ving present were to be wielded by
its mighty antagonist. Herein lay the secret of British failures and
of Napoleon's extraordinary triumphs.

Leaving, for a space, the negotiations at Amiens, we turn to consider
the events which transpired at Lyons in the early weeks of 1802,
events which influenced not only the future of Italy, but the fortunes
of Bonaparte.

It will be remembered that, after the French victories of Marengo and
Hohenlinden, Austria agreed to terms of peace whereby the Cisalpine,
Ligurian, Helvetic, and Batavian Republics were formally recognized by
her, though a clause expressly stipulated that they were to be
independent of France. A vain hope! They continued to be under French
tutelage, and their strongholds in the possession of French troops.

It now remained to legalize French supremacy in the Cisalpine
Republic, which comprised the land between the Ticino and the Adige,
and the Alps and the Rubicon. The new State received a provisional
form of government after Marengo, a small council being appointed to
supervise civil affairs at the capital, Milan. With it and with
Marescalchi, the Cisalpine envoy at Paris, Bonaparte had concerted a
constitution, or rather he had used these men as a convenient screen
to hide its purely personal origin. Having, for form's sake, consulted
the men whom he had himself appointed, he now suggested that the chief
citizens of that republic should confer with him respecting their new
institutions. His Minister at Milan thereupon proposed that they
should cross the Alps for that purpose, assembling, not at Paris,
where their dependence on the First Consul's will might provoke too
much comment, but at Lyons. To that city, accordingly, there repaired
some 450 of the chief men of Northern Italy, who braved the snows of a
most rigorous December, in the hope of consolidating the liberties of
their long-distracted country. And thus was seen the strange spectacle
of the organization of Lombardy, Modena, and the Legations being
effected in one provincial centre of France, while at another of her
cities the peace of Europe and the fortunes of two colonial empires
were likewise at stake. Such a conjunction of events might well
impress the imagination of men, bending the stubborn will of the
northern islanders, and moulding the Italian notables to complete
complaisance. And yet, such power was there in the nascent idea of
Italian nationality, that Bonaparte's proposals, which, in