h some impatience, and a third faction,
friendly to the Austrians: he encouraged the first, checked the
second, and repressed the last. He now complained that the Cispadanes
and Cisalpines had behaved very badly in their first elections, which
had been conducted in his absence; for they had allowed clerical
influence to override all French predilections. And, a little later,
he wrote to Talleyrand that the genuine love of liberty was feeble in
Italy, and that, as soon as French influences were withdrawn, the
Italian Jacobins would be murdered by the populace. The sequel was to
justify his misgivings, and therefore to refute the charges of those
who see in his conduct respecting the Cisalpine Republic nothing but
calculating egotism. The difficulty of freeing a populace that had
learnt to hug its chains was so great that the temporary and partial
success which his new creation achieved may be regarded as a proof of
his political sagacity.

After long preparations by four committees, which Bonaparte kept at
Milan closely engaged in the drafting of laws, the constitution of the
Cisalpine Republic was completed. It was a miniature of that of
France, and lest there should be any further mistakes in the
elections, Bonaparte himself appointed, not only the five Directors
and the Ministers whom they were to control, but even the 180
legislators, both Ancients and Juniors. In this strange fashion did
democracy descend on Italy, not mainly as the work of the people, but
at the behest of a great organizing genius. It is only fair to add
that he summoned to the work of civic reconstruction many of the best
intellects of Italy. He appointed a noble, Serbelloni, to be the first
President of the Cisalpine Republic, and a scion of the august House
of the Visconti was sent as its ambassador to Paris. Many able men
that had left Lombardy during the Austrian occupation or the recent
wars were attracted back by Bonaparte's politic clemency; and the
festival of July 9th at Milan, which graced the inauguration of the
new Government, presented a scene of civic joy to which that unhappy
province had long been a stranger. A vast space was thronged with an
enormous crowd which took up the words of the civic oath uttered by
the President. The Archbishop of Milan celebrated Mass and blessed the
banners of the National Guards; and the day closed with games, dances,
and invocations to the memory of the Italians who had fought and died
for their nas