Championnet promised to respect and protect. [Parthenopean Republic.] Championnet used his victory with a discretion and forbearance rare amongst French conquerors. He humoured the superstition of the populace; he encouraged the political hopes of the enlightened. A vehement revulsion of feeling against the fugitive Court and in favour of Republican government followed the creation of a National Council by the French general, and his ironical homage to the patron saint. The Kingdom of Naples was converted into the Parthenopean Republic. New laws, new institutions, discussed in a representative assembly, excited hopes and interests unknown in Naples before. But the inevitable incidents of a French occupation, extortion and impoverishment, with all their bitter effects on the mind of the people, were not long delayed. In every country district the priests were exciting insurrection. The agents of the new Government, men with no experience in public affairs, carried confusion wherever they went. Civil war broke out in fifty different places; and the barbarity of native leaders of insurrection, like Fra Diavolo, was only too well requited by the French columns which traversed the districts in revolt. [War with Austria and Russia, March, 1799.] The time was ill chosen by the French Government for an extension of the area of combat to southern Italy. Already the first division of the Russian army, led by Suvaroff, had reached Moravia, and the Court of Vienna was only awaiting its own moment for declaring war. So far were the newly-established Governments in Rome and Naples from being able to assist the French upon the Adige, that the French had to send troops to Rome and Naples to support the new Governments. The force which the French could place upon the frontier was inferior to that which two years of preparation had given to Austria: the Russians, who were expected to arrive in Lombardy in April, approached with the confidence of men who had given to the French none of their recent triumphs. Nor among the leaders was personal superiority any longer markedly on the side of the French, as in the war of the First Coalition. Suvaroff and the Archduke Charles were a fair match for any of the Republican generals, except Bonaparte, who was absent in Egypt. The executive of France had deeply declined. Carnot was in exile; the work of organisation which he had pursued with such energy and disinterestedness flagged under his mediocre and corrupt successors. Skilful generals and brave soldiers were never wanting to the Republic; but no single controlling will, no storm of national passion, inspired the Government with the force which it had possessed under the Convention, and which returned to it under Napoleon.