the island of Malta and compelled Baron Hompesch, the grand-master of
the order of the Knights of Malta, to resign his dignity, the fortress
being betrayed into his hands by the French knights.

At Rastadt, near Baden, where the compensation mentioned in the treaty
of Campo Formio was to be taken into consideration, the terrified
Estates of the empire assembled for the purpose of suing the French
ambassadors for the lenity they had not met with at the hands of
Austria and Prussia.--The events that took place at Rastadt are of a
description little calculated to flatter the patriotic feelings of the
German historian. The soul of the congress was Charles Maurice
Talleyrand-Perigord, at one time a bishop, at the present period
minister of the French republic. His colloquy with the German
ambassadors resembled that of the fox with the geese, and he attuned
their discords with truly diabolical art. While holding Austria and
Prussia apart, instigating them one against the other, flattering both
with the friendship of the republic and with the prospect of a rich
booty by the secularization of the ecclesiastical lands, he encouraged
some of the petty states with the hope of aggrandizement by an
alliance with France,[9] and, with cruel contempt, allowed others a
while to gasp for life before consigning them to destruction. The
petty princes, moreover, who had been deprived of their territory on
the other side of the Rhine, demanded lands on this side in
compensation; all the petty princes on this side consequently trembled
lest they should be called upon to make compensation, and each
endeavored, by bribing the members of the congress, Talleyrand in
particular, to render himself an exception. The French minister was
bribed not by gold alone; a considerable number of ladies gained great
notoriety by their liaison with the insolent republican, from whom
they received nothing, the object for which they sued being sold by