The French Revolution of 1789, which startled every kingdom of Europe, shook Italy to its centre. The religion of Rome, while it fills the eye with ceremonies, and the ear with dogmas, makes but little impression on the heart, and none on the understanding. The boundless profligacy of Italian manners had long corrupted public life. The opera and the billiard-table were the only resources of an overgrown nobility, pauperised by their numbers, and despised for their pauperism. The facility of dispensing with oaths, in a religion which gives absolution for every crime, and repeats it on every repetition of the crime, practically extinguishes all sense of allegiance; and, at the first offer of what the French pronounced liberty, every province was ready to rush into republicanism. The campaigns of Napoleon, in 1796 and 1797, incomparably conducted by the genius of the French general, and wretchedly mismanaged by the inveterate somnolency of the councils of Austria, gave a new stimulus to the frenzy of revolution. Lombardy, already resolved on self-government, was constituted a republic by the treaty of Campo Formio in 1797--Austria receiving Venice as a compensation for Milan, Mantua, and Belgium. The Venetian outcry against this compact was bitter, but it was helpless. Napoleon had the sword which settled all diplomatic difficulties; and she had good reason to rejoice in her release from the perpetual robbery of her republican masters. The coronation of Napoleon in 1804, followed by the memorable Austrian campaign, which ended with the fatal fight of Austerlitz, again changed the destinies of the north of Italy. By the treaty of Vienna, Venice and Lombardy were united under France, and Napoleon assumed the crown of Charlemagne, as King of Italy! On the exile of Napoleon to Elba, the Austrian Emperor again became master of Milan, Mantua, and Venice, combined under the name of the Lombardo-Veneto kingdom, which was annexed to the imperial crown--the whole being divided into nine Lombard provinces, and eight Venetian; and the population of the entire, by the census of 1833, being somewhat more than four millions and a half.