ere called in derision) held their thrones by a
very uncertain tenure; and those gentlemen, nothing being left them but
a choice among evils, were fain to throw themselves on the protection of
the armies which they dreaded, and of Hoche and Buonaparte--which last
name in particular had long filled them with jealousy proportioned to
its splendour and popularity.

Napoleon's recent conduct, in more important points than one, had
excited powerfully the resentment of the Directory, which now appealed
to him for aid. He had taken upon himself the whole responsibility of
the preliminary treaty of Leoben, although the French government had
sent General Clarke into Italy for the express purpose of controlling
him, and acting as his equal at least in the negotiation. A clause in
that treaty, by which Mantua, the strongest fortress in Italy, was to be
surrendered back to Austria, had been judged necessary at the time by
the general, in order to obtain from the emperor the boundary of the
Rhine and the cession of Belgium. But the Directory thought the
conqueror underrated the advantages of his own position and theirs in
consenting to it, and but for Carnot would never have ratified it.[19]
At the other side of the Italian Peninsula, again, the victorious
general, immediately after the fall of Venice, had to superintend the
revolution of Genoa; in which great city also the democratic party
availed themselves of the temper and events of the time, to emancipate
themselves from their hereditary oligarchy. They would fain have
excluded the nobility from all share in the remodelled government; and
Napoleon rebuked and discountenanced this attempt in terms little likely
to be heard with approbation by the "_Sires_ of the Luxembourg." He told
the Genoese, that to exclude the nobles was in itself as unjust as
unwise, and that they ought to be grateful for the means of
re-organising their constitution, without passing _like France_ through
the terrible ordeal of a revolution. The rulers of France might be
excused for asking at this moment--Does the lecturer of the Ligurian
Republic mean to be our Washington, our Monk, or our Cromwell?

He, however, received with alacrity the call of the trembling Directory.
He harangued his soldiery, and made himself secure of their readiness to
act as he might choose for them. He not only offered large pecuniary
supplies, and sent his lieutenant Augereau to Paris to command the
National Guard for the gove