It is probable that Tone's errand was known to Pitt; it is certain that Lord Edward Fitzgerald, another of the patriot leaders, who had been summoned to carry on more definite negotiations in Basle, revealed inadvertently as he returned the secret of his hopes to an agent of the English Cabinet. Vague as were the offers of the United Irishmen, they had been warmly welcomed by the French Government. Masters at home, the Directory were anxious to draw off the revolutionary enthusiasm which the French party of order dreaded as much as Burke himself to the channels of foreign conquest. They were already planning that descent of their army in the Alps upon Lombardy which was to give a fatal blow to one of their enemies, Austria; and they welcomed the notion of a French descent upon Ireland and an Irish revolt, which would give as fatal a blow to their other enemy, England. An army of 25,000 men under General Hoche was promised, a fleet was manned, and preparations were being made for the expedition during the summer. But the secret was ill kept, and the news of such an attempt was, we can hardly doubt, the ground of the obstinacy with which Pitt persisted in the teeth of the national feeling and of Burke's invectives in clinging to his purpose of concluding a peace. In October 1796 Lord Malmesbury was despatched to Paris and negotiations were finally opened for that purpose. The terms which Pitt offered were terms of mutual restitution. France was to evacuate Holland and to restore Belgium to the Emperor. England on the other hand was to restore the colonies she had won to France, Holland, and Spain. As the English Minister had no power of dealing with the territories already ceded by Prussia and other states, such a treaty would have left France, as her eastern border, the line of the Rhine. But even had they desired peace at all, the Directors would have scorned it on terms such as these. While Malmesbury was negotiating indeed France was roused to new dreams of conquest by the victories of Napoleon Buonaparte. The genius of Carnot, the French Minister of War, had planned a joint advance upon Vienna by the French armies of Italy and the Rhine, the one under Buonaparte, the other under Moreau. The plan was only partly successful. Moreau, though he pushed forward through every obstacle to Bavaria, was compelled to fall back by the defeat of a lieutenant; and was only enabled by a masterly retreat through the Black Forest to reach the Rhine. But the disaster of Moreau was more than redeemed by the victories of Buonaparte. With the army which occupied the Riviera and the Maritime Alps the young general marched on Piedmont at the opening of the summer, separated its army from the Austrian troops, and forced the king of Sardinia to conclude a humiliating peace. A brilliant victory at the bridge of Lodi brought him to Milan, and drove the Austrians into the Tyrol. Lombardy was in the hands of the French, the Duchies south of the Po pillaged, and the Pope driven to purchase an armistice at enormous cost, before the Austrian armies, raised to a force of 50,000 men, again descended from the Tyrol for the relief of Mantua. But a fatal division of their forces by the Lake of Garda enabled Buonaparte to hurl them back broken upon Trent, and to shut up their general, Wurmser, in Mantua with the remnant of his men; while fresh victories at the bridge of Arcola and at Bassano drove back two new Austrian armies who advanced to Wurmser's rescue.