Note (Back) — Chapter XIX

In Lombardy a similar movement produced similar results. Through the spring and early summer of 1797 four commissions, constituted by Napoleon, worked out a constitution which likewise reproduced all of the essential features of the French model, and, July 9, the Transpadane Republic was inaugurated, with brilliant ceremony, at Milan. Provision was made for a directory and for two legislative councils consisting of one hundred sixty and eighty members respectively; and the first directors, representatives, and other officials were named by Napoleon. At the urgent solicitation of the Cispadanes the two republics were united, July 15, and upon the combined commonwealth was bestowed the name of the Cisalpine Republic.[519] During the preceding May the venerable but helpless Venetian republic had been crushed, and when, in the treaty of Campo Formio, October 17, 1797, Austria was brought to the point of recognizing the new Cisalpine state, she was compensated in some degree by being awarded the larger part of the Venetian territories, including the city of Venice.[520]