The deputation found Bonaparte in Treviso. To the eternal glory of the family that had lost an hundred of its name in one campaign, Giustiniani quietly faced Bonaparte on every point, reproached him with the shallowness of the pretexts under which he justified his acts of violence, swore to the sincerity of the Venetian government when it had protested that it had no intention of doing any injury to the French, and concluded by saying that if Bonaparte required a hostage or a victim he, Giustiniani, was there to give his life. Bonaparte was everything except a coward. He was a conqueror and a comedian, a brutal dictator and a subtle diplomatist; he was a great commander and he was the Little Corporal. He was also as brave as the bravest man in any of his armies. Giustiniani’s speech affected him strangely, for he well knew what terror he inspired in most people. His sudden admiration for the Venetian patriot was as boundless as everything else in his nature, and broke out in words of praise. He concluded by promising that even if he confiscated the property of every noble in Venice, whatsoever belonged to Giustiniani should be respected. There spoke the man of the middle class that Bonaparte always was. The gentleman answered proudly that he had not come to promote his own interests when those of his country were so desperately at stake. A truce of four days was signed, within which time the three Inquisitors of State and the commander of the Lido fort were to be arrested and punished, and all political prisoners were to be set at liberty. On the fourth of May the Doge had the courage, or the cowardice, to propose to the Great Council the arrest of the Inquisitors and their impeachment as required by Bonaparte. There [Sidenote: _Rom. x. 159._] was no hope for Venice in any other course, he said. This dastardly measure was voted by 704 votes to 27. The Inquisitors and the commander of the Lido were arrested and taken to San Giorgio Maggiore, and all the political prisoners were released from the Piombi, the Pozzi, and the other prisons of the city. On the following day, two hundred and eighty-eight Frenchmen who had been taken with weapons in their hands during the insurrections in the provinces were handed over to Baraguay d’Hilliers in Venice. Bonaparte was now sure that he had only to show himself in order to be master of the city. The Venetians also made haste to present Bonaparte’s ‘friend,’ Haller, with a little present of six thousand sequins in bullion, in the hope that he would use his kind offices with the great man. ‘I beg you,’ Bonaparte wrote about that time to the Directory, ‘to order the citizen Haller, a scoundrel who [Sidenote: _Bonnal, Chute, 287._] has come here to steal, to present his accounts to the head manager’ (‘ordonnateur en chef’).