The Cisalpine Republic 613
agents, dispatched to Milan, ejected Brune’s Italian supporters in what amounted
to a fourth coup d’état, so that Trouvé’s constitution was promulgated in January
- Constitutionally speaking, if the word be appropriate, the “Jacobins” had lost
out in the Cisalpine, though by this time they were very active at Rome, and had
set up a republic at Naples.
The dizzy succession of coups d’état in the Cisalpine made certain general fea-
tures in the situation very clear. The Cisalpine Republic was not really indepen-
dent; nor could the French allow it to be, so long as the war was in progress, and so
long as the peace of Campo Formio was not really a peace, but a breathing spell
before the renewal of war, which occurred at the end of 1798. The Cisalpines natu-
rally resented the domination by France. Anti- French feeling in fact became very
strong among Italian revolutionaries and democrats. It is hard, however, to see
how, if left really to themselves, they would or could have taken the measures nec-
essary to preserve their independence from Austria. The party conflict in the Cis-
alpine was native to Italy. The French did not manufacture it. But in the strife be-
tween moderates and democrats neither party had any expectation of settling their
affairs alone. Each side looked to the French for assistance against the other. They
could hardly do otherwise, with the French army present in force within the Cis-
alpine borders, a situation which in turn could hardly be otherwise so long as no
reliable peace existed. It was the French, in consequence, who controlled the inter-
nal politics of the Cisalpine Republic.
As for the French Directory, the affairs of the Cisalpine showed the continuing
difficulty of keeping dissident generals in order, and the way in which these gener-
als, reinforced by French “Jacobins” who sympathized with foreign revolutionaries,
and by Italian democrats at odds with the French government, formed an opposi-
tion that threatened the existence of the Directory itself.