and plunder (in violation of the
solemn pledge contained in the proclamations already referred to),
but a striking instance of the revolutionary means employed for the
destruction of independent governments. A French Minister was at that
time resident at Genoa, which was acknowledged by France to be in a
state of neutrality and friendship: in breach of this neutrality,
Buonaparte began, in the year 1796, with the demand of a loan; he
afterwards, from the month of September, required and enforced the
payment of a monthly subsidy, to the amount which he thought proper to
stipulate: these exactions were accompanied by repeated assurances and
protestations of friendship; they were followed, in May, 1797, by a
conspiracy against the Government, fomented by the emissaries of the
French Embassy, and conducted by the partisans of France, encouraged
and afterwards protected by the French Minister. The conspirators
failed in their first attempt; overpowered by the courage and
voluntary exertions of the inhabitants, their force was dispersed, and
many of their number were arrested. Buonaparte instantly considered
the defeat of the conspirators as an act of aggression against the
French Republic; he dispatched an aide-de-camp with an order to the
Senate of this independent state; first, to release all the French
who were detained; secondly, to punish those who had arrested them;
thirdly, to declare that they had had no share in the insurrection;
and fourthly, to disarm the people. Several French prisoners were
immediately released, and a proclamation was preparing to disarm the
inhabitants, when, by a second note, Buonaparte required the arrest
of the three Inquisitors of State, and immediate alterations in the
constitution; he accompanied this with an order to the French Minister
to quit Genoa if his commands were not immediately carried into
execution; at the same moment his troops entered the territory of the
republic, and shortly after the councils, intimidated and overpowered,
abdicated their functions. Three deputies were then sent to Buonaparte
to receive from him a new constitution; on June 6, after the
conferences at Montebello, he signed a convention, or rather issued a
decree, by which he fixed the new form of their Government; he himself
named provisionally all the members who were to compose it, and he
required the payment of seven millions of livres, as the price of
the subversion of their constitution and their indep