The transactions with Modena were on a smaller scale, but in the same character. Bonaparte began by signing a treaty, by which the Duke of Modena was to pay twelve millions of livres, and neutrality was promised him in return; this was soon followed by the personal arrest of the Duke, and by a fresh extortion of two hundred thousand sequins. After this he was permitted, on the payment of a farther sum, to sign another treaty, called a _convention de sureté_, which of course was only the prelude to the repetition of similar exactions. Nearly at the same period, in violation of the rights of neutrality and of the treaty which had been concluded between the French Republic and the Grand Duke of Tuscany in the preceding year, and in breach of a positive promise given only a few days before, the French army forcibly took possession of Leghorn, for the purpose of seizing the British property which was deposited there and confiscating it as a prize; and shortly after, when Bonaparte agreed to evacuate Leghorn, in return for the evacuation of the island of Elba, which was in possession of the British troops, he insisted upon a separate article, by which, in addition to the plunder before obtained, by the infraction of the law of nations, it was stipulated that the Grand Duke should pay the expense which the French had incurred by this invasion of his territory. In the proceedings toward Genoa we shall find not only a continuance of the same system of extortion and plunder, in violation of the solemn pledge contained in the proclamations already referred to, but a striking instance of the revolutionary means employed for the destruction of independent governments. A French minister was at that time resident at Genoa, which was acknowledged by France to be in a state of neutrality and friendship; in breach of this neutrality Bonaparte began, in the year 1796, with the demand of a loan. He afterward, from the month of September, required and enforced the payment of a monthly subsidy, to the amount which he thought proper to stipulate. These exactions were accompanied by repeated assurances and protestations of friendship; they were followed, in May, 1797, by a conspiracy against the government, fomented by the emissaries of the French embassy, and conducted by the partisans of France, encouraged and afterward protected by the French minister. The conspirators failed in their first attempt. Overpowered by the courage and voluntary exertions of the inhabitants, their force was dispersed, and many of their number were arrested. Bonaparte instantly considered the defeat of the conspirators as an act of aggression against the French Republic; he despatched an aid-de-camp with an order to the Senate of this independent State; first, to release all the French who were detained; secondly, to punish those who had arrested them; thirdly, to declare that _they had no share in the insurrection_; and fourthly, to disarm the people.