The Palazzo Pitti had already been despoiled of many of its valuable contents accumulated by the Medici, and Leopoldo I. though an able administrator and lawgiver, must have been sadly lacking in taste, as during his reign many of the fine old ceilings were abolished in favour of sham vaults made of lath and plaster. On succeeding his brother as Emperor of Austria in 1790, his second son, Ferdinando, was made Grand Duke of Tuscany, and when General Napoleon Bonaparte came to Florence in 1796, Ferdinando III. asked him to dine, and received him with almost royal honours. Not long afterwards General Sérurier occupied Lucca, where he levied a tax of seven millions, and a few days later he requested the Grand Duke of Tuscany to supply him with the same amount--but as a loan. Convinced that it would never be repaid and unwilling to burthen his people with heavy taxes, Ferdinando III. emptied the coffers of the state, took the reserve of silver bars from the mint and, to make up the sum, melted down a quantity of gold vases and plate which he collected from the various grand ducal villas, and from the Palazzo Pitti. Three years later the French troops entered Florence with General Gaulthier at their head. He dismounted at the Palazzo Riccardi, and immediately sent a company of soldiers with colours flying and band playing to mount guard at the royal palace. At eight o’clock next morning the Commissary-General for Tuscany, M. Reinhard, drove to the Palazzo Pitti and presented his credentials from the Directoire to the Grand Duke Ferdinando, with an order that he was to leave Tuscany at once. The Grand Duke met him on the threshold, received the letter, turned on his heel and re-entered the palace without saying a word. The night was spent in hurried preparations for departure, and before sunrise next morning a sad little procession of court coaches left the Palazzo Pitti. That afternoon a tree of liberty was set up in the Piazza Sta. Croce, and another in the Piazza Sta. Maria Novella, amid the shouts of half drunken French soldiers.[58]