In front, Venice was at his mercy; behind him, guerrilla bands of so-called Barbets, formed in Genoese territory and equipped by disaffected fugitives, were threatening the lately conquered gateway from France where the Ligurian Alps and the Apennines meet. Bonaparte's first step was to impose a new arrangement upon the submissive Piedmont, whereby, to make assurance doubly sure, Alessandria was added to the list of fortresses in French hands; then, as his second measure, Murat and Lannes appeared before Genoa at the head of an armed force, with instructions first to seize and shoot the many offenders who had taken refuge in her territory after the risings in Lombardy, and then to threaten the Senate with further retaliatory measures, and command the instant dismissal of the imperial Austrian plenipotentiary. From Paris came orders to drive the English fleet out of the harbor of Leghorn, where, in spite of the treaty between Tuscany and France, there still were hostile arsenals and ships. It was done. Naples did not wait to see her territories invaded, but sued for mercy and was humbled, being forced to withdraw her navy from that of the coalition, and her cavalry from the Austrian army. For the moment the city of Rome was left in peace. The strength of papal dominion lay in Bologna, and the other legations beyond the Apennines, comprising many of the finest districts in Italy; and there a master-stroke was to be made. On the throne of Modena was an Austrian archduke: his government was remorselessly shattered and virtually destroyed, the ransom being fixed at the ruinous sum of ten million francs with twenty of the best pictures in the principality. But on that of Parma was a Spanish prince with whose house France had made one treaty and hoped to make a much better one. The duke, therefore, was graciously allowed to purchase an armistice by an enormous but yet possible contribution of two million francs in money, together with provisions and horses in quantity. The famous St. Jerome of Correggio was among the twenty paintings seized in Modena. The archduke repeatedly offered to ransom it for one million francs, the amount at which its value was estimated, but his request was not granted. Next came Bologna and its surrounding territory. Such had been the tyranny of ecclesiastical control that the subjects of the Pope in that most ancient and famous seat of learning welcomed the French with unfeigned joy; and the fairest portion of the Papal States passed by its own desire from under the old yoke. The successor of St. Peter was glad to ransom his capital by a payment nominally of twenty-one million francs. In reality he had to surrender far more; for his galleries, like those of Modena, were stripped of their gems, while the funds seized in government offices, and levied in irregular ways, raised the total value forwarded to Paris to nearly double the nominal contribution. All this, Bonaparte explained, was but a beginning, the idleness of