it, and had the virtue
necessary for acquiring it well and good; existing circumstances gave
them an excellent opportunity of proving it.' At the time, the act of
betrayal was generally regarded as part of a well-considered plot laid
by the French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known
to that body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself
it was a sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an
immediate peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to
the chief command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated
Venice was the selfish fear lest another general should reap his German
laurels.

Venice remained for eight years under the Austrians, who thereby
obtained what, in flagrant perversion of the principles on which the
Congress of Vienna professed to act, was accepted in 1815 as their
title-deeds to its possession. Meanwhile, after the battle of
Austerlitz, the city of the sea was tossed back to Napoleon, who
incorporated it in the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which no more
corresponded to its name than did the Gothic kingdom of which he
arrogated to himself the heirship, when, placing the Iron Crown of
Theodolinda upon his brow, he uttered the celebrated phrase: 'Dieu me
l'a donnee, gare a qui la touche.'

This is not the place to write a history of French supremacy in Italy,
but several points connected with it must be glanced at, because,
without bearing them in mind, it is impossible to understand the
events which followed. The viceroyalty of Eugene Beauharnais in North
Italy, and the government of Joseph Buonaparte, and afterwards of
Joachim Murat, in the South, brought much that was an improvement on
what had gone before: there were better laws, a better administration,
a quickening of intelligence. 'The French have done much for the
regeneration of Italy,' wrote an English observer in 1810; 'they have
destroyed the prejudices of the inhabitants of the small states of
Upper Italy by uniting them; they have done away with the Pope; they
have made them soldiers.' But there was the reverse side of the medal:
the absence everywhere of the national spirit which alone could have
consolidated the new _regime_ on a firm basis; the danger which the
language ran of losing its purity by the introduction of Gallicisms;
the shameless robbery of pictures, statues, and national heirlooms of
every kind for the replenishment of French museums; the b