ning Bonaparte's political views. At this
Bonaparte fired up and again offered his resignation (September 25th):

"No power on earth shall, after this horrible and most unexpected
act of ingratitude by the Government, make me continue to serve it.
My health imperiously demands calm and repose.... My recompense is
in my conscience and in the opinion of posterity. Believe me, that
at any time of danger, I shall be the first to defend the
Constitution of the Year III."

The resignation was of course declined, in terms most flattering to
Bonaparte; and the Directors prepared to ratify the treaty with
Sardinia.

Indeed, the fit of passion once passed, the determination to dominate
events again possessed him, and he decided to make peace, despite the
recent instructions of the Directory that no peace would be honourable
which sacrificed Venice to Austria. There is reason to believe that he
now regretted this sacrifice. His passionate outbursts against Venice
after the _Paques veronaises_, his denunciations of "that fierce and
bloodstained rule," had now given place to some feelings of pity for
the people whose ruin he had so artfully compassed; and the social
intercourse with Venetians which he enjoyed at Passeriano, the castle
of the Doge Manin, may well have inspired some regard for the proud
city which he was now about to barter away to Austria. Only so,
however, could he peacefully terminate the wearisome negotiations with
the Emperor. The Austrian envoy, Count Cobenzl, struggled hard to gain
the whole of Venetia, and the Legations, along with the half of
Lombardy.[89] From these exorbitant demands he was driven by the
persistent vigour of Bonaparte's assaults. The little Corsican proved
himself an expert in diplomatic wiles, now enticing the Imperialist on
to slippery ground, and occasionally shocking him by calculated
outbursts of indignation or bravado. After many days spent in
intellectual fencing, the discussions were narrowed down to Mainz,
Mantua, Venice, and the Ionian Isles. On the fate of these islands a
stormy discussion arose, Cobenzl stipulating for their complete
independence, while Bonaparte passionately claimed them for France. In
one of these sallies his vehement gestures overturned a cabinet with a
costly vase; but the story that he smashed the vase, as a sign of his
power to crush the House of Austria, is a later refinement on the
incident, about which Cobenzl merely rep