CHAP. IX.--Archduke Charles--Compared with Napoleon--Fettered by the Aulic Council--Napoleon, by a stratagem, passes the Tagliamento, and compels the Archduke to retreat--Gradisca carried by storm--Chusa-Veneta taken--Trieste and Fiume occupied--Venice breaks the Neutrality--Terrified on learning that an Armistice had taken place betwixt France and Austria--The Archduke retreats by hasty marches on Vienna--The Government irresolute--and the Treaty of Leoben signed--Venice makes humiliating submissions--Napoleon's Speech to her Envoys--He declares War against Venice, and evades obeying the orders of the Directory to spare it--The Great Council, on 31st May, concede every thing to Buonaparte--Terms granted, 147 CHAP. X.--Napoleon's Amatory Correspondence with Josephine--His Court at Montebello--Negotiations and Pleasure mingled there--Genoa--Revolutionary spirit of the Genoese--They rise in insurrection, but are quelled by the Government, and the French plundered and imprisoned--Buonaparte interferes, and appoints the outlines of a new Government--Sardinia--Naples--The Cispadane, Transpadane, and Emilian Republics, united under the name of the Cisalpine Republic--The Valteline--The Grisons--The Valteline united to Lombardy--Great improvement of Italy, and the Italian Character, from these changes--Difficulties in the way of Pacification betwixt France and Austria--The Directory and Napoleon take Different Views--Treaty of Campo Formio--Buonaparte takes leave of the Army of Italy, to act as French Plenipotentiary at Rastadt, 166 CHAP. XI.--Retrospect--The Directory--They become unpopular--Causes of their unpopularity--Also at enmity among themselves--State of Public feeling in France--In point of numbers, favourable to the Bourbons--but the Army and Monied Interest against them--Pichegru, head of the Royalists, appointed President of the Council of Five Hundred--Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, President of the Council of Ancients--Directory throw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and Buonaparte--Buonaparte's personal Politics discussed--Pichegru's Correspondence with the Bourbons--known to Buonaparte--He despatches Augereau to Paris--Directory arrest their principal Opponents in the Councils on the 18th Fructidor, and Banish them to Guiana--Narrow and Impolitic Conduct of the Directory to Buonaparte--Projected Invasion of England, 178