position in France but brought Italy once more to his feet.
Under the terms of the treaty of Luneville (February 9, 1801) Austria
recognized the reconstituted Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, while
Modena and Tuscany reverted to French control, and French ascendancy
elsewhere was securely established. September 21, 1802, Piedmont was
organized in six departments and incorporated in the French Republic.
During the winter of 1802-1803 the constitutions of the Cisalpine and
Ligurian republics were remodelled in the interest of that same
autocratic domination which already was fast ripening in France. In
each republic were established at first three bodies--an executive
_consulta_,[522] a legislature of 150 members, and a court--which
were chosen by three electoral colleges comprising (1) the (p. 356)
_possidenti_, or landed proprietors, (2) the _dotti_, or scholars and
ecclesiastics, and (3) the _commercianti_, or merchants and traders;
but the legislature could be overridden completely by the _consulta_,
and the _consulta_ was little more than the organ of Napoleon.
Incidentally, the Cisalpine Republic at this point was renamed the
Italian Republic. Within a twelvemonth the new constitutions, proving
too democratic, were revised in such a manner that for the legislative
body was substituted a senate of thirty members presided over by a
doge, in which were concentrated all political and administrative
powers.

[Footnote 522: An advisory council of state,
consisting of eight members.]

*390. The Kingdom of Italy (1805) and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples,
1807.*--The stipulation of the treaty of Luneville to the effect that
the Italian republics should remain entirely independent of France was
all the while disregarded. Politically and commercially they were but
dependencies, and, following the proclamation of the French empire
(May 18, 1804), the fact was admitted openly. To Napoleon it seemed
incongruous that an emperor of the French should be a patron of
republics. How meager was the conqueror's concern for the political
liberty of the Italians had been demonstrated many times, never more
forcefully than in the cynical treatment which he accorded Venice. No
one knew better, furthermore, how ill-equipped were the Italians for
self-government. Gradually, therefore, there was framed a project for
the conversion of the Italian Republic into a kingdom which should be
tributar