It was now the time for Venice to tremble. She had declared against the French in their absence; her vindictive population had murdered many of them; the resentment of the French soldiers was excited to the utmost, and the Venetians had no right to reckon upon the forbearance of their general. The treaty of Leoben left the Senate of that ancient state absolutely without support; nay, as they afterwards learned, Austria, after pleading their cause for a certain time, had ended by stipulating for a share of their spoils, which had been assigned to her by a secret article of the treaty. The doom of the oligarchy was pronounced ere Buonaparte had yet traversed the Noric and Julian Alps, for the purpose of enforcing it. By a letter to the doge, dated from the capital of Upper Styria, Napoleon, bitterly upbraiding the Senate for requiting his generosity with treachery and ingratitude, demanded that they should return by his aide-de-camp who bore the letter, their instant choice betwixt war and peace, and allowing them only four-and-twenty hours to disperse their insurgent peasantry, and submit to his clemency.[278] Junot, introduced into the Senate, made the threats of his master ring in the astounded ears of the members, and by the blunt and rough manner of a soldier, who had risen from the ranks, added to the dismay of the trembling nobles. The Senate returned a humble apology to Buonaparte, and despatched agents to deprecate his wrath. These envoys were doomed to experience one of those scenes of violence which were in some degree natural to this extraordinary man, but to which in certain cases he seems to have designedly given way, in order to strike consternation into those whom he addressed. "Are the prisoners at liberty?" he said, with a stern voice, and without replying to the humble greetings of the terrified envoys. They answered with hesitation that they had liberated the French, the Polish, and the Brescians, who had been made captive in the insurrectionary war. "I will have them all--all!" exclaimed Buonaparte--"all who are in prison on account of their political sentiments. I will go myself to destroy your dungeons on the Bridge of Tears--opinions shall be free--I will have no Inquisition. If all the prisoners are not set at instant liberty, the English envoy dismissed, the people disarmed, I declare instant war. I might have gone to Vienna if I had listed--I have concluded a peace with the Emperor--I have eighty thousand men, twenty gun-boats--I will hear of no Inquisition, and no Senate either--I will dictate the law to you--I will prove an Attila to Venice. If you cannot disarm your population, I will do it in your stead--your government is antiquated--it must crumble to pieces."[279]