CHAPTER IX.

The Emperor is, at last, compelled to sign a sccond Treaty of Peace at Lunéville-Buona· parte announces a Plot against his Life at the Opera-house; and another of an Infernal Machine.-Malta surrenders to the English, who soon after land an Army in Egypt.-Capitu lation of the French Army.-Preliminary Articles of Peace with England.Peace with the Russian and Ottoman Empires.-Buonaparte usurps the Sovereignty of Italy.-Great Penury of Corn in France.—Its Causes.-Expeditions to St. Domingo and to Guadaloupe.Definitive Treaty of Peace with England.

THE negociation at Lunéville was going on very slowly, when Buonaparte began to grow tired of such delays, and threatened the Emperor of Germany with taking immediate possession of Vienna, of Prague, and of Venice..

Such a threat was no ways extravagant at that time; and it might have easily been carried into execution by the four armies, commanded by Generals Moreau, Augereau, Brune, and Macdo

nald, who could have put an end to the Austrian power.

No blame can therefore attach to the Austrian ministry for having advised their sovereign to sign a second treaty of peace, which alone could save the Austrian Monarchy. Nor can the absurd declamations of certain infatuated men devise any other means which might have prevented its destruction.

But party rage is incapable of any reasoning, nor susceptible of any persuasion.

The treaty of Lunéville was then signed by the Count de Cobentzel and Joseph Buonaparte, the favourite brother of the Corsican despot.

In addition to the articles which had been stipulated by the treaty of Campo-Formio, the House of Austria lost the dutchy of Tuscany in Italy, which Buonaparte gave to the heir of the Duke of Parma, under the title of King of Etruria.

That prince being married to his cousin, a Spanish princess, the King of Spain ceded Louisiana to Buonaparte, to whom Carnot had advised that transaction.* The dutchy of Parma was also to

*It is certainly more proper to say, that the King of Spain eeded Louisiana to Buonaparte than to France.

The Corsican tyrant considered it so far his own property, that he sold it, at last, to the Americans, who will soon drive the brave Spaniards from the Floridas, and even from Mexi

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become the property of Buonaparte after the death of the Duke, who, accordingly, did not live long. Buonaparte was likewise to possess the whole island of Elbe, partly belonging to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and partly to the King of the Two Sici

'lies.

The treaty of Campo-Formio had stipulated that the Venetian islands, Corfou, Cephalonia, Zante, and Cerigo, besides other territories near Morea, should belong to France. But they were not mentioned in the treaty of Lunéville, since the Russians had taken possession of them.

The Emperor was even obliged to consent to stipulate for the German Empire, as Buonaparte would have no further discussions, That mo

Carnot had highly disapproved of the treaty of peace with Spain, framed under the influence of Madame Tallien, for not having stipulated the cession of Louisiana and the Floridas to France. He had even stigmatized, as traitors, those who had negociated that treaty. He did not value much the cession of what the Spaniards possessed at St. Domingo.

Still Louis XIV. could not obtain it from the Court of Spain, although he had succeeded to place his grand-son Philip V. on the Spanish throne.

The Spanish minister for foreign affairs, the Marquis de Mejorada, rejected the ministerial demand of the French ambassador, who solicited the cession of St. Domingo to France, as a compensation for the great expenses Louis XIV, had incurred in the war of the succession.

Such was the importance of the Spanish part of St, Domingo in the beginning of the 18th century.

narch reluctantly, but prudently, complied with the wishes, or rather injunctions, of a Corsican adventurer, who had become absolute master of a numerous and warlike nation, tamely and shamefully submitting to his galling yoke.

About that time an alarm was spread, that the caluable life of the well-beloved Corsican sovereign had run the greatest danger at the operahouse.

An astonishing anxiety pervaded all Paris, where the inhabitants recollected, with a lively gratitude, the philanthropic endeavours of Buonaparte, on the 5th of October, 1795, in order to render them happy under the wise and mild laws of the National Convention.

Five days had only elapsed since the fifth anniversary of that glorious day, when a fatal conspiracy was announced to the grateful Parisians, against the sacred person of their illustrious benefactor.

The opera-house not being far from the church of St. Roch, near which Buonaparte had given a truly fraternal lesson to the Parisians, five years before, the conspiracy was thought at first to have been the project of some ungrateful wretches, who had been displeased at the famous 13th of Vendémiaire, 4th year.

Several persons were arrested, but were not tried until three months had elapsed.

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Only one witness asserted that the conspirators had made him acquainted with every circumstance of the plot, and that Buonaparte was to have been murdered at the opera-house, at the very moment when that Corsican tyrant would enter his box.

Still the persons designed and arrested, on the very spot of the premeditated murder were strictly searched about their proper persons and neighbouring places, and not an arm, nor even a pin, was found. With what then could those pretended conspirators commit a murder, since, at the very moment, and on the very spot where it was to have been perpetrated, no kind of arms were found about them?

That such was the case, it was asserted, and never denied in the course of the trial.

The only witness was one Harel, an acknowledged spy of the police, with the rank of captain.

And on the single evidence of a spy, devoted to and paid by the police, four men (Arena, Ceracchi, Demerville, and Topino-Lebrun) were condemned to death.

Arena was a Corsican, and brother to him who threatened Buonaparte at the Council of Five Hundred, at St. Cloud. The family of Arena had always affected a great contempt for the family of Buonaparte. And among Corsicans vengeance is sweet!