So many rigorous conditions, thus arrogantly announced, were, and could not fail to be, the object of discussions and stubborn resistance. But even these did not satisfy the will of the First Consul, and his resolution to snatch the last concessions from the conquered. The Emperor Paul, in his capacity of Grand Master of the Order, demanded from England the cession of the island of Malta. Upon the refusal of the British Government, he placed an embargo on all English vessels found in his ports, at the same time announcing the despatch of a plenipotentiary to Paris. In accord with Prussia, he admitted the principle of the granting of indemnities to the deposed Italian princes by the secularization of the ecclesiastical territories in Germany. Cobentzel was constantly opposed to this arrangement; he equally refused to deliver Mantua to France as a condition of the armistice in Italy. Abandoned by the neutral powers, isolated in Germany, and separated from England, who alone remained openly hostile to France, the Austrian envoy saw himself constrained to accept conditions harder than those the rigor of which he had formerly deplored. On the 9th February, 1801, the treaty of Lunéville was at last signed. A single concession had been accorded to Cobentzel; France had consented to surrender the places which she held on the right bank of the Rhine. She insisted, however, that the fortifications should be demolished. "Dismantle them yourselves," said the Austrian plenipotentiary, sorrowfully, "and we will engage that they shall remain in the condition in which they are surrendered." This was the last hope, and the last effort of diplomacy. Upon the very morning of the signature, and with reference to the obstinate persistence of Cobentzel, Joseph Bonaparte declared, in language which was not his own, "that if the termination of the war was favorable to France, the house of Austria ought to expect to find the valley of the Adige on the crest of the Julian Alps; and that there was no power in Europe which did not see with pleasure the Austrians expelled from Italy." The bases of the treaty of Lunéville were identical with those of the treaty of Campo Formio. Austria lost in Germany the bishopric of Salzburg, assured as an indemnity to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and in Italy the territories of this prince were granted to the Duke of Parma. The articles made no mention of Piedmont or Parma, or of the Pontifical States. The First Consul did not wish to commit himself on this point or encounter the sluggish proceedings of a congress. The Emperor of Austria had treated for the Empire as for himself. The Diet assembled at Ratisbon simply ratified the conditions of the treaty. Henceforth England found itself isolated in Europe, as France had been in 1793. The duel continued between Bonaparte and Pitt.