The Cisalpine Republic 603
pended on the preservation in France of a government firmly committed to the
Republic. Bonaparte sent one of his generals, Augereau, who stood by while the
three Directors expelled their two colleagues and purged the two chambers.
The coup d’état of Fructidor (September 4, 1797) thus upheld republicanism in
France by drawing on strength generated in Italy, and opened the way for the
spread of republicanism in Italy by producing a French government more sympa-
thetic to revolutionary expansion. It was in the next few months that republics
were set up at Rome and in Switzerland, and the Batavian Republic was democra-
tized. The Fructidorian Directory not only broke off the negotiation with the Brit-
ish, but was not eager for a compromise peace with Austria. Hence for a moment
it was receptive to the idea of a democratic republic at Venice. The reviving French
democrats, or neo- ”Jacobins,” also looked with sympathy on the Venetian revolu-
tionaries. Bonaparte, however, now desired a quick and dramatic treaty with Aus-
tria. He could then depart from Italy with the prestige of having served as its lib-
erator, and return to France to be enthusiastically hailed as a peacemaker, the
military hero who had imposed at least a “land peace,” la paix continentale, after five
years of war.
The result was the treaty of Campo Formio of October 1797. Venice was ceded
to Austria, and its territories were divided. France annexed, from Venice, the Io-
nian Islands off the coast of Greece, which now felt the breath of revolution close
at hand. Dalmatia, Istria, and most of Venetia went to Austria. A sizable western
segment of the Venetian mainland was added to the Cisalpine Republic.
This arrangement produced general consternation. On the Left, in both Italy
and France, there was an outcry against the cold- blooded sacrifice of the Venetian
democrats to the greed of Austria and the ambition of Bonaparte. The liberator of
Italy seemed an ambiguous character to the Italian republicans. He had, indeed,
followed a foreign policy of his own. To the Right, throughout Europe, Bonaparte
was a Jacobin. The Cisalpine Republic seemed firmly established. Since other
clauses in the treaty allowed France to obtain the Rhine frontier, and provided for
the reorganization of Germany at a Congress to convene at Rastadt, it was evident
that the Holy Roman Empire was also about to undergo a certain modernization.
The Cisalpine Republic: Sketch of a Modern State
The Cisalpine Republic spread out about equally on the two sides of the Po.^25 It
had a population of three and a half million, almost twice as large as the Batavian.
25 The great work is M. Roberti, Milano capitale napoleonica: la formazione di uno stato moderno, 3
vols. (Milan, 1946–1947), but only parts of the various topical chapters relate to the Cisalpine Repub-
lic before 1799. Roberti gives a briefer statement in his “Politica e amministrazione nell’Italia napole-
onica” in E. Rota, ed., Questioni di storia del risorgimento e dell ’unità d ’Italia (Milan, 1951), 75–110.
Legislation, etc., was currently published as Raccolta di tutti gli avvisi, editti e proclami pubblicati nella
Lombardia, 18 vols. (Milan, 1796–1799). The proceedings of the Cisalpine Legislative Body have been
published by the Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, Commissione per gli atti delle assemblee costituzi-
onali italiane, C. Montalcini et al., eds., Assemblee della Reppublica cisalpina, 2 vols. (Bologna, 1917–
1948). Publication is in progress of Melzi’s papers, I carteggi di Francesco Melzi d ’Eril, duca di Lodi
(Milan, 1958– ), but those for the Cisalpine period have not yet appeared. For the present author two