were also forbidden to borrow money on their estates, for any other purpose than making payments to the public treasury.

son.

In other respects, Buonaparte treated them with lenity. Numbers of them, confined as hostages, for the peaceable behaviour of the rest, were set at liberty, and very few of them were detained in priOf the many chiefs of insurrections that had taken place, twenty were selected, of whom it was thought necessary to make a public example, as the most guilty and accessary to the outrages that had been committed. They were shot, and a priest, their accomplice, though, out of respect to his cloth, reprieved from execution, was condem ned to forty years imprisonment in irons.

An alliance, offensive and defensive, was concluded with the Ligurian republic, and a body of their

best military, chosen by Buonaparte, were sent to reinforce the French army in Italy. All these arrange. ments, which were terminated to wards the close of December, 1797, proved very acceptable to the mass of the people, and those who disapproved of them were too prudent to express their disapproba tion.

The Ligurian republic was permitted to remain upon this footing till the period when the alterations took place in the Cisalpine. The French directory thought fit at that time to lessen the legislative body, by expelling fifteen members, who were accused of impeding the measures of government, and of opposing the new order of things: and to make other alterations in the Ligurian, in the same spirit, and with the same intent, that dictate the innovations in the Cisalpine republic.

CHAP.

The king experienced, about this time, a mortification, of which both he and his court were deeply sensi ble. Buonaparte, on his return to France, passed through Turin, his capital, without paying his respects to this unhappy monarch; who felt this neglect the more, that his treatment of the general, upon this occasion, was remarkably respectful and generous.

His territories were now become a line of march or passage to the French troops, without any other formality, than to give him notice of the time at which they were to be expected, of their numbers, and of the necessaries they would need, and which he was to provide for them.

These various circumstances, together with the discourses and insinuations of the Cisalpines and Ligurians, both under the immediate influence and direction of France, and who openly spoke of an approaching revolution in his domi nions, were sufficient admonitions, that he was to prepare for the certain loss of his crown, as soon as the plan for that purpose was brought to maturity.

Inaddition to this alarming state, he was compelled, by his necessities, to exact large contributions from his subjects, and to burthen them with taxes and pecuniary regulations that excited great discontents, and lost him in a considerable degree their former attachment. The agents of France were not tardy in availing themselves of his distresses. Guinguené, the French am❤ bassador, had the presumption to take under the protection of the great nation, as he expressed him self, the insurgents of Piedmont,

and to insist on their being pardoned. He was seconded by general Brune. But their joint remonstrances could not effect that blind acquiescence they had expected from his facility on other occasions ; and he gave them to understand, that by the treaty with France he was to remain master in his own dominions.

This insurrection had broken out at Carosio, a place belonging to the province of Piedmont, but inclosed by the territory of Genoa. A number of deserters from the Ligurian troops, many of them natives of Piedmont, repaired to this place, and joined the insurgents. As it was necessary to traverse the Genoese territory, to arrive at Carosio, the king ordered his troops, in their march thither, to shew all the respect due to the territory of a friendly and independent power: but the Genoese government would not consent to his forces traversing their territory, though he offered to make full compensation for any damages they might commit. He alleged, at the same time, his indubitable right, which was that of all sovereigns, to claim a passage through a neutral territory, to any part of his dominions lying within its precincts.

But all his solicitations and re monstrances were vain. Actuated probably by the French ambassador and general, the Genoese persisted in their refusal, and accused the king of having violated their terris tory, in ordering his troops to march to Carosio, against the insurgents. They even proceeded to sequestrate all the property belonging to him, they could lay their hands on, drove his subjects out of their coun

try,

try, arrested his agents and even his envoy to the republic.

The Genoese would not, in all likelihood, have gone such lengths, had they not been instigated by the secret intrigues of France. Assisted in this open manner, the insurgents at Carosio increased in numbers and boldness: they intercepted the communication with Piedmont, and seized all the articles of trade and of sustenance on their way thither. Hostilities were at the same time committed by the Ligurians, and the king found himself, much against his will, involved in a contest, which he foresaw would terminate greatly to his detriment, through the clandestine practices of the party among his own people, that favoured French principles, and who were privately encouraged by the open and concealed agents of France, to propagate them fearlessly, as they might depend on being supported and screened from punishment. Whether it proceeded from the long-standing enmity between the two governments of Piedmont and Genoa, the instigation of the agents of France, or the high spirit naturally accruing to a people on their emancipation from a real or imaginary bondage, the representatives of the Ligurian commonwealth, in fluenced by the well known disposition of their constituents, took up this business, with uncommon fervour, and plainly gave the king of Sardinia to understand, that they would espouse the cause of the insurgents as far as circumstances would permit them. A proclamation was issued by the Ligurian directory, on the tenth of June, wherein they signified, in the most inflammatory terms, their indignation at the averseness of the court of

Turin' to listen to their supplications for an amnesty to the insurgents, and their determination to take hostile measures in their fullest extent.

The inveteracy of the Genoese to the house of Savoy, broke out upon this occasion with remarkable violence in both the councils. In that of the ancients, the king of Sardinia was stigmatized with the appellation of the little tyrant of the Alps; and every odious insinuation was brought forward to exasperate the public against the court of Turin.

What principally animated them, was the certainty of being tho roughly supported by France in the exertions they were preparing to make against that enfeebled power, and the strong expectation now cur rent every where, that the fate of that unfortunate monarch was already decided in the councils of the French directory. That expectation was well founded. The insurrection of the malcontents of Piedmont, at Carosio, was in the general opinion, if not directly instigated by France, occasioned by the revolutionary principles disseminated in all places by its emissaries, under the strongest assurances of being effectually seconded, held out to those who adopted and acted upon them. These assurances were punc tually fulfilled. The French envoy, at the court of Turin, formally interposed in behalf of the insurgents, for whom he demanded, in the name of the French directory, an absolute oblivion of the past, on condition of laying down their arms. This interposition was, for some time, resisted; but the Sardinian ministry, conscious of the impracticability of any effectual opposition to France, judged it safest to comply with its requisition,

requisition. This did not, however, satisfy the French directory. Irritated at the delay and repugnance to comply with its mediation, or glad probably of such an occasion to execute the projects resolved upon, it required the immediate cession of the citadel of Turin, as a security for the conciliatory dispositions of that court, and its strict performance of the promises made to the insurgents. This cession was agreed to the twenty-seventh of June, 1798, and a body of French troops took possession of the citadel on the third of July ensuing.

In this manner was a decisive blow given to the power and importance of the king of Sardinia. His troops had, during the hostilities with the Ligurian republic, obtained so many advantages, and displayed so much courage and military skill, that, at the period when the king was obliged to yield to the compulsory solicitations of the French ambassador, and agree to the terms of peace imposed upon him between the insurgents and the Ligurians, he was master of seventeen places large and small, belonging to these, and would, in all likelihood, had hostilities continued, have reduced them to the greatest distress.

By taking possession of thecitadel of Turin, the French might be said to have seated themselves on the throne of Sardinia. It was esteemed the masterpiece of the celebrated Vauban, the greatest engineer of the age of Lewis XIV. It had proved the bulwark of Piedmont, in the war for the Spanish succession, at the commencement of this century. It had stood, in 1706, that famous siege, which, by its length and obstinacy, enabled Victor Ama

deus, and prince Eugene, to come in time to its relief, and to gain that great victory, under its walls, over the vast army that besieged it, which totally frustrated the designs of the French, and expelled them from Italy.

The cession of this fortress, long reputed impregnable, but through treachery, accident, or famine, put the king of Sardinia wholly into the hands of the French. He was now become their prisoner in every respect. He was guarded at sight, and his very personal movements were continually under their watch and cognizance.

In consequence of the forcible restraints laid upon him by so grievous a situation, he became wholly passive in whatever related to the French and their adherents. They compelled him to rescind all those proceedings at law instituted against the framers of plots and insur rections against his authority, and to model his government, entirely according to their will and concep tions. They loaded his ministers and officers, civil and military, with accusations, false or exaggerated, and insisted on their dismission from office and employment, and banishment from the court and capital. They forced him to reduce his army to the lowest establishment, and to deliver up the most important places he had taken from the Genoese. Ia this manner did the French, under the denomination of friends and al lies, station themselves in the heart of his dominions, and govern them with absolute sway. Exclusive of

the citadel of Turin, they were masters of several of the strongest towns and fortresses in his dominions. Thus it was, that for having refused, through unseasonable jea

Lousy,