'Under all circumstances,' Napoleon wrote to the Venetian Municipality,
'I shall do what lies in my power to prove to you my desire to see your
liberty consolidated, and miserable Italy assume, at last, a glorious
place, free and independent of strangers.' On the 10th of the following
October he made over Venice to Austria, sending as a parting word the
cynical message to the Venetians 'that they were little fitted for
liberty: if they were capable of appreciating it, and had the virtue
necessary for acquiring it well and good; existing circumstances gave
them an excellent opportunity of proving it.' At the time, the act of
betrayal was generally regarded as part of a well-considered plot laid
by the French Directory, but it seems certain that it was not made known
to that body before it was carried out, and that with Napoleon himself
it was a sort of after-thought, sprung from the desire to patch up an
immediate peace with Austria on account of the appointment of Hoche to
the chief command of the army in Germany. The god to which he immolated
Venice was the selfish fear lest another general should reap his German
laurels.

Venice remained for eight years under the Austrians, who thereby
obtained what, in flagrant perversion of the principles on which the
Congress of Vienna professed to act, was accepted in 1815 as their
title-deeds to its possession. Meanwhile, after the battle of
Austerlitz, the city of the sea was tossed back to Napoleon, who
incorporated it in the newly-created kingdom of Italy, which no more
corresponded to its name than did the Gothic kingdom of which he
arrogated to himself the heirship, when, placing the Iron Crown of
Theodolinda upon his brow, he uttered the celebrated phrase: 'Dieu me
l'a donnée, gare à qui la touche.'