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SOLDIERS, you have precipitated yourselves like a torrent from the heights of the Appenines; you have routed and difperfed all who have oppofed your progrefs: Piedmont, delivered from Auftrian tyranny, difplays its natural fentiments of peace and friendship for France. Milan is our's, and the republican flag flies over all Lombardy. The dukes of Parma and Modena owe their political exiftence to your generofity. The army that with fo much pride threatened you, has no barrier of protection against your courage the Po, the Teflin, the Adda, have been unable to ftop you a fingle day; thofe boafted bulwarks of Italy have been infufficient to delay your progrefs; you have furmounted them as rapidly as you paffed the Appenines. So much fuccefs has carried joy to the bofom of our country; your reprefentatives have ordained a fête, dedicated to your victories, which will be celebrated in all the communes of the republic. Your fathers, your mothers, your wives, your fifters, your lovers, will enjoy your fuccefs, and boaft with pride that they belong to you. Yes, foldiers, you have done much; but does there remain nothing more to be done? Though we have known how to vanquish, we have not known how to profit of our victo

Pofterity will reproach us with having terminated our courfe in Lombardy; but already I fee you run to arms; a flothful repole fatigues you. Let us depart! We have yet forced marches to make, enemies to fubdue, laurels to gather, injuries to revenge. Let thofe tremble who have whetted the poniards of civil war in France, VOL. XXXVIII.

who have bafely affaffinated our minifters, and burnt our thips at Toulon: the hour of vengeance and retribution is near at hand. But let the people remain tranquil; we are friends to all the people, and more particularly the defcendants of Brutus, of Scipio, and the great men we have taken for our models. Re-eftablish the capitol, and place there, with honour, the ftatues of the heroes that rendered it celebrated; awaken the Roman people, debased by many centuries of flavery: fuch will be the fruit of your victo. ries; they will form an epoch for pofterity; you will have the immortal glory of changing the face of the finest country in Europe. The free French people, refpected by the whole world, will give to Europe a glorious peace, which will indemnify them for the facrifices they have made during fix years; you will then return to your homes, and your fellow-citizens will fay, thewing you, this man was of the army of Italy.

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The Deputies of the People of Alhe, to
Citizen Buonaparte, General in
Chief of the French Army, to pro-
cure Liberty to Italy.

Citizen General,
LIKE Frenchmen we wish to be

free. To live under no king or tyrant of any title. We with for civil equality, and that the feudal monfter thould be thrown to the ground.

For this purpose we have taken up arms at the approach of your victorious troops, and we come to implore your afliftance, to break the chains which have for a long time retained us in bondage. R Worn

Worn down by the yoke of iron which preffes on our heads, we never fhould have been able to succeed in relieving ourselves. Always courageous, and yet always debafed, we have lived in expectation of the happy moment of your arrival.

Oh! moft delightful moment! The time is at length arrived. Here are Frenchmen, our brothers and our friends: in our arms, in our houses, they are willing cordially to partake of our joy, to ratify our vows, and to fly with us to the deftruction of the infamous throne of our tyrant.

The proclamation to the people and clergy of Piedmont and Lombardy, and to the Neapolitan and Piedmontefe troops, prove to you our republican fpirit, and the right which we have to a well-founded reliance on your generous protec

tion.

Citizen general, behold all Italy extending forth its arms to your embrace, and calling you its deliverer. In giving it the bleffings of liberty, you grant to this beautiful part of Europe its greatest luftre; your name will be rendered glorious and immortal in its hiftory.

Our fons, and our latest posterity, will have it engraved in their hearts; and they will not have in their mouths a name more dear than that of general Buonaparte.

Refpect, health, and fraternity, (Signed) IGNACE BONAFOUX, Albe,

JEAN ANTOINE, Ramea of Verfeil, Deputed commiffaries.

Buonaparte to the Republic of Venice. Brefcia, 10 Pramial, (May 29.) IT is to deliver the finest coun

try in Europe from the iron yoke of the proud houfe of Auftria, that the French army has braved obftacles the moft difficult to furmount. Victory, in union with juftice, has crowned its efforts. The wreck of the enemy's army has retired beyond the Mincio. The French army, in order to follow them, pattes over the territory of the republic of Venice; but it will never forget, that antient friendship unites the two republics. Religion, government, customs, and property, fhall be refpe&ed. That the people may be without apprehenfion the moft fevere difcipline fhall be maintained. All that may be provided for the army fhall be faithfully paid for in money. The general in chief engages the officers of the republic of Venice, the magiftrates, and the priests, to make known thefe fentiments to the people, in order that confidence may cement that friendship which has fo long united the two nations faithful in the path of honour, as in that of victory. The French foldier is terrible only to the enemies of his liberty and his government.

(Signed) BUONAPARTE, The general of divifion, chief of the etat-major of the army of Italy. (Signed) ALEX. BERTHIER Proclamation by General Buonaparte, Commander in Chief of the Army of Italy, to the People of the Milanes.

THE nobles, the priefts, and the agents of Auftria have misled the people of thefe fine countries; the French army, as generous as it is powerful, will treat with fra

ternity

ternity the peaceable and tranquil inhabitants; but they will prove as terrible as the fire of heaven to the rebels, and the villages which protect them.

ART. I. In confequence, the commander in chief declares as rebels, all the villages which have not conformed to his order of the 6th prairial. The generals thall march against fuch villages the forces neceffary for fubduing them; fetting them on fire, and fhooting all thofe taken with arms in their hands. All the priests and nobles who remain in the rebel communes, fhall be arrested as hoftages, and fent into France.

2. Every village where the tocfin fhall be founded, fhall be inftantly deftroyed. The generals are refponfible for the execution of this order.

3. Every village on the territory of which any Frenchman fhall be affaffinated, thall be fined in a fum amounting to a third part of the contribution they pay annually to the archduke, unless they make known the affaffin, arreft him, and send him to the French army.

4. Every man found with a mufquet, and ammunition of war, hall be immediately fhot by the order of the general commandant on duty.

5. Every field wherein fhall be found concealed arms, fhall be condemned to pay one-third more than its actual revenue, by way of amends. Every houfe in which fhall be found a muiket, fhall be burnt, unless the proprietor declares to whom fuch mutket belongs.

All the nobles, or rich people, who fhall be convicted of having ftirred up the people to revolt,

whether by difmiffing their domeftics, or by defigns against the French, fhall be arrested as hof tages, fent into France, and the half of their eftates confifcated. (Signed) BUONAPARTE.

10 Prairial, (29th May.)

Proclamation iffued by the Municipality of Milan, for abolishing the Nobility.

ART. 1. THE order of nobility is abolished for ever.

2. No one shall bear any title of nobility, but fhall be defigned by the appellation of citizen, adding thereto the name of his cmployment or profeffion.

3. All the nobles fhall, witl:in the fpace of eight days, bring their patents of nobility to the commune, where they shall be burnt.

4 Every feudal authority, and all game laws are henceforth abolifhed.

5. All armorial bearings, liveries, and every diftinction of nobility, fhall likewife be fuppreffed within eight days.

6. Every corporation which exacts a proof of nobility as a qualification is abolished.

7. Those who thall contravene the prefent proclamation, will be regarded as convicted of ariftocracy, and as enemies to the people. June 12.

Buonaparte, Commander in Chief of the Army of Italy, to the Inhabi tants of Tyrol.

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Head-Quarters at Tortona, 26 Prai rial, (June 14,) 4th year. BRAVE Tyrolians, I am about to pafs through, your territory, to force the court of Vienna to a peace,

as neceffary to Europe, as it is to the fubjects of the emperor. The cause I am about to defend is your own. You have been long vexed and fatigued by the horrors of a war, undertaken not for the intereft of the people of Germany, but for that of a fingle family.

The French army respects and loves all nations, more especially the fimple and virtuous inhabitants of the mountains. Your religion, your customs will be every where refpected. Our troops will maintain a fevere difcipline; and nothing will be taken in the country without being paid for in money.

You will receive us with hofpitality, and we will treat you with fraternity and friendship.

But fhould there be any fo little acquainted with their true interefts as to take up arms, and treat us as enemies, we will be as terrible as the fire from heaven: we will burn the houses, and lay waite the territories of the villages which fhall take a part in a war which is foreign to them.

Do not fuffer yourfelves to be Jed into an error by the agents of Auftria. Secure your country, already haraffed by five years of war, from new miferies. In a little time the court of Vienna, forced to a peace, will reftore to the nations their privileges which it has ufurped, and to Europe the tranquillity it has disturbed.

The commander in chief,
BUONAPARTE.

(Signed)
Buonaparte, Commander in chief of the
Army of Italy, to the Grand Duke
of Tuscany.

Head quarters at Pift:ja,
June 26.

THE flag of the French republic is conftantly infulted in the port

of Leghorn. The property of the
French merchants is violated there;
every day is marked by fome at-
tempt againt France, as contrary
to the interefts of the republic as to
the law of the nations.
The exe-
cutive directory have repeatedly
preferred their complaints to the
minifter of your royal highness at
Paris, who has been obliged to avow
that it is impoffible for your royal
highnefs to reprefs the English, and
to maintain a neutrality in the port
of Leghorn.

This confeffion immediately convinced the executive directory, that it was their duty to repel force by force, to make their commerce refpected, and they ordered me to fend a divifion of the army under my command to take poffeffion of Leghorn.

I have the honour to inform your royal highness, that on the 7th inft. (25th June) a divifion of the army entered Leghorn: their conduct there will be conformable to thofe principles of neutrality which they have been fent to maintain.

The flag, the garrison, the property, and your royal highness and your people, fhall be fcrupuloufly refpected.

I am, moreover, inftructed to affure your royal highness of the defire of the French government, to witness a continuation of the friendthip which unites the two ftates, and of their conviction that your royal highnefs, confcious of the exceffes daily committed by the English thips, which you cannot prevent, will applaud the juft, ufeful, and necellary measures adopted by the executive directory. I am,

With efteem and confideration,
Your Royal Highness's, &c.

BUONAPARTE.
Anfuer

Anfavor to the above Letter. HIS royal highness is confcious of having nothing to reproach himfelf with relative to his frank, candid, and friendly conduct towards the French republic and its fubjects. A fovereign in friendship with the republic cannot but regard, with the most extraordinary furprife, the orders given to your excellency from the directory. His royal highness will not refift the execution of them by force, but will preferve the good underftand ing with the republic, fill flattering himself with the hope that your excellency will, on better information, revoke your prefent refolves.

Should it not be in your excellency's power to delay the entrance of your troops into Leghorn till further orders, the governor of that place has full powers to agree with you upon terms. This I am ordered, by my fovereign's exprefs command, to communicate to you,

with that refpect in which I have

the honour to remain, &c. (Signed) VITTORIO FOSSOM

Florence, June 25, 1796.

BRONI.

Head-quarters at Leghorn, June 29. General Buonaparte to the Grand Duke of Tafcary.

ROYAL HIGHNESS, AN hour before we entered Leghorn, an English frigate carried off two French hips, worth 500,000 livres. The governor fuffered them to be taken under the fire of hig batteries, which was contrary to the intention of your royal highness, and the neutrality of the port of Leghorn.

I prefer a complaint to your roy

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He yesterday endeavoured, at the moment of our arrival, to make is no kind of ill treatment that he the people rife up againft us; there did not make our advanced guard experience. I fhould, doubtless, have been juftified in bringing him to trial before a military commiffion; but from refpect for your royal highness, intimately convinced of the spirit of juftice which directs all your actions, I preferred fending him to Florence, where I am perfuaded, you will give or ders to have him punifhed feverely.

I muft, at the fame time, return my thanks to his royal highness, for his goodness in appointing general Straialdo to fupply the army with every thing that was neceffary. He has acquitted himself with equal zeal and fuccefs.

BUONAPARTE,

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GENERAL Spannochi arrested by your order has been brought hither. It is a point of delicacy to keep him in arreft, until the motives of this ftep, which I prefume to be juft, are known to me, in order to give you, as well as the French republic and all Europe, the greateft proof of equity, conformably to the laws of my country, to which I have always made it my duty to fubmit myself.

I fend this letter by the marquis Manfredini, my major domo, whom I request you to inform in what Spannochi has been culpable. You may betides repofe full confidence in him relative to all the objects

R 3

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