And in return for her acquiescence in this redistribution of her Italian territory, Austria received Venice.

After fourteen centuries of independence, Venetia, the queen of the Adriatic, was in chains! [Illustration: Napoleon at the Battle of Rivoli, January 14, 1797.
From the painting by Philippoteaux.] Not satisfied with this, Napoleon intended that Paris should wear the jewels which had adorned the fair Italian cities.

The people whose chains he had come to break were at once required to surrender money, jewels, plate, horses, equipments, besides their choicest art collections and rarest manuscripts.

In a private letter to a member of the Directory he wrote: "I shall send you twenty pictures by some of the first masters, including Correggio and Michael Angelo." A later letter said: "Join all these to what will be sent from Rome, and we shall have all that is beautiful in Italy, except a small number of objects in Turin and Naples." Pius VI., without a protest, surrendered his millions of francs, and ancient bronzes, costly pictures, and priceless manuscripts.
Austria had lost fourteen battles, and all her Italian possessions were grouped together into a Cisalpine republic! Another Helvetic republic was set up in Switzerland, and still another republic created in Holland under a French protectorate.
In other words, this man had accomplished in Italy precisely what he was going to accomplish later in Germany.

He had broken down the lingering traces of mediaevalism, and prepared the soil for a new order of things.
The peace of Campo Formio was the most glorious ever made for France.
The river Rhine was at last recognized as her frontier, thus placing Belgium within the lines of the republic.