It therefore sent Clarke with offers, which might enable him to look into the political and military situation at the enemy's capital, and see whether peace could not be gained at the price of some of Bonaparte's conquests.

The envoy was an elegant and ambitious young man, descended from an Irish family long settled in France, who had recently gained Carnot's favour, and now desired to show his diplomatic skill by subjecting Bonaparte to the present aims of the Directory.
The Directors' secret instructions reveal the plans which they then harboured for the reconstruction of the Continent.

Having arranged an armistice which should last up to the end of the next spring, Clarke was to set forth arrangements which might suit the House of Hapsburg.
He might discuss the restitution of all their possessions in Italy, and the acquisition of the Bishopric of Salzburg and other smaller German and Swabian territories: or, if she did not recover the Milanese, Austria might gain the northern parts of the Papal States as compensation; and the Duke of Tuscany--a Hapsburg--might reign at Rome, yielding up his duchy to the Duke of Parma; while, as this last potentate was a Spanish Bourbon, France might for her good offices to this House gain largely from Spain in America.[70] In these and other proposals two methods of bargaining are everywhere prominent.

The great States are in every case to gain at the expense of their weaker neighbours; Austria is to be appeased; and France is to reap enormous gains ultimately at the expense of smaller Germanic or Italian States.
These facts should clearly be noted.

Napoleon was afterwards deservedly blamed for carrying out these unprincipled methods; but, at the worst, he only developed them from those of the Directors, who, with the cant of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity on their lips, battened on the plunder of the liberated lands, and cynically proposed to share the spoil of weaker States with the potentates against whom they publicly declaimed as tyrants.
The chief aim of these negotiations, so Clarke was assured, was to convince the Court of Vienna that it would get better terms by treating with France directly and alone, rather than by joining in the negotiations which had recently been opened at Paris by England.