The Italian territory of the Valteline had for ages been subject to the Grison League.

The inhabitants, roused by the prevailing spirit all around them, demanded Napoleon's intercession with their Swiss masters, to procure their admission to all the political privileges of the other cantons.

They refused; and Napoleon, in the plenitude of his authority, immediately supported the Valteline in throwing off the Grison yoke, and asserting its utter independence.

This territory was now annexed to the Cisalpine Republic.

A government, with which France was on terms of alliance and amity, was thus robbed of its richest possession; but the Valteline belonged by natural position, religion, and language, to Italy, and its annexation to the new Italian republic was regarded as in itself just and proper, however questionable Buonaparte's title to effect that event.