To evade obstacles on which an opponent relies, to multiply them in his path, to bewilder him by feints before overwhelming him by a crushing onset, these are the arts which yield success either to the negotiator or to the commander.
In imposing terms of peace on the Emperor at Leoben (April 18th, 1797), Bonaparte reduced the Directory, and its envoy, Clarke, who was absent in Italy, to a subordinate _role_.

As commander-in-chief, he had power only to conclude a brief armistice, but now he signed the preliminaries of peace.

His excuse to the Directory was ingenious.
While admitting the irregularity of his conduct, he pleaded the isolated position of his army, and the absence of Clarke, and that, under the circumstances, his act had been merely "a military operation." He could also urge that he had in his rear a disaffected Venetia, and that he believed the French armies on the Rhine to be stationary and unable to cross that river.

But the very tardy advent of Clarke on the scene strengthens the supposition that Bonaparte was at the time by no means loth to figure as the pacifier of the Continent.

Had he known the whole truth, namely, that the French were gaining a battle on the east bank of the Rhine while the terms of peace were being signed at Leoben, he would most certainly have broken off the negotiations and have dictated harsher terms at the gates of Vienna.