inst this wealthy city was,
indeed, most undesirable during the campaign; for the bankers of
Genoa supplied the French army with the sinews of war by means of
secret loans, and their merchants were equally complaisant in regard
to provisions. These services were appreciated by Bonaparte as much as
they were resented by Nelson; and possibly the succour which Genoese
money and shipping covertly rendered to the French expeditions for
the recovery of Corsica may have helped to efface from Bonaparte's
memory the associations clustering around the once-revered name of
Paoli. From ill-concealed hostility he drifted into a position of
tolerance and finally of friendship towards Genoa, provided that she
became democratic. If her institutions could be assimilated to those
of France, she might prove a valuable intermediary or ally.

The destruction of the Genoese oligarchy presented no great
difficulties. Both Venice and Genoa had long outlived their power, and
the persistent violation of their neutrality had robbed them of that
last support of the weak, self-respect. The intrigues of Faypoult and
Salicetti were undermining the influence of the Doge and Senate, when
the news of the fall of the Venetian oligarchy spurred on the French
party to action, But the Doge and Senate armed bands of mountaineers
and fishermen who were hostile to change; and in a long and desperate
conflict in the narrow streets of Genoa the democrats were completely
worsted (May 23rd). The victors thereupon ransacked the houses of the
opposing faction and found lists of names of those who were to have
been proscribed, besides documents which revealed the complicity of
the French agents in the rising. Bonaparte was enraged at the folly of
the Genoese democrats, which deranged his plans. As he wrote to the
Directory, if they had only remained quiet for a fortnight, the
oligarchy would have collapsed from sheer weakness. The murder of a
few Frenchmen and Milanese now gave him an excuse for intervention. He
sent an aide-de-camp, Lavalette, charged with a vehement diatribe
against the Doge and Senate, which lost nothing in its recital before
that august body. At the close a few senators called out, "Let us
fight": but the spirit of the Dorias flickered away with these
protests; and the degenerate scions of mighty sires submitted to the
insults of an aide-de-camp and the dictation of his master.

The fate of this ancient republic was decided by Bonaparte at the