Again, as Napoleon was about to set out to join his army for the invasion of Germany, he warned Venice to make no trouble in his rear. Things he might forgive were he in Italy, would be unpardonable if done while he was in Germany. Venetia could not, or would not, profit by this warning. While Napoleon was in Germany, tumults arose in the Venetian states, and the French in considerable numbers were massacred. At Verona the outbreak was particularly savage, three hundred of the French have been butchered, including the sick in the hospitals. To leave nothing undone which could be done to give Napoleon the excuses he wanted, a French vessel, which, chased by two Austrian cruisers, had taken refuge in the harbor at Venice, was ordered to leave (according to the law of the port), and when she refused, was fired upon. Her commander and others were killed, and some horrible details aggravated the offence. Napoleon may have had his intentions from the first to sacrifice Venetia. He may have been insincere in offering the weak old oligarchy the protection of liberal institutions and a French alliance. Letters of his, inconsistent with each other, have been published. They prove his duplicity, his craft, his cunning, his callousness; but this was long after Venice had provoked him. However cold-blooded Napoleon’s treatment of Venice may have been, the European conscience could not have been as much shocked as royalist writers pretend, for after Napoleon’s overthrow, Venice, which he had reformed and regenerated, was thrown back as a victim to Austria. * * * * * It was a brilliant gathering which surrounded Napoleon and Josephine in the summer of 1797. Diplomats, statesmen, adventurers, soldiers, men of science and literature, thronged Milan, and paid court at beautiful Montebello, the palatial country-seat where Napoleon had taken up his residence after the preliminaries of Leoben. Many subjects of importance needed his thought, his fertile resources, his ready hand. His republics needed guidance, the affairs of Genoa and Venice were unsettled, German princelets from along the Rhine had a natural curiosity to know just who they belonged to, and details of the coming treaty of Campo Formio needed to be worked out. It was a busy and a glorious season for Napoleon. He stood on the highest of pinnacles, his renown blazing to the uttermost parts of Europe; and to him was drawn the enthusiastic admiration which turns so warmly to heroes who are young. He had, as yet, made few enemies. All France was in raptures over him; even Austrians admired him. The aristocrats, lay and clerical, in Italy doubtless wished him dead; but the masses of the people looked up to him in wonder and esteem. Of Italian extraction, he spoke their language, knew their character, despised it, imperiously dominated it, and was therefore loved and obeyed.