nd,
by vast superiority of numbers, overwhelmed the defence of the
unprepared mountaineers. The conquered cantons were formed into another
republic of the new kind--to wit, "the Helvetian:" nominally a sister
and ally, but really a slave of the French. Another force, acting under
orders equally unjustifiable, seized Turin, and dethroned the King of
Sardinia. Lastly, the Pope, in spite of all his humiliating concessions
at Tollentino, saw a republican insurrection, roused by French
instigation, within his capital. Tumults and bloodshed ensued; and
Joseph Buonaparte, the French ambassador, narrowly escaped with his
life. A French army forthwith advanced on Rome; the Pope's functions as
a temporal prince were terminated; he retired to the exile of Siena; and
another of those feeble phantoms, which the Directory delighted to
invest with glorious names, appeared under the title of "the Roman
Republic."

These outrages roused anew the indignation, the first, of all true
lovers of freedom, the second, of the monarchs whose representatives
were assembled at Rastadt, and the third, of the Catholic population
throughout Europe. England was not slow to take advantage of the
unprincipled rashness of the Directory, and of the sentiments which it
was fitted to inspire; and the result was a new coalition against
France, in which the great power of Russia now, for the first time, took
a part. The French plenipotentiaries were suddenly ordered to quit
Rastadt; and, within a few hours afterwards, they were murdered on their
journey by banditti clad in the Austrian uniform, most assuredly not
acting under orders from the Austrian government--and now commonly
believed to have been set on by certain angry intriguers of the
Luxembourg.

The King of Naples had, unfortunately for himself, a greater taste for
arms than the nation he governed; and, justly concluding that the
conquerors of Rome would make himself their next object, he rashly
proclaimed war, ere the general measures of the coalition were arranged.
The arrival of Nelson in his harbour, bringing the news of the
destruction of the French fleet at Aboukir, and the consequent isolation
of Napoleon, gave him courage to strike a blow which the officers of his
army were little likely to second. The result of his hasty advance to
the northwards was not a battle, but a flight: and though the Lazzaroni
of Naples, rising in fury, held the capital for some days against the
French, their def