The Austrian envoy, Count Cobenzl, struggled hard to gain the whole of Venetia, and the Legations, along with the half of Lombardy.[89] From these exorbitant demands he was driven by the persistent vigour of Bonaparte's assaults.

The little Corsican proved himself an expert in diplomatic wiles, now enticing the Imperialist on to slippery ground, and occasionally shocking him by calculated outbursts of indignation or bravado.

After many days spent in intellectual fencing, the discussions were narrowed down to Mainz, Mantua, Venice, and the Ionian Isles.

On the fate of these islands a stormy discussion arose, Cobenzl stipulating for their complete independence, while Bonaparte passionately claimed them for France.

In one of these sallies his vehement gestures overturned a cabinet with a costly vase; but the story that he smashed the vase, as a sign of his power to crush the House of Austria, is a later refinement on the incident, about which Cobenzl merely reported to Vienna--"He behaved like a fool." Probably his dextrous disclosure of the severe terms which the Directory ordered him to extort was far more effective than this boisterous _gasconnade_.