On the 15th of May, Buonaparte made his public entry into Milan, under a triumphal arch prepared for the occasion, which he traversed, surrounded by his guards, and took up his residence in the archiepiscopal palace. The same evening a splendid entertainment was given, and the Tree of Liberty, (of which the aristocrats observed, that it was a bare pole without either leaves or fruit, roots or branches,) was erected with great form in the principal square. All this affectation of popular joy did not disarm the purpose of the French general, to make Milan contribute to the relief of his army. He imposed upon the place a requisition of twenty millions of livres, but offered to accept of goods of any sort in kind, and at a rateable valuation; for it may be easily supposed that specie, the representative of value, must be scarce in a city circumstanced as Milan was.[130] The public funds of every description, even those dedicated to the support of hospitals, went into the French military chest; the church-plate was seized as a part of the requisition; and, when all this was done, the citizens were burdened with the charge of finding rations for fifteen thousand men daily, by which force the citadel, with its Austrian garrison, was instantly to be blockaded.[131] [Sidenote: SITUATION OF THE ITALIAN STATES.] While Lombardy suffered much, the neighbouring countries were not spared. The reader must be aware, that for more than a century Italy had been silently declining into that state of inactivity which succeeds great exertion, as a rapid and furious blaze sinks down into exhaustion and ashes. The keen judgment of Napoleon had seen, that the geographical shape of Italy, though presenting in many respects advantages for a great and commercial nation, offered this main impediment to its separate existence as one independent state, that its length being too great in proportion to its breadth, there was no point sufficiently central to preserve the due influence of a metropolis in relation to its extreme northern and southern provinces; and that the inhabitants of Naples and Lombardy being locally so far divided, and differing in climate, habits, and the variety of temper which climate and habits produce, could hardly be united under the same government. From these causes Italy was, after the demolition of the great Roman Empire, early broken up into different subdivisions, which, more civilized than the rest of Europe at the time, attracted in various degrees the attention of mankind; and at length, from the sacerdotal power of Rome, the wealth and extensive commerce of Venice and Genoa, the taste and splendour of Florence, and the ancient fame of the metropolis of the world, became of importance much over-proportioned to their actual extent of territory. But this time had passed away, and the Italian states, rich in remembrances, were now comparatively poor in point of immediate consequence in the scale of nations. They retained their oligarchical or