Bonaparte succeeded in postponing the conferences at Vicenza until the 3rd January, 1797; and so many despatches passed to and fro between the Directory, Carnot, and Clarke, that the Baron Vincent lost patience, and declared, that if France had any further communications to make, they must in future be addressed, not to him, but to Gherardini, the Austrian minister at Turin. Bonaparte took care that this resolution of the baron should be effectual. Clarke was several times at Turin and Lombardy, negotiating; and after happily completing a friendly arrangement with his general, was left without other duties to fulfil, than to complete, with the Piedmontese court, those amicable treaties which were terminated by an alliance with France on the 5th April, 1797. After this, he brought before the Directory a series of complaints against certain generals and commissaries of the French army in Italy. With the substance of the charges against these officers he had been furnished by Bonaparte; and the result was, that many of them were displaced and recalled to France. The complaints or charges furnished to Clarke were sometimes far from correct; but Bonaparte, by means of the envoy, wished to rid his army of those devastators and peculators, without drawing upon himself their lasting and personal hostility. To the honour of Clarke, it must be confessed that his dislike for those who had been guilty of mal-demeanour in Italy was at least sincere; and in this he proved himself worthy to be the friend of Carnot. He found himself again at Turin during the discussion which ensued concerning the preliminaries of Leoben. Bonaparte, who had neither desire nor authority to conclude anything that resembled a peace, affected to wish much for the presence of Clarke as a plenipotentiary, while he secretly contrived such means to delay his journey, that it was impossible he could arrive in time. Thus ten days passed, and on the 17th of April Clarke had not appeared, so Bonaparte signed the articles _alone_; and on the 6th of the following month, the Directory invested them both with full power to sign the final treaty. Two negotiators, the Marquis di Gallo and Meerfeldt, had been appointed by Austria to meet them; but at the very commencement of their proceedings the proud and haughty spirits of Bonaparte and Gallo domineered over their colleagues so completely, that they became as mere machines in their hands. Clarke had, nevertheless, occasionally sole charge of the negotiations at Udina, a town in Friuli, where they had many meetings concerning the entangled affairs of France and Austria; but this was only when the tergiversations of the latter, who wished to recommence the war, were embarrassing the conferences, which, according to the caustic expression of Bonaparte, "were nothing more than a series of pleasantries."