressive policy was at 

 the same time fast bringing on another Knropean 

 war. The expedition sailed from Ton Ion on the 19th 

 May 1708, captured Malta from the Knights of St 

 John by treachery, and, escaping by great luck from 

 the British Heel under Nelson, arrived at Alexan- 

 dria on the 30th June. The army was disembarked 

 in haste, for fear lest Nelson should arrive, and on 

 the Kth July Napoleon inarched on Cairo. He 

 defeated the Mamelukes at Chehreifw and the 

 Pyramids, and entered Cairo on the 24th July. 

 He then occupied himself with organising the 

 government of Egypt, but bis position was ren- 

 dered very hazardous by the destruction of the 

 French fleet on the Ixt August by Nelson at the 

 battle of the Nile, and he saw that his dream of 

 found ing an empire in the East eon Id not lie realised. 

 He thought, however, that he might create a 

 revolution in Syria, by the aid of winch he might 

 overthrow the 'Turkish power and march in triumph 

 back to Kurope through Asia Minor and Constant- 

 inople. He iiccordingly entered Syria in February 

 1799 with I2.IHXI men. hut was brought to a stain! 

 still before St .lean d'Acre. Failing to rapture 

 that fortress, supported as it was by the British 

 squadron under Sir Sidney Smith, in spite of the 

 most desperate efforts, he was obliged to return to 

 Egypt. The ex|K*dilion to Syria was disgraced by 



the massacre in cold blood of 4V Kl prisoners at 

 Jaffa ; but there seems to tie Home doubt iiUmt the 

 truth of the story that in his retreat Napoleon 

 caused the sick he could not tian-poii to be 

 pni-oned. After his return to Egypt, Naimleon 

 defeated a Turkish army whieh had hunted at 

 AlHiukir. hut learning the lexcrscs that had been 

 suffered by the French nnns in Kurojie, he resolved 

 to leave Kgypt and return to France. He embarked 

 secretly on the '.ftM August, leaving a letter placing 

 Klelier in command of the Army of Egypt, and 

 landed in France six weeks later. 



He found matters at home in great confusion. 

 The wars had lx>eii mismanaged. Italy was almost 

 lost, and the government in ron-ei|uencc was in 

 very Iwd odour. Sieve-, one of the Directors, 

 meditated a coup if it/it, hut was at a loss for a 

 man of action to take the lead. At this juncture 

 Bonaparte arrived, and, though for some time there 

 was no rn/i/ir<i'-/ii UK nt between him and Sieyes 

 (the latter fearing Bonaparte's masterful character, 

 and Bonaparte uncertain what party it would lie 

 most to his advantage to join), they at length 

 coalesced, and the revolution of the Isth Brumaire 

 followed (9th Novemlier 1799), when the legislature 

 was forcibly closed and a provisional executive 

 of three consuls, Sieves, Koger-Duros. and Bona- 

 parte, formed to draw up a new constitution. This 

 was promulgated on the 13th DecemU'r ; the 

 executive was vested in three consuls, Bonaparte, 

 Cambacercs, and Lebrun, of whom Bomtparu- was 

 nominated First Consul for ten years. He was 

 practically paramount, the two remaining consuls 

 being ciphers, and the other institutions being so 

 organised as to concentrate |Miwer in the executive. 

 Sieves became piesident of the senate. The 

 governmental crisis licing settled, energetic steps 

 were taken with regard to the civil war in the 

 west. A proclamation was issued promising re- 

 ligious toleration at the Mime time that decided 

 military action was taken, and these measures were 

 so successful that all was quiet at home by the end 

 of February 1 800. Then Napoleon turned his 

 attention abroad. He made overtures for peace to 

 England and Austria, now the only belligerents, as 

 he wished to lull suspicion by [losing as the friend 

 of peace, not as a military ruler ; but he inwardly 

 rejoiced when they rejected his overtures. 



The situation of the l>elligerent,s on the ( 'ontincnt. 

 was this: the Army of the Khine under Moreau, 

 more than 1(K),000 strong, was distributed along jjie 

 Rhine from the Lake of Constance to Alsace, opposed 

 to Kray, whose headquarters were at Donau- 

 eschingen in Baden : while Massena with the Army 

 of Italy was on the Kiviera and at Genoa, opposed 

 to an" Austrian army under Melas. Napoleon 

 intended to gain him-clf the chief glory of the 

 campaign : so, giving Moreau outers to cross the 

 Khine but not to advance beyond a certain limit, 

 and leaving Massena to make head as best he could 

 against Melas, with the n iilt that he was Iwsieged 

 in Genoa and reduced to the last ev. remit y, he 

 prepared secretly an army of reserve near the 

 Swiss frontier, to the command of which Bcrthicr 

 was ostensibly appointed. ( lut-ide and even inside 

 France this army of reserve was looked upon as a 

 chimera. Moreau crossed the Khine on the '24th 

 April and drove Kray to I'lm, but was there 

 checked by Na|xileons instructions, according to 

 which he also sent a division to ro-o|M>rate with the 

 army of reserve. Napoleon himself went to Geneva 

 on thi j !lth May, and assuming command of this 

 army cros-ed the S: Bernard and reached tlie plains 

 of Italy liefore Melas had convinced himself of the 

 existence even of the nrmy of reserve, and whilst 

 his troops were scattered from Genoa to the Yar. 

 Napoleon's obvious course would now have lieen to 

 move straight on Genoa, relieve Massena, and beat 



