It seemed necessary, however, in order that this blockade might be complete, that the Venetian territory, lying immediately beyond Mantua, should be occupied by the French.

The power of this ancient government was no longer such as to inspire much respect, and Buonaparte resolved that the claim of neutrality should form no obstacle to his measures.

The French Directory had already most ungenerously trampled on the dignity of Venice, by demanding that she should no longer afford a retreat to the illustrious exile, the Count of Provence, eldest surviving brother of Louis XVI.[9] That unfortunate prince had, accordingly, though most reluctantly, been desired to quit the Venetian states, and had already passed to the Rhine, where his gallant cousin, the Prince of Conde, had long been at the head of a small and devoted army composed of the expatriated gentry of France.
Buonaparte, however, chose to treat the reluctance with which Venice had been driven to this violation of her hospitality, as a new injury to his government: he argued that a power who had harboured in friendship, and unwillingly expelled, the _Pretender_ to the French monarchy, had lost all title to forbearance on the part of the Revolutionary forces.

This was a gross and ungenerous insult, and it was a gratuitous one; for he had a far better argument behind.

The imperial general had, as we have seen, neglected the reclamations of the Doge, when it suited his purpose to occupy Peschiera.