resolved that the brother of the emperor should pay for his presumed
inclinations. For the present, the Florentine museum and the grand
duke's treasury were spared; but Leghorn, the seaport of Tuscany and
great feeder of its wealth, was seized without ceremony; the English
goods in that town were confiscated to the ruin of the merchants; and a
great number of English vessels in the harbour made a narrow escape. The
grand duke, in place of resenting these injuries, was obliged to receive
Buonaparte with all the appearances of cordiality at Florence; and the
spoiler repaid his courtesy by telling him, rubbing his hands with glee,
during the princely entertainment provided for him, "I have just
received letters from Milan; the citadel has fallen;--your brother has
no longer a foot of land in Lombardy." "It is a sad case," said Napoleon
himself long afterwards--speaking of these scenes of exaction and
insolence,--"it is a sad case when the dwarf comes into the embrace of
the giant; he is like enough to be suffocated--but 'tis the giant's
nature to squeeze hard."

In the meantime the general did not neglect the great and darling plan
of the French government, of thoroughly revolutionising the North of
Italy, and establishing there a group of Republics modelled after their
own likeness, and prepared to act as subservient allies in their mighty
contest with the European monarchies. The peculiar circumstances of
Northern Italy, as a land of ancient fame and high spirit, long split
into fragments, and ruled, for the most part, by governors of German
origin, presented many facilities for the realisation of this design;
and Buonaparte was urged constantly by his government at Paris, and by
a powerful party in Lombardy, to hasten its execution. He, however, had
by this time learned to think of many idols of the Directory with about
as little reverence as they bestowed on the shrines of Catholicism; in
his opinion more was to be gained by temporising with both the