The strife between the Directory and the legislature kept all Europe in suspense; for its result would profoundly affect the course of existing discussions. The emperor, repenting of his precipitation at Leoben, kept holding off from a final treaty, seeking to introduce Great Britain as a party to the deliberations. This Bonaparte indignantly refused; for it would defeat his principal aim of separate negotiations. Pitt, more desirous than before of peace, again sent Malmesbury. The Directory kept him dancing attendance at Lille, the appointed place of meeting, during its struggle with the Councils. It made several demands most unlikely to be conceded, and upon these prolonged a discussion, to which the ministry, who now really wished a favorable termination, patiently submitted. A week after the _coup d'état_ the French negotiators were recalled, and in their place were sent others, who immediately upon arrival demanded of the British ambassador whether he had "powers to restore to France and its allies _all_ the possessions which since the beginning of the war have passed into the hands of the English." An answer was required in the course of the same day. Malmesbury coolly replied that he neither could, nor ought to, treat on any other principle than that of compensations. The French envoys then sent him orders from the Directory to return within twenty-four hours to his Court and get powers to make those restorations. This, of course, put an end to the conference, and the war went on for four years more.
During these eventful months Bonaparte, already the most influential man in the nation through his hold upon men's imaginations, was ripening projects deeply affecting the control of the sea and the future direction to be given the gigantic efforts of which France had shown herself capable. On the 5th of April, under his management, there had been concluded with the king of Sardinia, subject to ratification by the Directory, a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance, to which was prefixed a secret article ceding to France the island of Sardinia upon condition of compensation on the continent.[154] Soon after, however, events occurred which opened to his penetrating genius a more satisfactory combination. During his invasion of Carinthia the people in his rear, throughout the possessions of Venice on the Italian mainland, rose against the French, massacring several hundred soldiers who fell into their hands. This gave him a pretext for disposing of these territories, as already stated,[155] in the secret articles of Leoben, and at the same time drew from him the sinister prediction that the government of Venice, shut up to its small island, would not be of long duration.[156] On the 2d of May, having returned to Italy, he issued a proclamation,[157] setting forth his many causes of complaint for the commotions excited in his rear, endangering the army "then plunged in the gorges of Styria." He ordered the French minister to leave Venice, all Venetian agents to quit Lombardy and the Venetian possessions, and the French general to treat the troops of the republic as enemies, and to tear down her standard throughout the mainland.
