of
Bonaparte, the members of the municipal council were condemned to
execution; but a delay occurred before this ferocious order was
carried out, and it was subsequently mitigated. Two hundred hostages
were, however, sent away into France as a guarantee for the good
behaviour of the unfortunate city: whereupon the chief announced to
the Directory that this would serve as a useful lesson to the peoples
of Italy.

In one sense this was correct. It gave the Italians a true insight
into French methods; and painful emotions thrilled the peoples of the
peninsula when they realized at what a price their liberation was to
be effected. Yet it is unfair to lay the chief blame on Bonaparte for
the pillage of Lombardy. His actions were only a development of
existing revolutionary customs; but never had these demoralizing
measures been so thoroughly enforced as in the present system of
liberation and blackmail. Lombardy was ransacked with an almost Vandal
rapacity. Bonaparte desired little for himself. His aim ever was power
rather than wealth. Riches he valued only as a means to political
supremacy. But he took care to place the Directors and all his
influential officers deeply in his debt. To the five _soi-disant_
rulers of France he sent one hundred horses, the finest that could be
found in Lombardy, to replace "the poor creatures which now draw your
carriages";[50] to his officers his indulgence was passive, but
usually effective. Marmont states that Bonaparte once reproached him
for his scrupulousness in returning the whole of a certain sum which
he had been commissioned to recover. "At that time," says Marmont, "we
still retained a flower of delicacy on these subjects." This Alpine
gentian was soon to fade in the heats of the plains. Some generals
made large fortunes, eminently so Massena, first in plunder as in the
fray. And yet the commander, who was so lenient to his generals,
filled his letters to the Directory with complaints about the cloud of
French commissioners, dealers, and other civilian harpies who battened
on the spoil of Lombardy. It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion
that this indulgence towards the soldiers and severity towards
civilians was the result of a fixed determination to link indissolubly
to his fortunes the generals and rank and file. The contrast in his
behaviour was often startling. Some of the civilians he imprisoned:
others he desired to shoot; but as the hardiest robbers had generally
ma