The three chief Inquisitors of State, or Censors, as the actual rulers of the oligarchy were entitled, opposed the spirit of religious enthusiasm to that of democratic zeal. They employed the pulpit and the confessional as the means of warning good Catholics against the change demanded by the Morandists--they exposed the Holy Sacrament, and made processions and public prayers, as if threatened with a descent of the Algerines. [Sidenote: May 22.] Meanwhile, the Morandists took up arms, displayed the French colours, and conceiving their enterprise was on the point of success, seized the gate of the arsenal and that of the harbour. But their triumph was short. Ten thousand armed labourers started as from out of the earth, under the command of their syndics, or municipal officers, with cries of "Viva Maria!" and declared for the aristocracy. The insurgents, totally defeated, were compelled to shut themselves up in their houses, where they were assailed by the stronger party, and finally routed. The French residing in Genoa were maltreated by the prevailing party, their houses pillaged, and they themselves dragged to prison. The last circumstance gave Buonaparte an ostensible right to interfere, which he would probably have done even had no such violence been committed. He sent his aide-de-camp La Valette to Genoa, with the threat of instantly moving against the city a division of his army, unless the prisoners were set at liberty, the aristocratic party disarmed, and such alterations, or rather such a complete change of government adopted, as should be agreeable to the French commander-in-chief. Against this there was no appeal. The inquisitors were laid under arrest, for having defended, with the assistance of their fellow-citizens, the existing institutions of the state; and the doge, with two other magistrates of the first rank, went to learn at Montebello, the headquarters of Napoleon, what was to be the future fate of the City, proudly called of _Palaces_.[294] They received the outlines of such a democracy as Napoleon conceived suitable for them; and he appears to have been unusually favourable to the state, which, according to the French affectation of doing every thing upon a classical model, now underwent revolutionary baptism, and was called the Ligurian Republic. It was stipulated, that the French who had suffered should be indemnified; but no contributions were exacted for the use of the French army, nor did the collections and cabinets of Genoa pay any tribute to the Parisian Museum.[295] [Sidenote: Nov. 11.]