News of a further result of the coup d'etat reached Peschiera, on Lake Garda, to which Boneparte had moved at the end of September. The peace negotiations at Lillie had dragged on since July, because Mr. Pitt, although willing to buy peace by giving the French practically everything for which they asked, still refused to give up the Cape of Good Hope. The French were, it is true, demanding its return to the Dutch, but everyone knew that now they dominated Holland so completely it would be turned into a French naval base, and with the French at the Cape it would not be long before they cut Britain's invaluable shipping route to India.
The French Republicans had always regarded Britain as their most deadly enemy and had no desire for peace with her. Now that they had succeeded in crushing the Moderates, who favoured peace, they broke off the negotiations and, on September 17th, Lord Malmesbury had been told in the most cavalier fashion to leave France within twenty-four hours.
Roger had hated the thought of Britain making such a humiliating peace after all the years of effort, thousands of lives and millions in treasure that she had poured into the war; yet he needed no telling how black her future looked now that, once the Austrian business was settled, she must fight on alone. The only escape from invasion and the annihilation he could see for his country was that, by hook or by crook, she must once more arouse Europe against France and provide her again with enemies on the Continent.
The greatest hope for that lay in the fact that France was still bankrupt. Only the huge indemnities that Boneparte had been extracting from the Italian States had kept her going during the past eighteen months. And Boneparte had altered the whole aspect of the war to one of open aggression and plunder. If that policy was continued, and it must be unless France was to collapse, the next victims would be the small German states on the far side of the Rhine. At that Prussia and Russia would become alarmed and might be drawn in to Britain's assistance. Austria too was very far from being down and out. She now had Dalmatia, with its hardy population of Croat and Slovene fighting men to draw upon, as well as Hungary and her other vast dominions. With such a huge reservoir of manpower, given a few months to recover from the blow
Boneparte had dealt her, she could again put great armies in the field. That, Roger felt, made it all the more imperative that nothing possible should be left undone which would strengthen Austria's hand in launching a new campaign, and his mind turned once more to Venice.
From Bourrienne he had learned the inner history of Boneparte's rape of the Serene Republic. The Austrians had long had trouble in ruling their Flemish subjects so that, now France had a secure hold on Belgium, they were prepared to give up their claim to it, but only provided that they were compensated with equally valuable territory nearer home, Boneparte had already made his plans for forming the Italian Duchies into one or more Republics under French influence so that, as he had written to the Directory, in any future war France would be able to menace the rest of Italy through them; therefore, they could not be given up. But what about the broad fertile lands ruled by the Serenissima'?
There lay Venice: a great fat, golden calf, that had only to be killed and cut up. But Venice had declared her neutrality. She would not even act like a very small bull and put up the sort of token resistance that had served to justify Boneparte's deposing the rulers of the Duchies, and even he could not bring himself to face the opprobrium with which all Europe would have regarded him had he cut the calf's throat while it licked his hand. It had to be made to bite.
On his instructions, his agents had stopped at nothing that might goad the mild beast into a protesting bleat. They had set the nobles of the mainland against those of the city, used the separatist ambitions of minorities and fostered a revolutionary spirit in the mobs of the towns. He had given his brutal soldiery carte blanche to do as they liked while quartered in Venetian territory, and been far more harsh in his exactions and requisitions from this neutral state than in any of the lands he had conquered.
In spite of all this the Serenissima had remained with bended knee; but, outside its control, unceasing deliberate torment had at last aroused sporadic resistance. That had been enough. With sickening hypocrisy the little Corsican had told the Serenissima's envoys, sent to express regret and offer handsome compensation, that he 'could not discuss matters with men whose hands were dripping with blood'.
Even before that the fate of the Serene Republic as a nation had been sealed and. when rumours of his intention had got about, he had temporarily masked his true character as a brigand by throwing out the suggestion that, if Venice would give up her northern provinces to Austria, she should receive as compensation Bologna, Ferrara and the Romagna. But he had not meant one word of it; these ex-Papal States had already been earmarked by him as part of his new Cispadine Republic.
The 'Easter Vespers', as the massacre of the French in Verona had come to be called, was the fruit of all his efforts, After it he no longer needed to talk of compensation. He had his long desired pretext for declaring war on Venice. The spineless Serenissima collapsed, enabling him to cut chunks of meat from the living body of the calf and chuck them at will to the Austrians.
But the Austrians were greedy, and clever enough to know that France needed peace as badly as they did. Their envoys, M. de Merveldt and the Marquis di Gallo, had shilly-shallied for months at Montebello putting off the agreement of definite terms while watching events in Paris and hoping for a change of Government that would be to their advantage.
It had not matured. On the contrary, the coup d'etat of 18th Fructidor had settled the Directory in the saddle more firmly than ever. Boneparte's hand was strengthened. He was able to threaten now if matters were not concluded soon he would resume the offensive and, after all, conclude them in Vienna.
The Emperor felt disinclined to call his bluff and Thugut, the Austrian Chancellor, sent his most able diplomat, Count Cobenzl, to enter on really serious negotiations. Early in October, Boneparte, accompanied by his personal staff, moved up to Passeriano, south of Udine, to meet the new Austrian Plenipotentiary. In addition to Venice's territories on the east of the Adriatic, which Austria had already grabbed, he wanted her mainland territories as far west as the river Adige and the city itself. In return Austria was prepared to give up all claim to Belgium, to exchange the city of Mayence for that of Venice and to accept France's boundary as the Rhine. The Directory wanted the boundary but was so strongly averse to giving the Austrians all they wanted that it threatened to order the armies of the Rhine to take the field again.
This possibility of a resumption of hostilities caught Boneparte at an awkward time. The Austrians had cleverly talked away the summer and the idea of waging another winter campaign through the Alps did not appeal to him at all. Moreover he wanted the Austrians out of the war so that he could develop new schemes he had in mind. He therefore decided to ignore the Directory's orders and make the best peace he could get behind their backs.
Venice was clearly the main bone of contention. The Emperor was set on having it, and the Directory were set on incorporating it in the new French controlled Cisalpine Republic. Boneparte, on the contrary, while stripping it to its shirt had all along posed as its protector. He liked the role and, from mixed motives, wished to continue playing it. At times he enjoyed making generous gestures and this was a chance to make one. If, too, he allowed the city to retain its independence, that meant that the thousand-year-old Republic would survive; so, although he had reduced it to a puppet state he would, instead of being regarded as her assassin, be hailed as her champion. He had raped Venice, but would save her from murder.