The way into Central Italy now lay open before Bonaparte. Rome and Naples were in no condition to offer resistance; but with true military judgment the French general declined to move against this feeble prey until the army of Austria, already crippled, was completely driven out of the field. Instead of crossing the Apennines, Bonaparte advanced against the Austrian positions upon the Mincio. It suited him to violate the neutrality of the adjacent Venetian territory by seizing the town of Brescia. His example was followed by Beaulieu, who occupied Peschiera, at the foot of the Lake of Garda, and thus held the Mincio along its whole course from the lake to Mantua. A battle was fought and lost by the Austrians half-way between the lake and the fortress. Beaulieu's strength was exhausted; he could meet the enemy no more in the field, and led his army out of Italy into the Tyrol, leaving Mantua to be invested by the French. The first care of the conqueror was to make Venice pay for the crime of possessing territory intervening between the eastern and western extremes of the Austrian district. Bonaparte affected to believe that the Venetians had permitted Beaulieu to occupy Peschiera before he seized upon Brescia himself. He uttered terrifying threats to the envoys who came from Venice to excuse an imaginary crime. He was determined to extort money from the Venetian Republic; he also needed a pretext for occupying Verona, and for any future wrongs. "I have purposely devised this rupture," he wrote to the Directory (June 7th), "in case you should wish to obtain five or six millions of francs from Venice. If you have more decided intentions, I think it would be well to keep up the quarrel." The intention referred to was the disgraceful project of sacrificing Venice to Austria in return for the cession of the Netherlands, a measure based on plans familiar to Thugut as early as the year 1793. [49] [Armistice with Naples, June 6.] [Armistice with the Pope, June 23.]